Fastfood-like Service

Juan, our waiter for the evening has properly seated my party of 4. Walk-ins are more than welcome given the spacious dining accommodations. We order a four-course lunch starting with salad, soup, an entree, and dessert. After ordering he casually inquires when we would like the dessert to be served. Our salad came through within minutes and the taste would be what you expected from very fresh greens. Suddenly, our soup and mains were served WHILE we were still mixing the family sized salad. What do you do?

Filipino meals are mostly served at the same time. The main served with rice on the side of vegetables is a prix combo. The mish and mash of flavors and textures is definitely appealing. Also, some Filipino mains are sauce or soup-based, thus this type of service is understandable. Fortified with the love of fast food, this habit-forming "only serve once" food service is predominant even among fairly expensive dining establishments, especially if ain't serving Filipino food. Couldn't they wait for us to finish our French Onion Soup before serving my steak?

Why is this practice not appreciated? First, it the uncomfortable choice of which course to dine on. When salad and soup is served at the same time, it becomes a nuisance in choosing which you would like to have first. Later, your given a decision which should you eat from instead. Is the salad more delicious than the soup or vice versa? What if your main dish arrives when you are halfway through your appetizers? Disaster. In the end you feel you wasted your money on the appetizers as you didn't want your main course to get cold now, did you? Second, you feel hurried. As the food service throws several courses at you at the same time, you get a feeling that staff doesn't want you to hang around. The pleasure from appreciating a course is turned into a terrifying race. Was the meat tender, the flavors balanced, the colors vibrant? Fastfood-like service makes your dining experience forgettable. You dine on each course as fast you as you can before the others come.

What is the significance to the way the restaurant is managed? Exponential. Having poor food service correlates that the chefs don't care about the quality of the dish. They don't care if you appreciate it or not, they just want your money and leave. It also means that their staff isn't managed properly and doesn't know the difference between courses. OR worse, their evaluation is on the number of customers they seat in a single day. On the other hand, the cooks and staff aren't coordinated to the degree where they only care about is the practice of first come, first served. In the restaurant industry, if your staff and service seems to fall short on personalizing the dining experience and focuses on getting the order and collecting payment, it won't last long (except if you're running a fast food joint).

My suggestion? Make sure your cooking time, cooks and waiters are closely coordinated that each dish comes out at the time the diner would want it. Also, the staff should be able to tell if the customer is finished with that specific course, before serving the next. Waiters should fall in love with their tables. They should watch like a hawk and terrify the cooks if they are too fast or too slow in serving their dishes. New restaurants might not be able to get it at first, but the oldies have no excuse. They should have perfected their service to a T. As for the diner, if the waiters serve the food too soon, request them to serve it later, when you are finished with your current course. If it comes out cold when they serve it to you, return it and request for another one. Don't forget to tell the manager before you leave though. Overall, a hurried service doesn't mean efficiency, it's actually quite the opposite.