No alcohol = no service?

[Guest MormonGator]

7 minutes ago, LiterateParakeet said:

My favorite is how he absolutely oblivious to how much Dr. Marvin dislikes him.  Makes me laugh every time!

"Thank you Leo!"-Bob at dinner.
"You can me Leo in my office. At home, I'd like you to  call me Dr. Marvin."-Leo Martin. 

 

 

[The Folk Prophet]

A client of my wife's boss took the firm and their spouses to Ruth's Chris at Christmas time. A small firm, so there were only 10 of us total. Dropped well over $1000 on dinner with no alcohol whatsoever. I can only imagine the bill if we had been drinkers.

Edit: And...now back to your regularly scheduled thread...

Edited February 29, 2016 by The Folk Prophet

[Ironhold]

If all you do is drink water and order a minimum amount of food, then depending upon the facility's pricing structure and profit margin you could actually be costing them money if you remain too long and don't allow other customers to have your table. They lose money straight-up on the water, and if you don't order a lot of food the profit margin on the food may not make up for this. And if you take too long, then they can't bring more paying customers in to replace you and thus make up your losses. 

As a result, some eateries will indeed push alcohol and specific food items. These items, as you can imagine, tend to have high profit margins and so they can make more money off of them. Bottles and cans of beer have the least profit margin, and it goes from there until we're at mixed drinks and fine wines.  

[unixknight]

I've never noticed a reaction like that from the waiters but then I also may not be paying enough attention.  Every year I take my wife to The Melting Pot (a fondue restaurant) for dinner but they really feature wine as their main thing.  When you're waiting for the table there are wine related magazines, the wine chiller is a glass walled room and you can look at it form the lobby, and the wine list is very prominent.  My wife always has water and I have a Pepsi but I haven't noticed a bad reaction from the waiter.  (Again, maybe not paying enough attention but I prefer to think they're just professional there.)  I'll be looking closer in the future...

[Blackmarch]

13 hours ago, NeedleinA said:

Hundreds of times I've been asked the following at restaurants, "Would you like something to drink besides water?"
Is it just my wife and I, or do others experience the rolling eyeballs from their waiters when you don't order alcohol? When our waiter takes away the wine list, there is that overwhelming feeling  that we just lost 50% of their service/attention. Funny thing is we are really good tippers if waiter doesn't treat us like we have leprosy. 

FYI: We live outside of Utah

So, does anyone else experience this too? 

I don't know i generally don't go to fine dining type restauraunts, (more of a fast food consumer)

[NeedleinA]

Anyone see that dumb Youtube video from a several years ago,  "Double Rainbow"?
We have now entered the realm of "Double Threads" here on the forums. 

[NeedleinA]

18 minutes ago, unixknight said:

 I'll be looking closer in the future...

See, there could be a downside to reading a thread...

[unixknight]

Hehe well I had noticed the service we'd get was slow, but I assumed it was just from business and everybody's was.  If I've been mistaken I want to know!  I hate being naive

Edited February 29, 2016 by unixknight

[Backroads]

On Monday, February 29, 2016 at 8:24 PM, Carborendum said:

Ah... Yes!  

The film that made Tourette's Syndrome a household name.

Tourette's runs in my family.

 

The movie is therefore a favorite. 

[Backroads]

I'm not a big pop drinker, but I enjoy having a glass when eating out.

 

Hopefully that's good enough for waiters.

 

Though we also realized we've never been offered drinks at our favorite Thai place. They just take our order and bring us water. I wonder if we said something once long ago...

Mmm...i think I'll eat there tomorrow night betwixt parent-teacher conferences.

[Guest]

On 2/29/2016 at 10:56 PM, Ironhold said:

If all you do is drink water and order a minimum amount of food, then depending upon the facility's pricing structure and profit margin you could actually be costing them money if you remain too long and don't allow other customers to have your table. They lose money straight-up on the water, and if you don't order a lot of food the profit margin on the food may not make up for this. And if you take too long, then they can't bring more paying customers in to replace you and thus make up your losses. 

As a result, some eateries will indeed push alcohol and specific food items. These items, as you can imagine, tend to have high profit margins and so they can make more money off of them. Bottles and cans of beer have the least profit margin, and it goes from there until we're at mixed drinks and fine wines.  

While I agree with your analsysis, it would seem to me that they'd want to get me my food as fast as possible to get me out as fast as possible.  Instead, they've been very slow even to the point of letting my dish get served to another party who came in after me rather than sending me on my way.

[Guest Godless]

11 hours ago, Backroads said:

 

Though we also realized we've never been offered drinks at our favorite Thai place. They just take our order and bring us water. I wonder if we said something once long ago...

Mmm...i think I'll eat there tomorrow night betwixt parent-teacher conferences.

It's been my experience that Asian restaurants generally don't put much emphasis on alcohol sales. I've also noticed that the selection at most places is pretty weak, and it's actually not uncommon for Asian restaurants to encourage BYOB rather than serving their own drinks.

[Guest]

I've never heard of a US restaurant of any type that encouraged BYOB.  Is this in types of restaurants that I probably don't frequent?

[Guest Godless]

45 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I've never heard of a US restaurant of any type that encouraged BYOB.  Is this in types of restaurants that I probably don't frequent?

 

Around here it's typically Asian restaurants, though one of the more renowned bbq joints in Austin is BYOB as well. A lot of places like that charge a $3-5 "corkage fee".

[Guest]

As you can imagine, I go to Asian restaurants.  I've never noticed such a sign or what not.  And I don't like American bbq places.

[Guest Godless]

A quick search gave me [url=https://www.thrillist.com/eat/houston/where-to-byob-in-every-houston-neighborhood]this in reference to H-Town BYOB places. Looks like you have some cajun and Italian (both of which are severely lacking here in SA) places doing it in addition to a few Asian restaraunts. It also looks like some of these places have their own wine lists, so the BYOB option probably won't be advertised.

[Guest]

So, how does one get notified that it is a BYOB place if you're not looking specifically for it?

[Guest Godless]

12 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

So, how does one get notified that it is a BYOB place if you're not looking specifically for it?

You usually have to call ahead and ask. The problem with putting up a sign saying that you allow people do bring in outside alcohol is that it doesn't do much good to the patrons that are already in your doors. Also, a lot of places that allow BYOB can be found via Yelp and Urbanspoon. 

[Guest]

Well, that would explain why I'd never heard of one.  It would never occur to me to bring my own food and drink to a place where I go to buy food and drink.

Next we're going pay money to bring our own food to cook it on their stoves.  Oh, too late.  Already here.  That's a food rave.

[Guest Godless]

To address the original topic at hand, yes, alcohol sales are very profitable and restaurants often offer incentives/bonuses to servers who sell a lot of booze. However, that's not an excuse for unprofessional conduct and poor service. If it's something that you're noticing consistently at a certain establishment, bring it to the attention of a manager. As a bar manager myself (at a bar that rewards high sales averages), I would definitely want to know if any of my employees were acting in an unprofessional manner.

[Guest Godless]

9 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Well, that would explain why I'd never heard of one.  It would never occur to me to bring my own food and drink to a place where I go to buy food and drink.

Next we're going pay money to bring our own food to cook it on their stoves.  Oh, too late.  Already here.  That's a food rave.

 

Honestly, the only reason I know about it is because I used to frequently participate in bottle shares/tastings with a few fellow beer geeks, and always doing it at someone's house got old. So we found some cool restaurants that were willing to accommodate us for a small fee.

[Guest]

That's as it may be.  But I was extremely put out when the restaurant owner came to our table and complained that we didn't buy any booze with our meal.  He flat out told us that he didn't make enough profit for his restaurant.  We really didn't know what to make of that.  So we finished our meal and left.

We thought for a while and decided that we really loved the food.  So, we always ordered to go from that restaurant.

[Guest Godless]

Jeez. I would advise you not to get too attached to the place. I have a feeling it may not be a permanent fixture in your neighborhood.

[Ironhold]

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

While I agree with your analsysis, it would seem to me that they'd want to get me my food as fast as possible to get me out as fast as possible.  Instead, they've been very slow even to the point of letting my dish get served to another party who came in after me rather than sending me on my way.

No one ever said that human behavior always had to make sense.

[prisonchaplain]

I have not experienced this kind of disregard, and we never order drinks. In fact, we seldom order soft drinks, because they too carry a high profit margin. Then again, I may be frequenting low-to-middling price-range places. Maybe it's the high end restaurants that engage in such.