I know where they train

[Sandiercy]

I was watching the Food Network yesterday and came across a show that infuriates me to no end. The show is called Restaurant Stakeout. The gist of the show is that a famous restaurant owner comes in and fixes the restaurant of all its employee problems and such. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restaurant_Stakeout

The host of the show, Willie Degel, tells everyone that is working at these restaurants that "the customer is always right" and to always treat the customer this way. If the customer doesnt like the food, well the customer is always right. If the waiter gets mad at the customer (usually well deserved), the customer is always right. The worst part is he usually is talking to the manager when he says these things and always always sides with the customer.

Willie Degel is the surgeon removing the spines of managers everywhere, I demand that he is removed.

If you watch the show, then you totally know what I mean.

[Joyius]

I personally like Gordon Ramsey better, he'll side with the restaurant over a customer any day :3.

[MystyGlyttyr]

Sometimes when I see these sorts of people, I want to go where they work and start demanding shit for free because I deserve it, and clearly, I must be right, because I'm the customer am I not?

...but then I just stay home and watch the TV.

[celticgrl]

I was watching this tonight. I was bored seemed like it might be interesting then I see him send in a party of seven and in the ear piece the one person at the table is wearing he tells them to give the waitress a hard time I was just like WTFF!!!!

[fireheart]

I was watching this tonight. I was bored seemed like it might be interesting then I see him send in a party of seven and in the ear piece the one person at the table is wearing he tells them to give the waitress a hard time I was just like WTFF!!!!

Wait...he did WHAT?!

Sounds like he's deliberately trying to set things up for drama.

[raudf]

Wait...he did WHAT?!

Sounds like he's deliberately trying to set things up for drama.

Drama raises ratings and gets another season of the show sold, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he'd encourage it. If I'd been the waiter/ress, I'd have created more drama by waiting until they started shit and walking out while the show was filming.

This does make me wonder how many of those "problem employees" were actually problems or just good staff sick of being treated like soulless robots.

[PepperElf]

Willie Degel is the surgeon removing the spines of managers everywhere, I demand that he is removed.

You know, by his own motto... you'd be right!

[firecat88]

There are some things I agree about on the show (No helping yourself to the bar's wares when you're on the clock, don't show up 10 minutes late for your shift purely because you felt like it), but overall I really dislike this show. The planted SC scenarios, the planted employees, not to mention the hypocrisy.

The guy talks about customer service being the most important thing, but I've seen the reviews for his restaurants and the biggest complaint, besides the fact that a steakhouse should know how to make a good steak and his places apparently don't half the time, is that the customers get treated like crap by the staff. Some people even mentioned not being allowed through the door because they were wearing the wrong kind of shirt/shoes/pants/whatever.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

There's a better one, I believe it's called Mystery Diners? They aren't trying to recreate the place, but figure out where a money sink is. (For example, they typically do bars and find out that one of the bartenders is comping way too many drinks, drinking themself, dropping payment in the tip jar rather than the cash register.) That one I'm better with than Restaurant Stakeout.

There is another one, on I believe Spike, that is the same premise - though I believe just with bars. This guy is a lot better than the Restaurant Stakeout guy. He only sends in under cover people to test certain things (like trying to get by without ID, things that would get the restaurant into HUGE trouble if missed or handled wrong.) It's pretty interesting.

Though I still prefer Restaurant Impossible and Gordon Ramsay's show with the restaurants.

[auntiem]

The one on Spike is called Bar Rescue - one of the reasons I don't like that one is he always changes the name / atmosphere of the bars he is rescuing and about half the time gets it way wrong - like changing a pirate bar to a corporate martini bar for example.
Restaurant Stakeout - some of the people he sends in he really pushes it to the point I'm shocked the waiter doesn't get fed up and kick them out. The difference between this show and Mystery Diners is that MD someone always gets fired and RS that rarely happens - once when someone got caught stealing, but the manager caught it and fired the person before the show had to step in. RS - he mentors the "problem employees" one on one so there isn't the across the board firing.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

The one on Spike is called Bar Rescue - one of the reasons I don't like that one is he always changes the name / atmosphere of the bars he is rescuing and about half the time gets it way wrong - like changing a pirate bar to a corporate martini bar for example.

Ah, I never watched an episode so far in that I saw how he "fixed" the bar. I just watched long enough to see what the problems were. I always lost interest lol.

That sounds really stupid, imho. If I wanted a good ol' Irish Pub and someone tried to change it into a corporate martini bar in the name of "saving my business" I'd probably just let the business trash.

[suburbandecay]

The one on Spike is called Bar Rescue - one of the reasons I don't like that one is he always changes the name / atmosphere of the bars he is rescuing and about half the time gets it way wrong - like changing a pirate bar to a corporate martini bar for example.

I actually agreed with that one (the name of the bar afterwords, not so much). His only goal was to bring in money. At that location, catering to the business crowd made the most business sense. For the most part, the guy is pretty good about making changes for the good of the business and not for TV drama. Besides, the only place a pirate bar is going to pull in good business is a college campus or similar locale.

[auntiem]

The problem with that one though is that he changed way too far out of the owner's comfort zone and it changed back just a few weeks later. Personally, he was right to go after the corporate crowd (due in most part to location) but I was really hoping it would have gone down the opening scene in the Monty Python movie "corporate pirate direction" - that I think would have been a very clever compromise that everyone could have lived with.
The bar he changed into the Murphy's Law was a perfect fit - so he has shown that he can be clever.

[Zapper]

If you can legally get him classified as a spine, he'll simply remove himself.

[Jetfire]

I haven't watched many eps of Restaurant Stakeout; and admittedly I do disagree with a lot of his theories.

That said, asking one of his plants to "Be hard on the waitress" is not out of line. Theoretically the show and the host are there to evaluate how the staff handles a restaurant. And like it or lump it, they ARE going to get sucky customers. How the waitress deals with that sort of customer would be really telling (and for the show producers it does raise the important 'drah-ma!' factor).

My own favorite of that type of show is the old FoodNetwork.ca show "Restaurant Makeover" (which predated all of these shows save Restaurant Nightmares I think. . The format has been resurrected up here in the form of "Restaurant Takeover" now, where they have 5-10 minutes at the start where the chef and designer go 'undercover' to check the place out before they fall into the Makeover pattern. Best of all, they still have the same contractor, Igor, doing the demo/rebuild work; He's the real start of both series IMO.