Texas Roadhouse

On Friday evening My wife her friend and I went for dinner at the Texas Road House in Kingston. We arrived approximately 6:10pm with very little wait we were seated. My wife and I are regulars at this establishment so all was as expected to that point. The greeter provided us our rolls and the usually greeting then our server LIZZ, very happy that thru this nightmare of an evening she would be our server, took our drink and appetizer order. I had a coupon on my phone for the cactus blossom. I was told they had a fire in the fryer so they would substitute the blossom and offered boneless wings. I agreed and ordered them with 2 sauces a mild and hot both on the side. We always get sauce on side, as we fell the mild is a bit spicy. Lizz noted it in the order. When the wings were delivered they were brought out with the hot sauce covered on the wings. Lizz apologized and stated she would have a new order sent out. A person came from the kithen to understand the order. Lizz explained to him she had typed a note explaining that it was one order 2 sauces on the side. I had to explain it 3 times he kept changing it to 2 orders one with hot and one with mild. We finally got that cleared up, and waited on. After a while we asked LIzz if our wings were coming out, when she had come to take our order. She wanted to take the order earlier but we were still undecided. She took our order with no issue, then returned an apologized that the wings had not been dropped but would be out shortly. The wings did arrive shortly after. However she returned to explain to me that they could not provide me with the fish and chips I ordered due to the fryer being down, she suggested a substitute, I went with the Shrimp. In a respectable time frame my dinner came out, but only my dinner. when the server came to the table she was shocked to see two other people sitting with me, stating it was in as a single order. That's why it came so fast they serve single orders faster. She stated she would go in and check on the other meals. About 10 minutes later the other 2 meals arrived. They obviously had been sitting and waiting for the fish and chips that was on the ticket but would never appear. The tips were cold and over cooked. So that meal had to be returned. The waitress LIzz kept taking the blame and apologizing. I asked that she stop apologizing, that she was handling this situation that was clearly not her fault very well and we were very satisfied with her performance. So much so that at the end I in fact provided her with a 25% tip. I was surprised that I had not had a manager approach the table yet, usually if a fork is out of place a manager will come to insure it was corrected and all is well. I had completed an enjoyable meal, my wife's friend first time at the establishment was entertained, filled up on the bread and wings, boxed her meal. My wife on the other hand was not to happy. When her tips finally came out the right way she asked for a box, poured her meal in the box and walked out. Lizz returned with the bill and stated that there was an issue with the code for the cactus blossom and needed the code again. I went to take it out of my phone, It was dead. That is why I showed lizz the coupon and code prior stating my phone was dying. Obviously the number was transposed, no big deal I am sure, Low and behold now the manager comes out. Never introduced her self, Understood her name to be Jess. she was pleasant, asked for of all things the coupon code. I explained my phone had died, she offered to provide me with a coupon for my next visit for a cactus blossom since she could not honor the code copied, I said that was fine, I am here often. Then she states, or you could use it now if you like I said that is fine as well. I stated that's the small issue of the night, I went on to explain the order issue and she placed the blame on the waitress, stating that menu item was taken out of the system 2 hours ago after the fryer fire. That was insulting to me. I explained to her, had that been the case then the waitress would have been forced to come back to me when she entered the order and ask for a substitute, and my order would not have become a single order in which case all meals would have been delivered together. Jess replied with well I can check to see if it was the waitress or the system. She was very polite and professional and I can understand the stress of a grease fire in the kitchen and remaining open with a fryer down, So I can understand the situation. However a customer especially with a guest, first time appearance, should always be handled as though there are no issues. Your staff should never be made to take any blame. Had I believed what she said, Lizz, who in my eyes did a spectacular job handling a very difficult situation with many kitchen mishaps to one table, would have been penalized for my bad experience with a lousy tip. Going further, with some customers word would have gone out about how terrible the service at Texas road house is especially with the server LIzz. That would just be wrong. As I said my wife and I eat at the Texas Road House in Kingston on a Regular basis. We travel 30 miles to eat there when we have one 6 miles from our house. We eat at that one as well, the food and service there is good, but we feel that Kingston is far superior when it comes to customer serve. Tonight was an exception, I can understand why. So be up front and use the Grease fire don't hide from it. As a manager handling that situation if you cant be bothered to come to the table to address issues with the food or service, then don't be bold enough to come to the table at check out time to complain about an coupon code copied wrong. The idea of the coupon is to draw your customers to the establishment to spend more, the coupon was actually displayed to the server before the meal, so at the end of the meal I don't need a manager trying to make the establishment an extras $5.99 by disputing a code. Sometimes they need to use common sense. They may realize that $5.99 they made today will most certainly lose them hundreds in the future from word of mouth!
Well I guess I have vented to say what I have to say. In closing the one final thought would be if you find more servers like LIzz you wont have to worry about managers having a bad night, and not having time for customer service!