If you live in the Baltimore area, don't eat at the Crab Shanty!

Okay, so I feel just the tiniest bit bad about this because the Crab Shanty used to be one of my favorite seafood restaurants, but wrong is wrong and it's not be tolerated.  Today, after our group training, we headed to the Crab Shanty to have lunch (for those who may not be sure, the Crab Shanty is located in Ellicott City).  Everything was going well, until one of my co-workers noticed that there was a gnat in her salad!  Of course, we called over our server, who took the salad away.  Not five minutes later, out comes the manager, salad in hand, tells my co-worker that the black thing with legs in her salad is not a gnat and is, instead, a bit of spice, and lets her know that she can feel free to eat it.  Um, no.  Of course, she didn't want to eat it, told him she felt uncomfortable with taking his word that that buglike apparition wasn't, in fact, a bug, and asked him to take it away.  The manager was clearly peeved and huffed away.  We saw him later, walking around to all the other tables, asking if each were enjoying their meals ... he never approached us again.  Several minutes later, our server came back to our table and asked if my co-worker would like to order something else.  She said she would not. 

On we went with our meals, joking about how we'd all better make sure our own lunches were bug-free.  When the check arrived, we were shocked to see that my co-worker's salad price was there, still.  We called the server over and my co-worker asked her to remove the charge, both because we all knew there was a bug in that salad and because she'd sent it back without touching it and hadn't ordered anything else - she had received no food, so she had no idea why she should pay.  Seemed like a reasonable request to remove the charge.  The server went off to do so.  She came back in a minute and informed us that the manager refused to have the charge removed because he had told my co-worker that the bug was a spice.  We gasped!  We couldn't believe it.  Not only had he denied to take away the charge, but he had, in fact, boxed up the salad and expected her to take it home with her!!!  Well, she went ballistic (as I would have) and told him that he had lost his mind if he thought that she was going to take home a salad that she believed had a bug in it and eat it and pay for that bug-infested salad!  (Not to mention whatever other things they'd probably done to that salad when they'd brought it back to the kitchen.)  At this point, my deputy director and I were about to remove earrings and whatnot.  I'm thinking, "OMG.  It's fid'n to pop off up in here!!!!"  The big boss (the director) quietly begged the manager to remove the charge before he had even more hoopla to deal with.  He finally gave in.

Okay, but at this point?  I'm pissed.  That was no less than ridiculously awful service.  To offer someone a meal with a bug in it and then expect the person to pay?  And take the meal home?  I've never had such happen to me.  I've sent things back just because I didn't like the way they tasted and not had to pay and my co-worker hadn't even taken one bite.  Not acceptable and not to be borne.

I will not eat at the Crab Shanty again.  And, if you have any sense, you won't, either.  (Unless you'd like bugs with that.)

Comments

[rachel]

wow, that is horrible customer service! Yuck!

[Tonyette]

I honestly despise bad customer service...thank you for letting us know!! I will be sure to tell everyone NOT to go there!

[Beezers]

That is ridiculous! I've only been there once before, but I'm totally not going back!

[Ian]

Assuming there ARE motorcycle spots free at the time, your argument makes some sense.

That being often not the case:
1 motorcycle in a full sized parking space is no worse, congestion-wise, than 1 car carrying 1 person in the same space.

Motorcyclists will often share a parking space with other motorcyclists.

They leave plenty of room for the cars on either side. You're not going to get any door dings from them, and they won't from you.