How long is too long for food to arrive? (1 Viewer)

[seremify007]

Just wondering what you guys thought... 'coz the other day, my work colleagues and I went to a small restaurant (no booking) and we waited 1 hour and 10mins for our food to arrive. There was 8 of us, and we only ordered standard dishes. Around 45mins in, we felt like walking off since a lot of us had work to do and our lunch breaks are only supposed to be an hour (depending on work load).

I know it's rude and wrong to walk off- esp if they have started preparing the food... but how long is too long?

 

[BlackDragon]

yeah. its ridiculous. even if it is really really busy restaurants shouldn't really take (in my opinion) more than like 40 minutes. otherwise it just gets boring.
we had to wait till 8:50 at this chinese restaurant, when we ordered at 7. *shakes head*

 

[Kujah]

30 minutes max, even if it's busy for me. All you could do waiting that long in a Chinese restaurant while waiting for the food is play with chopsticks, and that gets boring after a while.

 

[Orange Juice]

I think 30 to 40 minutes is a fair bit of time to prep food. I hope they came out to give you some sort of explanation if its any longer.

 

[BlackDragon]

no they didn't say anything at that chinese retaurant.... =/

and yeah, i agree. if they are pushing it when getting dishes out after 40 mins on a busy night they need to hire more staff.

 

[Kujah]

What's worse is that you wait so long, and you find that there's a cockroach in your dish, or the dish hasn't been cooked right :mad1:

 

[BlackDragon]

What's worse is that you wait so long, and you find that there's a cockroach in your dish, or the dish hasn't been cooked right :mad1:

yeah. or you get the wrong dish. at that point i would just walk out. lol or want a free meal. i mean, this is their profession. they are meant to be professional, friendly and efficient.

 

[seremify007]

After we finished lunch at 1:45 (food arrived 1:25, we had ordered at around 12:10), one of the guys went to tell them off... and they told us off for not understanding that they're a busy restaurant (it's not really.. I think capacity is around 40ish?). But what really annoyed us was we saw people who came in much after us, getting their food considerably sooner than us. Sure they're only ordering two dishes (as opposed to our 8), but it still gave us the ****s.

 

[Kujah]

Yeah that is very very annoying - you see other people arriving after you, and they get their dishes first. Drives me mad everytime

 

[scarybunny]

My order always arrives last at restaurants, without fail. Once, our group arrived in halves. I was in the first half, and I ordered the same thing as a couple of people, but they got their dishes and I didn't. The second half of our group arrived, ordered and got their dishes before I did. It wasn't a matter of preparation, they just forgot to bring me my food. We asked a waiter for it like three times before it arrived. Stupid Thai Pothong. It was the only place that could fit a group of 20 without a reservation on a saturday night.


I can understand, say, lamb shanks or whatever taking a while to prepare, but ideally you don't want to be just waiting for your food for more than 30 minutes. If the restaurant can't cook it within a reasonable time period, they shouldn't be serving it or they should pre-cook, or half-cook it earlier.

It reminds me of Sesame Street, where that guy orders a pizza and Grover says it'll take 6 weeks to arrive because he has to grow the mushrooms.

 

[seremify007]

I can understand, say, lamb shanks or whatever taking a while to prepare, but ideally you don't want to be just waiting for your food for more than 30 minutes. If the restaurant can't cook it within a reasonable time period, they shouldn't be serving it or they should pre-cook, or half-cook it earlier.

I agree about pre/half-cooking. Sure I don't want old food, but by the same token, if the restaurant only has a limited number of menu items available, they should at least prepare a bit in advance to cater for the surge of demand at lunch time.

 

[lengy]

I would not wait more than half an hour for food.

 

[BlackDragon]

It reminds me of Sesame Street, where that guy orders a pizza and Grover says it'll take 6 weeks to arrive because he has to grow the mushrooms.

bahahaha.

and yeah, the worst thing is when your friends' food arrives way before yours. I mean you sit there while they eat and then you have to eat quickly because your food arrives after theirs does! its stupid.

 

[NinjaSauce]

If 30 minutes had passed, i would ask the waiter/ess for a deadline for it to arrive.
If it was 5-10 minutes i might stay. Anythign longer, i would get up and leave.

If they told be 5-10 minutes, and it arrived later than that, i would take the dish, and tell the waiter/ess when i recieved it that i will not be paying or half-off, etc. They object, i'd leave the food on the table and just leave.

I hate restuarants anyway. Pay way too much for something you could cook up at home.

 

[seremify007]

LOL it's not so easy to cook at home when you're at work

But... I think that your idea is a great one 'coz honestly, if they expect us to waste an hour sitting there whilst we have work to do, it's unreasonable.

 

[ur_inner_child]

I've waited an hour and a half once. We ordered pricey food so we didn't want to leave.

I hate how when they serve you your entree, it somehow *buys* time. i waited half an hour for entree, then another hour for main. Plus it wasn't all that busy.

Never went to that resturaunt again.

 

[mr_brightside]

yeah 30 minutes is good timing.

anything past 45 is fucking annoying.

 

[Gr8Xpectations]

15-30 minutes is pretty decent.

went to a thai restaurant before and waited for about 90 minutes. but the food was delicious when it finally arrived.

 

[tres bien]

We sometimes play a guessing game - we guess who will get their food first or last.
At work, if we were ordering food to be delivered to us, my workmate would say "bring it in the time period you promised, or we get it free".

 

[yulia]

They make food on Ready, Steady, Cook in 20 minutes and less. So if I have to wait more than half an hour, I'm not happy...

I regularly eat at a place in Newtown, it takes usually about 15-20 minutes tops for my food to come.