Poll: Poll: Restaurant Priorities: Service Vs. Food Quality

[sageoftruth]

Imagine if there were two restaurants in your neighborhood. One had excellent food, but terrible service. I'm picturing things like long lines, and wait staff who treat you like cattle.

Then the other restaurant, has excellent service, but terrible food. The staff show a genuine desire to make you happy, and never mess up orders, but their food is not pleasurable to eat in the slightest, and merely satisfies your hunger.

Assuming there were no other options, which of the two would you find yourself eating at more often.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Food Quality is better than Good Service.

 

[Saelune]

I assume they are otherwise the same price?

I take alot of joy in eating, so the bad service good food would be the more bearable one. But I also have a low bar for good service. Get my order right and dont sing Happy Birthday to me if its my birthday (even more so if not).

 

[Saltyk]

With only those options, I would take good food over good service. I've had good food with shitty service and enjoyed myself just fine. I was usually just annoyed at not getting my drink refilled very often.

Food that tastes like ash is not worth the best service.

That being said, I've generally found that these things go hand in hand. You'll usually have good service and food. And usually the places with bad food have bad service as well.

 

[tippy2k2]

If for some strange reason we fell into an alternate dimension where those are the only two choices, then I would go good food.

Actually, part of that depends. You said "Long lines". How long are said lines? Because I'm not sitting in line for a half hour for a "better" burger. I'll take the bland but good enough place if I have to sit there all day to get some food.

 

[sageoftruth]

If for some strange reason we fell into an alternate dimension where those are the only two choices, then I would go good food.

Actually, part of that depends. You said "Long lines". How long are said lines? Because I'm not sitting in line for a half hour for a "better" burger. I'll take the bland but good enough place if I have to sit there all day to get some food.

For the sake of making it mean something, I'd say long enough to try your patience to some extent. Maybe give it two or three impatient glances at your watch.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

This would be more competitive if the restaurant with good service had at least tasty food. No one wants to eat tasteless gruel no matter how good the service is.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Food Quality, no question. Anyone can get over an inattentive waiter or a shitty bartender, but terrible food destroys the entire experience, dead stop.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

I go to a restaurant for the food not the service, so food quality wins out

 

[gsilver]

I don't usually care about service quality, as long as they don't do stuff like preventing me from leaving, by not showing up after the meal or whatever. One time, I was at a restaurant and flat-out couldn't find the wait staff or anyone to take my cash, and spent a good 5+ minutes standing at the register, after 15 minutes waiting at the table. I never returned, and the restaurant disappeared soon after that.

Though places that do that also tend to have bad food, so it's a wash.

 

[FalloutJack]

Both, the proper medium between speed of the action and efficiency of the action. No other answer will do.

 

[sageoftruth]

And we're still at 100% food quality. Looks like this poll turned out to be a no-brainer.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Food Quality, always. I've only been twice (or maybe thrice?) in the last few years but Iron Age comes to mind: It's a Korean BBQ place where food is cooked on the table in front of you and replenished regularly...in theory. The service has never been terrible but it's always been on the lower end (ie: staff disappearing for long periods, long wait times for drink refills which is a real problem considering I mainly drink water, THEY NEVER GIVE ME KIMCHI! I get it, I'm a white guy but come on, I shouldn't have to beg for more Kimchi!) Anyway, despite the sub-par service, I'm always excited to go to the place and fill my disgusting body with more meat than I should probably brag about.

 

[Vausch]

I'll be honest, the situation where there's a wait and the staff can't be personal with you because of the crowd implies that their food is good and worth waiting for because there's a lot of people there willing to make the wait for said food.

I mean basically as long as the staff take my glass to refill when passing by and don't get mad when I ask for a little customisation to the order, there's not a lot I ask for in service.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

If the bad service is comparable to the bad food, I'll probably end up with the bad food. At least I'd be able to eat the good I ordered instead of eating some random dish they graced me with an hour after I ordered it then died of thirst.

Fast but bland is how Subway became a thing.

 

[Bobular]

If I'm going out to eat its for the service not the food, I have food at home. I've walked out of restaurants because the service was bad, I've never walked out because the food was bad.

 

[happyninja42]

I can't really answer that one. Because neither of your polarized examples are a place that I would eat at. If the food is good, but the service is shit, I won't eat there. I have in fact, stopped going to restaurants EXACTLY because the staff were asshats. Sure their food was good, but fuck those people, they're not getting my money.

In the same manner, I don't care how good your staff is, but the food is terrible, and I regret it a few hours later after sitting on the toilet in agony, or it's just not good to eat, I'm equally not going to give that place my money.

So yeah, my answer to that, seeing as there is no answer for me, is my default answer of : Douglas.