This is a Mexican Restaurant, Not an Airline
I have always considered myself to be a good tipper. Despite the fact that tipping is out of control in New York, I have never tipped less than 20% at a restaurant or bar in this city. In fact, in my life, I’ve never tipped less than 15%, even in the places where 15% is considered standard… until last night.
My date and I went to Mary Ann’s on 2nd Avenue in the East Village. This was our biggest mistake. She wanted a margarita, so it was the most logical choice for dinner, but given my experience last night, even the Chipotle on St. Mark’s would have been a better choice.
We walked in and were seated right away. There were about five occupied tables in the entire restaurant, so we pretty much had our pick of tables. And that was about the only good thing that happened in the entire hour and a half we were there.
First off, I sat down to look at the menu and saw roughly 27 mentions of the fact that the place is cash only. Welcome to the 21st century, Mary Ann’s. I don’t carry around wads of cash anymore for various reasons. One of those reasons is that when I go to a restaurant, I expect to be able to pay with a credit card. Don’t give me this bullshit about transaction fees, either. Plenty of other restaurants have been accepting credit cards for years and get by just fine.
Realizing I had no cash on me, I told my date I’d run to the ATM down the street. She said she’d order me a drink while I was gone.
I stepped out, walked down the street to the Bank of America a block away, got some cash, and walked back to the restaurant. The whole process took roughly five minutes. By now, you’d expect that our drinks would be on the table.
“Yeah, uh, the waitress hasn’t even come by yet,” my date told me.
So we waited for her.
She walked by and took the order at another table.
And we waited.
She stood around by the bar, seemingly doing absolutely nothing but chatting with the bartender.
And we waited.
About ten minutes later, we flagged down a bus boy, who, expectedly, spoke little more than five words in English. We asked him, “can we get a waitress over here?”
“Yes, yes,” he said, as he walked back towards the kitchen, shouting rather loudly at our waitress in Spanish.
At this point, you’d expect her to come right over to us. Instead, we waited another five minutes. I looked at my date. “Do you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Do you?”
I took out my cell phone and put it on the table. “Two more minutes,” I told her. “Starting… now.” It was 7:05. We had walked into the restaurant around 6:45.
Finally, less than 30 seconds before we were about to get up and leave, the waitress finally came over and took our order. We ordered both drinks and our entrees, unsure that we’d ever see her again.
We should have left at that point.
We watched, dumbstruck, as the waitress continued to go about doing other things. After we ordered, she spent about ten minutes at the bar, then walked over to another table to serve them their drinks. It was at that point that my date very audibly stated, “I could really use that margarita right now.”
The waitress then came over and told us, “your drinks should be right over.”
Two minutes later, our food arrived. We still didn’t have our drinks. It was at this point that I looked over and realized the problem with our drinks: the bartender wasn’t bartending. Despite the fact that absolutely nobody was at the bar and he was standing behind the bar, he was not making any drinks. Regardless, ordering a margarita at a Mexican restaurant should not be an alien concept.
Finally, after sitting for several minutes with our dinners cooling in front of us, our drinks finally arrived. A margarita with salt, despite the fact that we specifically ordered it without salt. But at this point, there was no use in trying anymore. If we had her take our drinks back, we may never even get a drop of alcohol before we leave. And by then, we damn well needed some.
This whole meal was emotionally exhausting. The food was incredibly bland to boot, the waitress overcharged us for the margarita, and it took fifteen minutes of sitting in a near-empty restaurant with our near-empty plates before the waitress asked us if we needed anything else.
I was dumbfounded by this level of service. There was never a single apology made by our waitress. She didn’t even try to come up with an excuse for the way we were treated. Never in my life have I been ignored in a restaurant the way I was in Mary Ann’s last night. Except maybe on my last Delta flight.
For the first time in my life, I felt like the service truly deserved a sub-standard tip. On a $28.25 bill, I tipped her $2.75. I have absolutely no intention of ever going back to Mary Ann’s again. I think I was still too generous.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Food and Booze. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Sally Tomato says:You overtipped her $2.00.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
paul says:I feel for you in this situation. But speaking as a former server, you should have spoken to a manager. If nothing else, just so they understand why you didn’t leave a decent tip. If you don’t say anything and leave a lousy tip, they figure you were content and just a jerk for leaving less than 10%. And 10% is my standard for poor service, short of atrocious.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Lacey Bean says:In situations like that, I love going onto CitySearch or Sheckys and writing a horrible review. The most recent are the first ones to pop up when people search for that restaurant.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
John Barleycorn says:Holy shit! That’s horrendous. I’m assuming the reason you didn’t rip her and/or her manager a new asshole was because you were on a date. But even then, man. You should go back armed to the teeth.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Arjewtino says:I agree with paul. They’ll never learn unless you go straight to the source and ask to speak to the manager. Even if they don’t comp you anything, a respectable restaurant cares if one of its patrons threatens never to come in again due to the poor service.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Chris says:paul: Good point, although I wasn’t about to make a scene. And actually, I tipped more than 10%, because $28.25 was the total with tax. I was actually disappointed with myself when I realized that later.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Chris says:you should go to the one on 8th, it’s much better.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Sheryl says:That’s completely ridiculous! I’ve left places (without hesitation!) when the service is that bad before even ordering. She’s really lucky she got anything.
BTW, that place always has the music so freaking loud, you can’t even talk to your date without shouting.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Ben K. says:you should go to the one on 8th, it’s much better.
Considering the restaurant in question, “better” is relative. There’s a reason why the one on the UWS is shut and the one on the UES was closed on more than occasion for health code violations nearly a decade before this recent DOH crackdown on restaurants.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Todd says:I think 10% is the perfect amount to show that you’re pissed off at the service. Anything less and you seem cheap or aloof. 10% shows calculated anger.
February 27th, 2008 at 9:01 am
keith says:i cases like that, i make sure to write TERRIBLE SERVICE across the check, which the manager will see when he closes out the night’s books.
that being said, what the fuck were you thinking going out for mexican in the e. village? cuban (el bodeguit0)? ¡si¡ greek (pylos). of course. pizza (una pizza, which is on your block, i think). definitely. but mexican?
take an uptown 6th to 104th and go to taqueria el paso at 104th & lex. they don’t speak much english and it’s not exactly white tablecloth, but the service is great and the tacos el pastor are the best i’ve ever had outside of saltillo.
February 27th, 2008 at 9:23 am
jane says:I’ve had this experience before and it justs sucks. Especially if you’re on a first date!
February 27th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Tyler says:nothing ruins a night worse than bad service. i completely agree you probably should have spoken to the manager, and if he had any intentions of keeping you as a customer, you’d get your meal for free. Then again, you basically paid $30 to know you’ll never eat there again.
Also, a thought to pass along from my high school retail days: a manage once told me that a customer who receives exceptional service tells 2 or 3 people, whereas someone receiving bad service would tell 10+. I feel this forum has reached significantly more than 10
February 27th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Gwin says:Oh, Chris. Your first mistake was going to Mary Ann’s in the first place. I thought the only people who went there were clueless out-of-towners and NYU kids. As others have pointed out, Citysearch is your friend.
February 27th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Cody says:I would have easily refused to leave a tip in that situation. Also, a note in English (and Spanish, por supuesto) that mentioned the lack of service.
Dios mio!
February 27th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
lynne says:Gwin- you stole my comment!
Chris - have you ever been to Anyway Cafe on 2nd and 2nd? It’s a great place to take a date, reasonably priced, AMAZING food, cute cute decor, always a singer there at night (at the perfect volume, not too loud, not too quiet) and they make their own flavored vodka. Always a safe bet.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:06 am
sarah says:oh, alllllways a bad sign when you’ve got your pick of every empty table in the place!!!
February 29th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Simone says:You had a date? Cool. Is it serious?
March 1st, 2008 at 11:46 am
hi says:that place is the worst. i had a similar experience there over the summer. it should go out of business.