Mexican Gone Bad...(Not the way you are thinking)

Today my mother and I carpooled to work. Generally on these days we treat ourselves out to lunch together.

Being the coupon queen that I am, I went on restaurant.com's website and purchased a gift certificate for a local Mexican restaurant. (mom and pops type) The gift certificate stated $10 off of $20 purchase plus 18% gratuity. I got this certificate with a coupon code for 60¢.

We arrived at the restaurant. After placing our drink orders I showed the waiter the gift certificate. This way he could call it into restaurant.com to validate it with enough time.

WRONG thing for me to do I guess. He got all huffy and took it to someone and started yelling in Spanish back and forth. They did not want to take it but in the end of it all they honored it...kinda.


Finally got our food.
1-Plain cheese quesadilla
1-Rice
1-Chicken and cheese quesadilla
1-Queso dip
2-Cokes

Food was good. Then came the bill. Then the food wasn't so good. They must have hid gold rice in my food because that is how much it cost.

Bill came to $32 plus a 20% gratuity. Not deserved. He was slow and kept forgetting about us. I don't mind tipping for great service.

There is no way the food cost that much. So I questioned the bill to the waiter. I asked if a plain cheese quesadilla cost the same at a chicken and cheese quesadilla - $9 each. He said yes. I said why. He said they were having money problems. What the heck, that is not my problem. You don't charge your customer more because you are having money problems.

After the tip and the gift certificate I still paid $28. I am fuming mad. Being in the customer service industry and an ex server myself I demand a certain level of customer service. If that makes me a bad person than I am real bad.

I get back to the office and decide that I am going to call the restaurant and speak to the manager. Now here is what will make you laugh....

I dial the number and a gentleman comes on. (Well I wouldn't call him a gentleman now).
I ask to speak to the manager in my calmest voice.
He says No. Just No.
So I say I am a customer (just in case he thinks I am a telemarketer or something) and I would like to speak to his manager.
He says No. Again with the No.
So I say sweetly, when will he be available to speak.
The guy puts the phone down and starts talking to other people about nothing to do with our conversation.
I hung up. Well more like I slammed the phone down and the building must have shook from the impact.

They better believe that I will be getting in touch with the owner now. This is unacceptable.

So I called my mother to tell her I had gotten nowhere on this with the manager. She just laughed. That kind of laugh like, I know you just fell down three flights of stairs and broke your nose but it was still funny kind of laugh.

We both wondered what the world would be like if you called someplace for customer service and all you got was a No.