"Hey, I'm the Customer!"

Just the other day, I had the incredible privilege of witnessing a customer, with his elitist "We're-always-right" attitude, be stricken from the restaurant by the owner himself.

In walks a party of 2: a married couple. As they approach the maitre'd, they request a table by the window. The maitre'd responds by saying: "Well, we don't have any window tables available at the moment right now, but we can get you as close as possible." Upon hearing this, the customer retorts with a blatant lie by saying: "We were told we could reserve a window earlier today when we called to make a reservation."

Now, knowing that the restaurant NEVER reserves window seats because that, of course, would gridlock hundreds of people every night, the maitre'd calmly responds by saying: "I'm sorry, sir, but we do not reserve tables by the window. If you would like, you could have a drink at the bar and when a table by the window is available we will get you seated."

This seems to dismay the customer so much so that he adamantly counters with: "We were told we could have a window. GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER." Now, this customer clearly thinks he is in a restaurant in which he is blanketed by this false, bullshit mantra, that the "customer is always right."

Boy, is he about to get a wake-up call.

Before the maitre'd can even spit out her response, the owner jets out of his chair and confronts the 'customer'.

"Why, don't you get your act together?!"

Now, I'm sure many of you reading this (especially FoodGod) will think that this is an extremely immature approach on behalf of the owner. Well, the owner is only demonstrating that self-assertion in the restaurant is not entirely lost.

The customer now, very much engaged, says: "Hey! Don't BE RUDE!" This seems to express just how myopic this DBAG's perspective really is. Apparently, he didn't find his original comment about getting our acts together to be rude. The owner wants to remind him of this.

"I'm not being rude. You said we needed to get 'our acts together.' That's rude, is it not?"

Clearly having no other valid defense, the customer feels as though he can rely on that unforgotten mantra; that impenetrable suit of armor every asshole customer hides behind. In an attempt to exercise his "rights" as a customer that is never "wrong", he reasserts to the owner: "HEY! I'm the customer!"

to which the owner responds by saying:

"No you're not, you're leaving!"

The look on the face of this jerk was the best thing I have seen in ages. Feeling the embarrassing sting, the DBAG customer attempts one last time to assert his machismo and, thus, dominance. Heading out the front door he turns around, raises his hands high in the air, and challenges the owner to "step outside."

To that complete asshole, I recommend this:

Take your rude, the "customer-is-always-right" elitist attitude to a restaurant where you can get away with such behavior. If it is in your code to treat people like shit, I am sure you will flourish in the spineless, corporate restaurants that expend their own employees on your behalf. I suggest you go ruin the lives of helpless servers in any, and all, of the following restaurants:

Joe's American Bar and Grill
T.G.I.Friday's
Uno
Chili's
Cheesecake Factory

Thanks