6 Questions You’re Too Shy to Ask When Dining Out

Alex Le: There needs to be some kind of restaurant etiquette. People not used to our food will tend to return things because of spice level or it’s just not for them, vague reasonings. And a lot of Hawai‘i people are very polite. But for me, it’s easier if you tell me what is wrong with a dish. I don’t want to be showered with compliments when you don’t like it. I think it’s good when you tell me the risotto was good, but it was really salty.

And if you don’t like a dish, say something early. If you eat more than half, we can’t comp that. Also, don’t over-order and then try to cancel a dish because you’re full while we’re in the middle of making it.

I also feel like if a guest wants to modify a dish, like if they ask us to make it without the onions, then that becomes their dish. If you’re going to change a dish from how we meant to serve it, don’t send it back. But, for example, if you get the lamb la lot because we suggested it and described it as barbecued with a low spice level, and you get it and don’t like it, I feel like that’s our responsibility. That’s on us.

Kawehi Haug: If there is something wrong with the food, send it back. If you simply don’t like it, don’t send it back. The kitchen is responsible for making the best versions of the dishes presented on its menu. The kitchen is not responsible for your personal likes and dislikes.

Sound reasons to send food back:

1. It’s not cooked to your requested specifications: You ordered a medium-rare steak and it arrives overcooked.
2. You found something in your food—hair, a Band-Aid or worse.
3. The food tastes like it may be spoiled.
4. There is something technically wrong with the dish: It’s cold, burnt, raw.
5. You’re allergic to an ingredient that wasn’t listed as being in the dish. Send it back … but here’s a caveat: Diners with allergies should ask up front if specific allergens are in a dish. But if you order the spring pea pasta assuming it doesn’t have tomatoes and it has tomatoes, send it back anyway. Don’t risk your health on being timid. If it was your error in not clarifying before you ordered, paying for the replacement meal is good form. Restaurants that focus on customer service won’t balk at giving you something else on the house.

Dusty Grable: The kitchen service fee has been sweeping the nation. This should be a topic of national conversation: If major cities want good cooks, what can they do? The most common thought is why don’t you just raise your prices and pay your people better? I wish it were that simple.

People don’t think of the cooks when you get a $30 bowl of ramen. The responsibility of keeping prices low with a full-service restaurant with rent payments and staffing and a functioning bathroom and sound system and everything else, people struggle to understand the price when you can get similar food at a food truck. That’s a common misunderstanding.

At our restaurants, 100% of our dessert sales goes to the kitchen team. There is a financial commitment from a business standpoint, but there are a lot of wings to it. People are stoked on it. People who weren’t going to get dessert order dessert. I would say 90% of guests get dessert. And most guests get both desserts, so that’s $22 for every table.

Le: Some restaurants charge a 6% kitchen service fee. I think that’s a lot. We charge 3.5%, and that goes to our cooks so they can have a fraction of what the servers make. Our restaurant culture, everyone is on the same team and down to help each other out. We’re trying to make sure we’re in this together as far as service and the rewards that come with it.

Customers can defer. If they don’t want to [pay the kitchen service fee], then we take it off the bill. It’s a very, very small percentage that defer.

Haug: In my experience as a restaurant owner, most diners in Hawai‘i are happy to order on one check and work out the math on their own. But some parties don’t want to hui together for a bill, and that’s OK. At least, it should be. If a restaurant makes an issue of this, it’s probably because it really can be humbug to go back into the system to divide up the orders after everyone’s already ordered on a single check. I worked at a restaurant where the point-of-sale system could not split one check more than six ways.

A good server will anticipate that guests may want to split the bill and ask before they start taking orders. A conscientious guest will inform the server before they order that they want to split the bill.

Grable: In general, POS systems now are so user-friendly that it shouldn’t be an issue anymore. But if a restaurant has been around for 10 years-plus, it’s likely their POS system doesn’t allow for splitting a lot of checks easily. In some cases, the system will crash if you try to do too many checks. And it’s very difficult to reinvest $40,000 for a new system.

Other times, it’s an issue of service speed and efficiency. Teams need to train how to organize and take an order in a fashion that allows the server to be ready when a guest asks for separate checks. Getting 10 people to get their money and their cards out at the same time when you’ve got other guests waiting for attention is not easy.

When I worked at Stage Restaurant and Amuse Wine Bar, a lot of people would be going to a concert or show at Blaisdell, and you would have your entire bar get up and leave at once. Everybody’s waiting until the last minute because they want to enjoy. If they’re all doing separate checks, you could be in a pickle.

Haug: There’s simply no way to guarantee a zero-wait-time reservation. Even at a well-run restaurant, gazillions of things can go off the rails during a typical service. But the thing that goes the most wrong with reservations is other people with reservations.

If a party with an earlier reservation is staying longer than the restaurant anticipated, is it fair to you? No. Neither is it fair to ask the other customer to vacate their table. Both of you are spending your time and money at the restaurant. This does require patience and grace on your part. If the staff is not communicating about the status of your reservation, if they are not gracious about your frustrations, if they are not trying to improve your experience, then it’s more than fair to feel that you wasted your time making a reservation. And to let the restaurant know that.

Resich: That does happen often. We don’t impose a time limit. As much as we want to, we can’t force people out of their table. We think if we’re doing our job properly, we’re greeting the table on time, spieling about our menu on time, getting their drink order on time, the food order on time. But you do get groups of friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time, and we don’t force them out.

So on a busy night, there might be a wait even with your reservation, but we do our best to mitigate that. And if someone’s been waiting for their table for 15 minutes, we will send out complimentary garlic bread.