Please do not give them business no matter how hungry you are!!!
See story below for a long explination as to why.
About a month ago (I just learned of this site otherwise I would have reported it at the time) 4 friends and I went to California Diner for some food after the bars closed. We arrived at the restaurant at 2:00am exactly.
When our server seated us she told us that they were short staffed so it may take a bit longer for our food. We told her that was fine and looked around the restaurant noticing there were only 5-6 booths filled. Not very busy considering it was a Saturday night and the bars just closed. We watched our server run around the restaurant trying to host, bus and wait on every table WHILE the her manager sat at the table next to us drinking a glass of water and doing nothing.
We were served our food one hour and 5 mins after we ordered. This would have been fine, as we were told of the wait, except that not 1 out of the 5 plates was edible, let alone the correct order. Both orders of chicken fried steak had been sitting under heat lamps for over 45 mins (we were seated by the kitchen and watched the food sit on the counter the whole time) so the chicken & eggs were rubbery and the gravy was powder. My avocado turkey sandwich with no tomatoes came without the avocado (its in the name of the dish, how could you forget it?) and my fries were still frozen. The other two orders were missing hash browns and the toast on everyone's breakfast was completely black (how do you burn toast so badly?).
Needless to say, we asked our waiter to speak to the manager. He came to our table and the first words out of his mouth were "how much of a discount do you want?" We explained that we did not want a discount, we wanted edible food. We said we understood there would be a wait, but we expected to be able to eat what was served. He repeated himself and said he could give a discount. We looked at our 5 full plates of disgusting food and asked him why he thought we should pay for any of it if he wasn't going to replace it. He told us we ordered it and we have to pay. He then said he would be right back.
2 minutes later the cook comes out and she is visibly shaken and she apologizes to us for our food and asks that we please pay for it. She said it is her fault, she is the only cook and was trying to juggle too much. AND she is crying as she says all of this. We explained that it was in no way her fault. She does not manage the restaurant, she does not write the schedule and choose to sit around as her employees are trying to do 5 peoples jobs by themselves. We apologized to her for being put in this position as it is not appropriate for her manager to send her out to our table crying to apologize for his poor management and service.
We ended up getting into a screaming match with the manager and since he refused to remake our food correctly, we refused to pay for it. I have since reported this to the labor board (who told me that a manager could belittle employees, scream and make them cry as it is not illegal?!?!?!?), the BBB, the newspapers, the health inspectors office and a few others.
This is not acceptable business practice. I have heard other horror stories about this resteraunt, so i know ours was not an isolated inncident.
Kristine
Sacramento, California
U.S.A.
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