Service

Last night I ate a delicious dinner. I had blackened Ahi Tuna burgers with an avocado salsa, and I had truffle mac and cheese. One course. Yet dinner took 2.5 hours. What happened? My mother and I arrived at the restaurant around 6:15. There were very few customers seated, so we assumed it would be a pretty quick dinner. We were both pretty tired. We ordered an alcoholic beverage and a glass of water to start. It took maybe 10-15 minutes for only the alcoholic beverage to appear. We ordered shortly thereafter, and had to wait perhaps 20 minutes, or a little longer for our food. We finished our alcoholic beverages, and asked that our glasses be filled with water, which they were. We finished eating, our glasses were empty. Servers (not our own) walked past our table at least 10 times over the next 30-40 minutes. Nobody stopped to refill our glasses of water, no one told our own server to come check on us. Our own server did not take the initiative to return.
Now I have served before. I worked at an upscale bistro and winery, and know how grueling the job can be. You are on your feet. And you have the pressure to be attentive to all, and bring out hot food, and keep the water glasses filled. But you actually have to be willing to put forth effort. Hiring good service is one of the key backbones of a good restaurant, and a necessity to make it run smoothly. If your front of the house staff is not trained properly to do what they are supposed to, and handed out repercussions if they do not do so, then your establishment will not run smoothly.