For more waiter run-ins with rudeness, take a look at best-selling author Steve Dublanica's books:
Keep the Change: A Clueless Tipper's Quest to Become the Guru of the Gratuity Amazon.com
Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip -- Confessions of a Cynical Waiter (P.S.) Amazon.com
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I went to a resturant that a couple of my friends have been going to for years...they got to know the owner and said the food was wonderful. My husband and I went on a slow mid-week night. This restruant was a house converted into a bistro. There were 3 other parties in in the same room as us, 3 people at the bar and a couple in the other room. There were 3 waiters that evening and a bartender...so no one should be "in the weeds". Our drink order was taken while we looked at the menu. Not sure what happened to the waiter...we could see our drinks on the bar, but no waiter to serve them. The bartender was talking to his 3 customers and my husband finnally went to the bartender to ask if these were our drinks and brought them back to the table. This should have been our clue to drink up and leave...but no we decided to stay. The waiter came out took our order without commenting on how we got our drinks. The food was excellent. It came out while still hot (we thought it might be cold after our drink incident). We finished our meal and noticed the owner was going to every customer including the ones at the bar asking how they were etc. He knew them each my name and inquired about family members; these customers were obviously regular customers. We sat there watching this for 15 minutes or so....with our dirty dishes on our table. We were waiting for the waiter to come back and ask us if we wanted dessert or coffee. The owner passed our table several times ... did not greet us...asked if we needed anything... nothing...Finally as we were getting up to ask for coffee, the waiter or just leave (we were so mad we didn't know what we were going to do) The waiter appeared with our bill, placed it on the table (without asking if we wanted anything else) and left without picking up one plate, cup or fork...We were was furious...my husband saw the look in my eyes and said what are you going to do? I started to write a note on the bill explaining the lack of tip..Advising the waiter that both my husband (a bartender) and I (a poker dealer) are in the service industy and leave a tip of 15% even when service isn't the best as we know what it is like to live off of tips...but he went too far. "We want you to know we didn't forget the tip but made a conscious decision not to leave you one." is how I started the note. "After having to get our our drinks, not checking on how our meal was, not clearing the dishes and finally not asking if we wanted coffee or dessert we felt you didn't deserve our hard earned money. P.S. Let the owner know he was equally as rude not introducing himself or welcome us as new customers." I have never done this before or after. My husband thought I was taking this too far - thought just not leaving a tip was enough. But I wanted the waiter to know why he wasn't getting a tip, and not think we were just really cheap customers! Once my husband knew what I was doing,and he could not talk me out of this course of action he scrambled out and got the car for a fast get-away :) Needless to say we have never been back and our friends never told the owners about us...they were too embarassed about the service and secretly i think annoyed with us for doing what we did.