2) Burnt At The Steak
I had a table of very friendly, very outgoing people come in one time. Everything was going well, their orders were all very straightforward, until the last person, who ordered a steak. She couldn’t remember how she liked it done, but definitely wanted it tender. After much debate, she remembered “well” is how she liked it. I tried explaining that well-done is the least-tender way of cooking a steak, but she was insistent, so I put in the order.
Food comes out, everybody’s happy, then she pokes at her steak and says it’s not tender enough and to throw it back on the grill. I again tried explaining that cooking the steak more would make it less tender, but the customer is always right, so I took it back.
This happened four times.
After the fourth, my manager came out and explained that the longer you cook a steak, the less juices are left in the meat, the tougher it becomes. He then asked if she’d like us to cook a new steak for her, if this one wasn’t the way she liked it. She got very angry, said no and that she’d eat it even though we were wrong…and then told us that if a customer wants you to grill a steak until it gets tender, you grill it until it gets tender.
