How would you deal with this?

[April]

I've been going nuts at home lately, so tonight i decided to head to village in to grab dinner and read. I'm odd, I LOVE to go out to eat by myself

Anyhow, I get there, and I recognize the hostess. She is one of the parents at my daughters school. I don't know her on a first name basis but we say "hi, how are you" and all that stuff. I do see her every day.

So I was seated at my table. i decide what I want,close the menu and start to read. About 10 minutes later, with no server having come by (I'm in the corner) the hostess takes my order for coffee with cream and a burger.

This time I wait so long that I'm about to get up and find someone, when she comes back with my coffee, sans cream. I ask fi I can get cream and she says "Sure" wanders off, never comes back. about 5 minutes later (I do know the time, the clock was directly in front of me) I snag another server and ask him to bring me some cream. He does, and my food comes out about the same time.

I start eating and reading. I finish my meal and still no one has come by since the time I first got my food. I'm not really in a hurry so I'm trying to go with the flow, and be patient even though I'm getting annoyed. I finally do get my check and I really feel like I should speak to a manager but I start feeling awkward because I see this woman every school day, at least twice.

I ended up just paying and tipping her a decent amount (not what I would tip for great service, but more than I felt she deserved)

So how would you deal with poor service from someone you see quite often? The store was very nearly dead slow with only a few tables. The employees that I counted were 3 servers, a manager and a hostess, all to deal with about 6 tables.

[Bright_Star]

I would have said something even IF I knew the person. You know what they say...familiarity breeds contempt.

[Becks]

I think you should've said something. There's no reason for sucky service.

[BookstoreEscapee]

If she was the hostess, who was supposed to be serving you? You could have mentioned to the manager that no actual server came to you, except the one you flagged down yourself, and the hostess ended up taking your order instead. It sounds like she was doing someone else's job in the first place. That said, she did flake a bit on that when she didn't bring your cream when you asked.

[NightAngel]

Alternately, if she was the hostess you could have asked her who was supposed to be serving you? In most restaurants the hostess has a seating chart with the server's names on it.

If it was her then you simply could have asked the manager why the hostess is expected to double time as a server? This could be done so that the blame is not placed on her directly but you still get to talk about the poor service you received.

[Giggle Goose]

Did the hostess apologize for the bad service? If I was her, I would have been embarassed.