Banned for Life from Johnny Rockets Restaurant

For the first time since I left home 10 years ago, my family got together for a nice visit. My brother decided to take the whole family out to eat after a long day at Sea World. My brother was a 6'4" skinhead/biker dude with a bad attitude last time I saw him. Like my father, he would lose his temper over little things and make a huge scene leaving my mom and I humiliated. My brother asked me what restaurants my mom was into and we decided on Johnny Rockets.

Johnny Rockets is a cute little diner in a ritzy shopping center. The doors are on the corner of the building and as you walk up you hear oldies playing on the overheard speakers. We walk up and my mom starts dancing around like a fool with my 3 year old son. My older nieces and nephew are all laughing at her. Now I worked overtime all day and the rest of the family went to Sea World. So everybody was pretty tired but we were all in decent moods and laughing and having a good time. We walked into Johnny Rockets somewhere around 7:30pm and sat ourselves at two large tables. We sat the kids at a table themselves. There were 5 kids and 5 adults between my parents, my brother and his wife and kids, and my son and I. I understand a party of 10 is a large party.

Now, it's pretty well past dinner time and there was maybe one or two other customers in the diner. We were a pretty well behaved party in that we weren't loud or anything. We sat there talking and minding our own business. The waitress came over right away and took all of the drink orders. After about 15 minutes, some of the drinks were delivered and the dinner orders were taken. Twenty minutes later, the waitress delivered the French Fries to everybody that ordered French Fries. Now this struck us as a little unusual, usually side items are delivered along with the main dish. I guess we figured that they were giving us the fries to hold us over while they cooked the main dishes because there were so many of us that it might be awhile. The problem was that now we have food being delivered but all the drinks haven't been delivered yet and the ones that were delivered already needed refills. The waitress was quickly getting herself in over her head. My brother kept his cool up to this point. We were just all making note of how things were going and noticing that our waitress was standing at a table with people that weren't eating and holding a baby for about 10 minutes. Where were the rest of the drinks?

The next problem we had was that the 3 year old and 5 year olds were the last two to get their food, so we were feeding them off of our plates. The waitress came over and asked how everything was and my brother was only a tad bit short when he said "Well, we're doing okay but these two haven't gotten their food yet, those three haven't gotten their drinks yet, and these four cups have been empty for 20 minutes." After a few minutes of arguing back and forth over what was ordered and finding that she shouldn't argue with him when he had so many witnesses as to what was ordered, the waitress acted shocked that all the food hadn't been delivered and they ended up having to make the rest of the food because somehow those orders were skipped over. This was about when my brother bit into the middle of his burger and realized it wasn't cooked all the way. I looked at my mom and I was positive that my brother was going to jump up and start screaming at the waitress. But he kept his cool. Again. At this point, he'd had enough. Thinking that my brother was going to start a shouting match and humiliate the whole family, I helped gather the kids up and start getting everybody outside.

We were all glued to the windows outside waiting to see what my brother did. He walked up to the counter and was talking to the waitress for a minute or two. He did look frustrated, but not overly ticked off. He wasn't yelling or standing in a threatening position or anything. Due to his size, most of his body language is naturally threatening. My mom and I were both shocked and amazed at how well my brother was handling the situation. Next the restaurant manager came out and talked to him for a few minutes and then my brother handed him a credit card. Now we know that the total bill for that dinner was over $100. I was rather ticked off that we were paying for the meal. This was the worst service I had ever received from a restaurant. However, my brother came out and explained the conversation with the manager and the manager gave him a 50% discount on the bill. My brother was satisfied with that resolution and the family wasn't humiliated so we left happy.

My dad said that Johnny Rockets is banned now, mom agreed. And when our family bans a restuarant, it bans it for life. That's sad, Johnny Rockets usually had a great environment, a nice atmosphere and rockin oldies along with it's excellent menu. It is possible that the family will make an exception for Johnny Rockets due to the extenuating circumstances. It was a one time thing that all 10 of us went together, it'll never happen again at Johnny Rockets. It was also late in the evening on a holiday weekend, the restaurant was getting close to closing time. Who knows what will happen? I only know that when the whole family gets together, Johnny Rockets will not be the place to go.