Restaurant Review - Shoney's in Farmville, VA

For this review, I'm going to compare two of Shoney's locations in Virginia. While visiting a friend in Harrisonburg, we ate at Shoney's for breakfast. I don't like Shoney's food that they serve for lunch and dinner, but I love their breakfast buffet. Their breakfast buffet includes: sausage gravy, biscuits, bacon, scrambled eggs, French toast, fruit... Everything that you could imagine that you might want for breakfast, they have it on the buffet. We didn't have to wait in line and were quickly seated. We were brought refills as we needed them and the waiter was very friendly. The food was excellent. This Shoney's really makes every effort to make your dining experience an enjoyable one. Now, compare that to the one time I went to the Shoney's in Farmville with a different friend and her daughter.

At the Shoney's in Farmville, VA, we were quickly seated. After the waitress brought us our drinks, she didn't come back for a while. We got our food and sat down. The food was excellent. I have no complaints whatsoever about their food. Their service on the other hand, it needs some work.

When the waitress did return to check on us, I politely asked for a refill. She nodded, went in the back, and never returned. I was thirsty, so much so, that it was making eating difficult. I saw a busboy cleaning off a table nearby and I waved him over. I explained that the waitress had forgotten my refill and asked him to get it for me. About five minutes later, our waitress returned and slammed the drink on the table. I don't remember what I said to her, but I asked something like why was she so angry.

She went off. I didn't even hear most of what she said since she was talking so fast. And I was just sitting there, dumbfounded. All I could say in my defense was how I had only wanted a refill. And Shoney's does have free refills, so, it wasn't as if I was asking for something against their policy. The people around us jumped into it, saying, "I thought the customer was always right." While they didn't intend to further anger her, that's exactly what happened. What really shocked me was this lady behaved this way in front of my friend's six year old daughter.

As we were leaving, I wasn't going to get the manager. After all, everyone is entitled to have a bad day. But then I turned, and saw the waitress watching us. I grabbed the manager, lowered my voice, and told him what had happened. How he had managed to miss her little tirade that happened about fifteen minutes before was beyond me.

She saw me talking to the manager, ran over to us, and started hollering that she was going to kick my ass. The manager placed his arm on the counter to prevent her from getting to me. It was the craziest thing I ever saw. She apparently didn't mean she was going to attack me at that moment since all she had to do was walk around the counter to get to me. I commented that I didn't even live in that town (meaning she couldn't get me later), but really, I wasn't enticing her to fight me at that moment either.

We left, and to my surprise, my friend's daughter wasn't upset. My friend turned the whole situation into a joke to help make the kid not be upset. She was a really good parent. Personally, I wouldn't have thought to have done that. We also joked about it all through our day together.

However, the next day I decided to contact the district manager of Shoney's. It wasn't right the way the whole thing went down. Now, if I had been rude about the delayed refill, I would have deserved at least some of what had happened. But, amazingly, I had remained level headed.

The district manager wasn't surprised to hear from me. I barely mentioned what had occurred until he interrupted me to say that he had already heard about what had happened. He said, "I heard that it was both of you."

"Both?" I echoed. I tried to tell him that he could talk to my friend if he wanted. How the whole situation had disturbed others around us. How I wasn't the one who had to have my path blocked by the manager to be prevented from attacking someone else. But, he didn't want to hear any of it. I was shocked. And I've never returned to that Shoney's. I recommend Shoney's for breakfast, but not the location in Farmville. Unlike Shoney's in Farmville, the Shoney's in Harrisonburg has good food, good service, and asking for a refill didn't mean that you'd be threatened. I guess all Shoney's aren't the same.