Restaurant refuses to sing happy bday to 6 yr old

[Blarg]

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the kid sounds pretty spoiled if he actually got upset because they wouldnt sing happy bday to him. my parents would have asked once and if they were told no that wouldve been the end of it.

anyways, i am sure that his parents will be telling this story for years.

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QFT. Thank you KKF.

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srsly. isn't his disgust for American culture so precise and accurate? it is really quite funny that American parents act like this.

it's like i always say, "Physician, heal thyself."

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Uh, my parents are american, and they would say the same thing as KKFs.

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yeah, I think you misinterpreted my post slightly.

I gives a [censored] if they sang to the kid or not. obviously, the parents thinking it is some kind of outrage is gay. also, singing like that by the staff in a restaurant is annoying as [censored] anyway.

also, i completely agree that the group should have just sang themselves. why the [censored] does the kid need the staff to do it?

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Agreed too. If I was the dad, I'd have led the singing myself. I'd hoot like an ape if it made the kid laugh, what the hell.

[MicroBob]

I don't think it would be such a hot idea to take a 6-year-old to the batting cages.

[Blarg]

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Awesome.

Also, guids is right, they should get something comp'd for the hostess' mistake but I think it's ridiculous to expect to have happy bday sung against the restaurant's policy.

Blarg has not been making sense recently, not sure what's going on

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I'm saying the same thing as guids is there, but he's right and I'm not? Okay ... that sounds like I'm the one not making sense, all right ...

[guids]

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Immediately leaping as quickly through the chain of command as you can isn't necessarily helpful. It can actually just make things more confusing and amp up something small into something big.

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One thing you keep assuming for some reason is that the owner isn't readily accessible and/or very hands-on.

A friend's father ran a very high-end Italian joint here in town for upwards of thirty years and he was the host on average of six nights a week.

Another friend of mine was a bartender here in town who bought a sports bar with a friend and fellow bartender. It was a busy place but they would put themselves on shifts behind the bar several nights a week.

Owners want to know what's going on, and I'm sure guids will corroborate that bar/restaurant owners are workaholics, possibly to support a burgeoning coke habit but more likely because they worry too much about what they're missing to stay away, or are micromanagers, and an industry with high turnover and theft lends itself to that.

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Ya, thats exactly right, or you have owners that are never there and just collect the cash. it is either one end of the spectrum or the other. its obv what kind of person the owner of this place is.

[MicroBob]

"its obv what kind of person the owner of this place is."


The kind who is rude to their customers when their own employees give bad information?

[Eurotrash]

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I don't think it would be such a hot idea to take a 6-year-old to the batting cages.

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wtf, don't kids like baseball anymore? if the kid is that much of a pussy take him to the soccer-ball-kicking cages and let him kick into an unguarded goal.

[tuq]

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I don't think it would be such a hot idea to take a 6-year-old to the batting cages.

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wtf, don't kids like baseball anymore? if the kid is that much of a pussy take him to the soccer-ball-kicking cages and let him kick into an unguarded goal.

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QFT

[PoppinFresh]

Blarg, I was referring to your points that the dad was at fault for not calling ahead and for asking to speak to the manager.

[MicroBob]

He's 6.
Don't batting cages fire it in there pretty darned fast?

We played T-Ball when I was 7 or 8.
We would play wiffle-ball or whatever in the backyard too.

I don't think a freaking 6 year-old could handle the hard pitches coming at him in a batting-cage.

Maybe there are super soft-toss batting cages with light bats or something that I don't know about.

[Blarg]

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Blarg,

"No, training people to do their jobs right is the part of their job that matters here. Again, what happens if the manager/owner is not around? Disaster always looms imminent? People can't be trusted not to screw up minor matters?"

Training employees to do things right is the owner/manager's responsbility, not the customer. When the owner/manager slips up in that way, that is when it is reasonable for the customer to escalate the issue to him.

As for things going haywire when the manager/owner, isn't around, yes, that is very standard for bars/restaurants.

Here's what happened:

Dad goes to family restaurant where he expects them to sing happy birthday
Dad asks hostess to confirm, she confirms
Waiter comes out with meal, nobody singing
Dad asks waiter about singing, waiter says they dont do it anymore
Dad asks waiter to speak w/ supervisor

I still fail to see where Dad is unreasonable in this process.

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At a loss here.

Never said it was the customer's job to train the staff. I said it was the staff's job to handle the customer, and it was the owner/manager's job to train the staff to do so. Dunno where that other came from.

As to the "here's what happened, what's wrong?" part:

Dad "expecting" something on arrival in restaurant doesn't work. I can expect anything I want anywhere I go, but that has no bearing on whether I'll get any of it or should.

Dad expecting something after hostess said he'd get it: fair.

Re: speaking with supervisor: I'm assuming hostess IS supervisor here. Or that at least the waiter had a supervisor somewhere.

Dad did nothing particularly dreadful by asking to speak to supervisor. However, if supervisor says, "Hey, I checked, sorry I misled you. We can't do that anymore," Dad has been told how it is and that should be the end of the story. Hostess was wrong, admitted mistake, apologized for it. What left is there besides creating grief? Bad luck. Oh well. Happens sometimes. Make mental note to consider taking your business elsewhere, especially if no comp offer is made.

Hostess should have handled the matter herself, and I agree that some comps might be in order. Free dessert(s), couple drinks, whatever.

If owner did not give hostess authority to handle it herself, then he did not design his business well, and if he gets dragged into things like this, it's his own fault. Since he didn't train her well enough to know his policies, he may well have not granted her authority to handle such matters by herself, either. In which case, he got his just desserts by doing a half-assed job and arranging it so customers could be easily dissatisfied and he'd have to hear about every little screw-up.