The Cuenca restaurant scene: Why are we forced to accept less-than-professional service?

By Ray Horsley

My recent article “Why Cuenca Needs Uber” solicited a good deal of responses, even an entire article from one of Cuenca Highlife’s most prominent writers. With the same idea in mind, that being a minor touch which could improve the already wonderful lifestyles we enjoy here in Cuenca, I’d like to present this two-part set of observations which critique dining out. This one addresses service, the second one, food. As I’ll point out, these problems can be found anywhere, not just in Cuenca. But it’s Cuenca where we live, so here goes.

When I was a kid my parents took us out to restaurants two or three times a year. Over the ensuing decades it seemed everybody was going out to restaurants with ever increasing frequency, possibly to the point that today we only eat at home two or three times a month. This super-high demand produces nothing good for consumers in any market in any country. In the restaurant business we’ve been slipping for years to the point that we now accept as normal both unhealthy food and bad, or at least less-than-professional service. In the US this is compounded with high prices. Here in Cuenca we’re lucky, kind of. At least we don’t have to deal with the exaggerated prices. It might even be that our low prices here are causing the unhealthy food and poor service. But laying aside whatever the cause, as well as whatever reasons there are for such high demand, let’s take an unabashed look at just what these problems are.

Restaurants will be especially hard-hit in the post-coronavirus economy.

1) Misuse and Abuse of Technology – I usually go out to eat with a friend, rarely alone. As such, we’d like to converse. It’s a major problem if the music or television volume is turned up so loud we can’t even talk to each other. Giant video screens are a good example of the ‘misuse’ of technology as I don’t get to pick what’s shown. Somebody else does, and it’s probably not anything I’d like to see. It’s just a distraction from the conversation I’d prefer to enjoy. Music blasting at high volumes is a good example of the ‘abuse’ of technology. It attracts attention and turns heads out on the street, good for the restaurant, bad for the customer’s dining experience which can become tense. I often ask our server to please turn down the volume “just a little” before we order. If he doesn’t do it, we respectfully tell him we might come back another time, and we leave. Oh, and should I really have to scan a barcode just to read your menu? Pushing further use of already overused technology just to be cool is not what we need.

2) Furniture Issues – This comes in several forms. First of all are those small, hard, wooden chairs. I call them “muebles de párvulos”, my translation for “kindergarten furniture”. They’re cheap to buy and easy to clean, but once again at the customer’s expense since they’re really uncomfortable. Next come the dancing tables. Lean forward just a bit and the whole table comes forward threatening to spill your hot tea. Relax and it abruptly rights itself. You’ve just washed your hands, so rather than getting them dirty again trying to insert a folded napkin or something under one leg, you figure you’ll just put up with it. After 10 or 15 revolutions it’s annoying and you’re no longer that sure you want to put up with it.

3) Who’s On First – Taking meal orders usually does not produce problems. Serving them does. I have no idea why the person who takes your order is not the same person who serves it. Using two different people creates the inevitable problem of a new server standing at your table, balancing multiple plates of food and awkwardly asking “Who had the Pad Thai medium spicy with garlic naan and who had the Pad Thai special with naan, no butter?” Uh, what? After getting everything all sorted out trying to remember who ordered what, we’re left trying to remember what we were talking about. The conversation is lost, the experience of dining out dampened.

4) Details: You could call it a cultural thing, I guess, to serve an incomplete set of silverware, i.e. missing the spoon, but this becomes a physical thing when trying to balance peas on a fork, or trying to get a thin, delicious sauce from a bowel to your mouth, with a fork. Another omission is the simple yet essential napkin. I often have to wave my hands in the air to get a server’s attention, all just to ask for a napkin. I always I get one of course, one. But if I have to go to the trouble of summoning a server just to ask for napkins, he or she could at least give me two.

5) Extras: Many restaurants serve juice and other non-alcoholic drinks in trick glasses; tall, thin, triangularly shaped things that really don’t hold much of a drink at all. I’m happy to go along with this strategy which basically doubles the price of a drink, but if I order a second one, please serve it to me, and in a timely fashion. Often it doesn’t come at all. Another extra is dessert. Just like the second drink, I don’t know whether I want to order dessert when I initially order, in this case not till I’ve finished the main course. If I do order dessert, please put it on the bill so I can pay it with no detour. More often than not it’s forgotten until I’ve been charged, partially. The server then disappears with my card. After a long wait I have to abandon whomever I’m dining with, hunt down my server and sort it out. It leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

6) Timing: Nearly all servers, at their own convenience, approach your table at some point interrupting with “Hey, how is everything.” Once again, your conversation is broken up. Servers should be available, frequently scanning the room, but only approaching your table at YOUR convenience, not theirs, if a need arises. Another timing issue is the serving of main dishes. If one dish is ready long before the other then keep it hot in the kitchen until all dishes can be served simultaneously or at least one right after the other. Maybe even advise the cook that he or she should improve their timing. In any event it’s awkward for all customers seated at a table if one customer is served first. Should he go ahead and eat while the others look on, hungry? Or should he sit there and let it get cold, leaving others at the table feeling guilty? A third timing issue comes with the clearing of the table. Too many servers get too enthusiastic with this phase of serving. “Hey, that’s my coffee! Don’t take it away!” Much better than assuming and grabbing is simply asking “Is there anything you’d like me to clear from the table” and let the customer decide.

7) Screaming Kids: I love small family owned restaurants, but not when they skimp on child care. A public restaurant is a professional business just like a bank or a government office, none of which should allow screaming two-year-olds to hang out alongside their working parents. Older children parked in front of a screen is not quite as bad, but still, it leaves me feeling guilty that a child is being neglected so I can eat lunch.

8) Pets: I was once thrilled driving my Camaro SS through Mexico where I could take Tina, my precious little mutt and loyal friend, into restaurants. They even brought her freshly baked tortillas. But all of this stayed on the restaurant floor. Here in Cuenca I’ve seen dogs sitting on cushioned chairs and benches with pillows. I can’t imagine these dogs use toilet paper, and I know they’re not wearing any underwear. This is just gross, and unhealthy. Admittedly it’s a customer-based problem, but restaurants could help by discouraging this thoughtless practice, legal or not.

9) The Cell Phone: More customer-based problems arise with cell phone conversations, especially those of us who believe you have to speak s-l-o-w-l-y and LOUDLY. No, I’m really not interested in your nephew’s cracked toilet bowel in New Hampshire. Once again, not a restaurant problem per se, but something servers could help with by politely discouraging this discourtesy.

10) Alcohol: Few activities are more enjoyable than an excellent meal accompanied by an excellent craft brew or a fine bottle of wine. But there are a few standards which should be observed. With craft beer served in so many places and so many varieties of it, there should be a system in place of letting me taste at least two of them before I commit to a full glass. I don’t want to feel like I’m asking for some big favor if I request this, a risky endeavor which sometimes ends with a condescending “no”. It’d also be nice if there were some way to do the same with wine but there isn’t, at least none that I know of. Nonetheless, no server has any business bringing me a bottle of wine which he or she opened back in the kitchen somewhere out of my sight. For all I know I could be paying $65 for a fine Malbec which is really nothing more than an empty Malbec bottle that was refilled with some $5 budget carton of San Sebastian.

Looking at the big picture there are many aspects of dining out in Cuenca which I love. First and foremost is the absence of the ridiculously aggressive spectacle tipping has become over the last fifty years in the US. At least we don’t have to deal with that. I also love to see the same servers, some of whom I know by name and do their jobs quite well. This, too, is in stark contrast to our high-turnover in the US. And I’ve grown to love the rhythm of the city. Restaurants are open during well-known hours, and then they close. Few of us have any business looking for a steak-and-shake burger at 2:00AM anyway. Finally, here in Cuenca as in all of the Spanish speaking world, we have a saying which removes the awkwardness which arises when new customers, walking past those already dining, gawk at their food. We make eye contact and say “buen provecho”, even to perfect strangers. There’s no real translation for this into English and it’s another custom I miss on trips back to the US.

In any case I’d like to challenge anyone interested, just as I challenge myself, to find a restaurant which let’s me: converse (no T.V. or blasting music) in comfortable chairs at a stable table, just one server please, a complete place setting including a spoon and napkins, meals served together without neglecting extra requests, no screaming kids, no dirty dogs and no obnoxious cell phone users. In spite of everyone of these being a no-brainer, simple and inexpensive to achieve, I find absolutely every dining experience includes at least 3 of these annoyances, especially those from the first five or six in my list.

¡Buen provecho!