Spoiled New Yorkers, or How to Eat at a Restaurant
New Yorkers are spoiled in many ways. One of their cardinal sins is their sense of entitlement, which you can best witness at restaurants. It so happens that it is in those establishments that New Yorkers often choose to complain and show everyone how important they are. Practically every customer is exceedingly demanding (unless she or he had worked at a restaurant at some point in their life), no matter how fat their wallet is or in which district they live. First of all, they always want to enforce their own rules and are mightily surprised if the latter is met with a “no”. Whenever they hear the syllable (no matter if they were trying to move the tables around, smoke in a smoke-free area, or park their baby’s stroller right at the bar), they immediately threaten they “won’t ever come back here again”. That’s their basic weapon, which usually makes managers tremble since it’s quite clear they are afraid of losing customers in a place as competitive as New York City.
New Yorkers also love to change the ingredients of the dishes they are ordering and they don’t understand when you tell them it’s impossible (since, in their eyes, money can buy everything).
They get very impatient if they have to wait for a dish for more than 15 minutes. They immediately start to fidget, show their discontent and make sounds that leave no doubt as to just how unhappy they are.
They also love to “call the manager”. Reasons for that may vary: the portion is not what they imagined; they waited for a dish too long; the waiter forgot their dish; their starter was taken away too early with a bite still resting on a plate; vegetables were sliced too thinly (and everyone knows that “vegetables are important”). Once they make their complaint, they await what will happen next, namely what the compensation will be for the terrible damage they suffered. Usually, they expect one of the dishes to come free of charge, but they also can be placated with an extra round of drinks (even though they may ask you outright: “OK, but what more can you offer us?”). If their damages are not smoothed over, the first thing they will do even before they leave will be to post a negative review on Yelp. Personally, I feel like the website actually does harm instead of benefitting anyone, but I will save my reasoning for another post.
