Red Robin Restaurant Review Update

 Like I have said in past reviews and to everyone that knows me, Red Robin has been my favorite go to joint for years and years, until today.
There is this question that has been floating around forever that asks, “Can one person really make a difference?” The answer is yes, and in this case that is not a good thing because that one person ruined a perfectly delicious relationship.
Kari and I went to Red Robin in the Vancouver Mall area to have lunch and celebrate my birthday. Our waitress seemed to be a terrible person, not to mention a bad hostess. I like to look at the bright side of things and tried to put myself in her shoes as in she may have be having a bad day, which is never an excuse in a customer service setting. Nevertheless, I did not pay too much attention to the bad attitude. The annoying part for me was the fact that she kept forgetting things and I had to ask for the same items 2 or 3 times; once or twice is ok, but after that there is a level of not caring on her part and annoyance on mine.
Our waitress made Kari cry. We have been eating at Red Robin for 20 years, and as dumb as it sounds when we were looking to areas to move before settling here, restaurants like Red Robin were part of the decision making factor. Kari likes to order their crispy chicken salad with tortilla strips, which it doesn’t normally come with. She has been ordering this salad for as long as I can remember, and at lots of different locations. Never once has it been an issue until today. Our waitress informed Kari that the salad doesn’t come with tortilla strips but she would add them on. Perfect! However, the rudeness and forgetfulness continued through our meal, but we survived.
Kari asked for more tortilla strips, and the waitress said that she couldn’t do that without reprinting our ticket, which we did not have yet. What? The waitress explained that she just transferred from the Mill Plain location and that this location does a lot of things wrong (I do not want to be a captive audience while you trash your employer to complete strangers while at work). If we wanted more tortilla strips she would have to put an order in, redo our ticket, and charge us $0.75. Kari, who was shaken but surprisingly calm, explained that she has been ordering this same salad for years and at no point was she ever hassled or charged for tortilla strips. The waitress said that wasn’t her problem and explained that things done wrong in the past do not need to continue in the future.
Kari started to cry as she was lectured, and I was speechless as to what was happening. I was pissed, but I did not yell or get into a confrontation with the waitress because that would not have helped anything at that point. Instead, I asked for boxes to go; actually I asked 3 times in total because her memory did not get any better with this ordeal.
When our waitress came back she brought a large to go container filled with tortilla strips, as in she was trying to prove a point. Kari refused them because she did not want to pay for them and at that point Kari just wanted to leave. Our server said that even though it was against the rules we could have these at no charge because she was “just going to throw them away anyway”, and she would not charge us for the original tortilla strips per her manager.
My burger was free, because it is my birthday. I wasted my free burger because I did not get to enjoy the experience of my favorite restaurant with my perfect date. Plus I did not get my free birthday ice cream because we did not to be there anymore. Total waste…bad service, bad atmosphere, bad experience!
Was this experience enough to make me hate Red Robin? Yes! Will I feel like that forever? I don’t know; we have 20 years together. Maybe if we do go back it will be to the Mill Plain location because I know that waitress is not there (I know because she told us while bad mouthing her current employer).