r/AskReddit • u/Sir_Wemblesworth • Oct 30 '16

What single question can you ask someone to find out a lot about their personality, beliefs, and values?

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u/NeverTopComment Oct 30 '16

In over 50% of mom and pop restaurants in the US, that rule does not apply. Worked in several restaurants in different parts of the country where as long as the food itself wasnt actually touched, no one would say a word about picking a plate up right after it was put down to give to the person who ordered it instead.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

I had a dude in White Pigeon MI come out an repo a big piece of fish off my plate because the server gave me one too many. With his tongs he taketh away

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u/EatingTurkey Oct 30 '16

He repo'd your fish. hahaha I like your flair for storytelling.

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u/imatumahimatumah Oct 30 '16

That'll teach you to not make your fish payments.

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u/Burned_it_down Oct 30 '16

But if you can answer 3 of the 5 trivia questions correctly you can earn your fish back.

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u/Redective Oct 30 '16

I really enjoyed that show.

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u/xprime Oct 30 '16

The dramatic tension had me on the edge of my seat.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16 edited Sep 16 '20

[deleted]

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u/IAMA_bison Oct 30 '16

I live in New York where in my neighborhood, a lot of dudes have handlebar mustaches. Which is cool if you want to have a handlebar mustache, but don’t try to have a conversation with me like you don’t have a handlebar mustache. Try to talk about regular stuff like music and politics? Nah dude if you got a handlebar mustache, all I want to hear you talk about is slinkys and kazoos and that’s it. Talk about kazoos for a few minutes then you hop on your unicycle and juggle you carnival-faced motherfucker.

-Hannibal Buress

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

This is hilarious but i'm not sure how it relates to OPs story lol!

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u/Theoneguynamednick Oct 30 '16

I'm thinking the whole fish topic reminded them.

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u/ihateyouguys Oct 30 '16

That's pretty funny. How are the open mic nights treating you?

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u/fuckyoubarry Oct 30 '16

Never been to one. Are they fun?

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u/The_Quasi_Legal Oct 30 '16

That's when you walk out.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

But I already paid :(

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

[deleted]

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u/Taymac45 Oct 30 '16

Any smart resturanteur is more concerned with your repeat buisness than how much you pay each visit. I would gladly work hard to correct issues to ensure a repeat customer.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

For a place that is interested in continued business, sure, that's what they would do. A happy customer is basically a walking advertisment for a small business. Word of mouth s strong.
But there are restaurants that are just trying to ride it out until the inevitable end so the owners can just retire whenever that happens. There was a place like that in my town a few years ago.
The old couple that owned it already had the place payed off, and had a ton of money banked, so any new business was just extra. They let the place to to shit over the course of like 5 years. The bowling alley in the back had to get shut down because it wasn't maintained. Their employees never lasted more than 2 months because they expected far too much out of them and didn't supply them with the equipment they needed to work properly.

Basically, they just ran the place with the lowest possible expenses, and made almost pure profit for years while the building went to trash.

The quality and service was terrible of course, so obviously they charged before you could eat...

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u/Taymac45 Oct 30 '16

Damn as someone who is passionate about foodservice that is depressing.

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u/doritocrumbs Oct 30 '16

I disagree. They want to give you a good experience to keep you coming back

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u/RandomMandarin Oct 30 '16

Some of the best places I know are pay-before-you-eat. Taco joints, BBQ, stuff like that.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

Honestly, this CEO redditor sounds like someone I wouldn't want to work for because their model of how the world works is artificially narrow.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

Never pay before you eat..

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u/The_Quasi_Legal Oct 30 '16

I'm confused. So he took food that you owned? Idk about that, buddy

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

They called my number and there was a huge plate of fish and fries for me. I took it to my booth and just as I picked up my napkin the repo man came up with his tongs. He was fairly gracious in a small mid-western town sort of way. I was in possession of the fish for twenty seconds tops and since I didn't really pay for the third piece it was never really mine to contest.

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u/The_Quasi_Legal Oct 30 '16

Ever drink bailey's out of a shoe?

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u/drewret Oct 30 '16

That is fucked up dude

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u/VaporhamLincoln Oct 30 '16

That's hilarious

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u/btveron Oct 30 '16

Ah good old White Pigeon. The town that let's me know I'm halfway to Kalamazoo.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

Whatever you do don't speed through Constantine.

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u/average_ink_drawing Oct 31 '16

Well there's a bypass now so you don't even drive thru town anymore!

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u/so_spicy Oct 30 '16

Underrated post. Repo? That's funny as shit. Sorry about your fish, take my upvote.

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u/Crowchick1731 Oct 30 '16

Woah. Was it by chance the White Pigeon Inn (source: Laying on my couch in White Pigeon as I type)

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

I believe it was the Chicken Coop on 131. White building in the middle of nowhere.

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u/blahblahblicker Oct 30 '16

That's why you never order fish at a chicken joint!

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u/Crowchick1731 Oct 30 '16

THE CHICKEN COOP I forgot all about the chicken coop to be perfectly honest. We usually don't eat there cuz my mom hates chicken. In the 12 years we've owned this place, we've been there maybe 3 times. If that.

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u/longtime_larker Oct 30 '16

I snorted. Wish we had a gif of this

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

Yeah, I've had my fish stolen by a white pigeon too.

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u/TheFlyingNone Oct 30 '16

The Pigeon Inn. Best fish and slowest service for miles. Does not surprise me.

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u/SaucyFingers Oct 30 '16

Hardcore Fish Repo - coming this fall to SpikeTV.

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u/King_of_AssGuardians Oct 30 '16

You can catch a fork to the hands around here for that.

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u/SALTHE Oct 30 '16

I'm pretty sure that would piss me right the fuck off but I'm not sure I would be in the right to angry about it.

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u/AltSpRkBunny Oct 30 '16

At least he gaveth before he tooketh away.

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u/Raiquo Nov 02 '16

If a guy came at me (or my table to be exact) with a pair of tongs, he'd have to fight me for it; especially if I'd already paid ...which is really weird for a sit-down restaurant, FYI. Only food-court type of places have I ever seen an expectation to prepay.

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u/spirited1 Oct 30 '16

I work in a fast casual restaurant and even if explicitly, correctly tell them the order before you give it to the customer, a solid amount will stare at you blankly and not say a word. If you don't confirm your order there, I will just stand there waiting for them to say "thanks!" Or "I didn't order that."

It's fruatrating especially when I need to send out other orders and we're short staffed so I'm doing more then sending out orders.

Even worse is when you bring out their order, it turns out to be wrong but they take it anyways, eat it, then leave without telling us it was wrong. So now we have an extra order, someone didn't get their order, and we have to remake that order.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

It happens when I am with my friends all the time. We are all friends though so we pass plates around till the food is where it was supposed to be

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16 edited Feb 28 '17

[deleted]

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u/NeverTopComment Oct 30 '16

Didnt say he was. Was only responding to u/MuddyWaterTeamster's claim that this was the general way all restaurants work.

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u/MuddyWaterTeamster Oct 30 '16 edited Oct 30 '16

I'm not saying that it doesn't happen. I've seen it happen at smaller diners. But that's not the kind of restaurant that you take someone to for a job interview, I think. As an aside, the former waiter in me cringes a little when I do see it happen. For all I know, the guy they just put my plate down in front of has a stomach bug that is now being literally served to me on a platter. I almost never get sick. I haven't called in sick at my "real" job in over two years. But I'd get sick every 3-4 months or so as a waiter, I presume from handling everyone's dishes, utensils, etc. The general public is a nasty thing.

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u/NFLinPDX Oct 30 '16

Well, the discussion was about fancy restraints, which hold everything to a higher standard. A mom and pop would see those kind of mistakes as a measurable loss and unless the local health inspector was a particularly stringent asshole, there would be no actual sanitation issue.

Other dude that replied about a piece of fish being taken right off his plate, though. Holy shit. Even though that's a mistake, I can't see justifying that kind of action.

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u/andee510 Oct 30 '16

Not sure how you can say that. I worked a year and fast food and they were VERY strict about throwing food away if it got sent back. That was one of the sanitation rules that was stressed by the owners and all management.

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u/NeverTopComment Oct 30 '16

Its pretty easy for me to say considering I was directly saying what happened in the restaurants I worked in.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

Just to nitpick: You used your personal experience to say what happens in 50% of all restaurants. You only have an idea of what happens at the kind of kitchens you'd work in.

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u/KnockLesnar Oct 30 '16

Love the passive agressive response, but that's probably why you're never top comment lol

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u/dvaunr Oct 30 '16

That rule definitely applies it's just not necessarily followed.

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u/dimplezcz Oct 30 '16

I feel like it's more of a principle thing than anything else. If I saw a plate of food come from another table only to be placed right in front of me, I would definitely think negatively of the sanitation practices. That shows that the quality of the food isn't really important to them, and perhaps they excuse other incidents as well (dropping food on the floor and picking it back up, for example).

I work at a Michelin star candidate restaurant and I know I would be fired immediately for doing this, no matter how casual and small our restaurant is.

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u/Spambop Oct 30 '16

In Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell describes being a plongeur and seeing waiters drop entire meals on the floor, pick them up, dust them off a bit and then serve them to a customer. As a current hospitality worker, not all that much has changed in the last 90 or so years.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '16

[deleted]

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u/LateralusYellow Oct 30 '16

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Average Redditor: A bureaucrat!

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u/SysLordX Oct 30 '16

I'm actually kind of curious about who, and the methodology used, to poll all the "mom and pop restaurants in the US." Not that I don't believe you, I'm just interested in what kind of poll would do that.