6/21/08--A night out at the Tijuna Taxi Company

So last night we decided, based on the flip of a coin, to dine at the Tijuana Taxi Company, a local Mexican restaurant--which may end up being our last time we dine at this joint.

First of all, we get there--courtesy of the driving of the ever improving Kellie Poe-Bowdren, who is proud to announce that she parked without incident BETWEEN two other cars for the first time, and got there right ahead of a rainstorm and were told that the wait would be approximately 15 minutes.

Which was apparently a guess.
Ya know, if you're going to guess....guess the other way and tell me its going to be an hour, then I'll be happy to only wait 35 minutes.
But let's be honest, the girls who play hostess at these places aren't hired because their really, really intelligent.

So we're cooling our heels for 35 minutes, watching people who came up after us get seated before us.  So after about 25 minutes I go up to the hostess to see where we are in the order to be seated.  My timing was pretty good because I got to hear this from one of the restaurant employees to the bubble headed blonde hostess:

"Hey, who's the bitch at table #56?"
"What?"
(See me standing there)
"Uh, who's the chick at table #56?"

Nice.  Makes a really good impression on your customers.

Amazingly, we are finally seated and the hostess actually says to us:
"Sorry about the misunderstanding."
Misunderstanding?  I didn't misunderstand anything.  You told me 15 minutes and sat me down 35 minutes later---after seating a bunch of people who arrived after I did.

So we order our meal, and the wife gets a fajita and when it arrives, she asks for a little bit more sour cream (don't ask me--I hate the stuff).  The waitress tells her, get this....that extra sour cream is "an additional charge".  I wanted a little more cheese with the tacos I order...I'm told there's an "additional charge".

My tacos arrive, and I had ordered from here before and been perfectly satisfied, but this time they were really greasy--as in dripping a puddle onto my plate.

The bill arrives and I check it.  Because my wife wanted additional sour cream?
50 cents.
My additional finger full of cheese?  75 cents.

Talk about nickel & dime.  That's the kind of things that motivate your customers to come back.

I called the waitress over after she had dropped the bill off and pointed out the charges.

"Do you know the worst thing about charging customers 50 & 75 cents for additional condiments?  Its the sort of thing that will only aggravate them and the person who is going to get hurt by that is the waitress.  Because they'll be mad and take it out on you by screwing you on your tip."

She looked at me and rolled her eyes.

"Tell me about it."

Something told me this was not news to her.

Later,
Jeff

PS...I gave her a decent tip anyway--not her fault the company has a horrible policy.