You wanna know something I HATE? That singing of “happy birthday” by servers at various chain restaurants. Mike and I do patronize a select few chain places, and I cringe every time I see this happen to some poor schlub.

Years ago, I worked as a cook at Crapplebee’s…not one of my proudest achievements, but a job is a job, yanno? The management there was uber-cheap, and they’d cut half the cook and server staff for the night as soon as it got slow.

One night, a party came in, and it was some poor schlub’s birthday. Now, I would personally be insulted if someone took me to Crapplebee’s for my birthday, but who knows? Some people like microwaved swill.

Anyhoo, they didn’t have enough servers on hand to do the whole *happy birthday* production properly, so they had the balls to come back into the kitchen and ask the three of us cooks still back there to come out and sing.

I flat out refused. I told them that if anyone ever did that to me, I would personally murder them, and I refuse to be a party to anything that I would not want someone else to do to me. They bitched and cried and argued, but I told them that the food doesn’t cook itself, and if we came out and sang, guaranteed they’d come back to the kitchen five minutes later and bitch about the food not being ready. The other two cooks also refused to go out and sing, probably because they knew that I’d be using a French knife you-know-where if they left me alone behind the line while they did this singing crap.
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I took Mike out for his birthday dinner at a place in Portland called Fore Street. Now, that place would not do the singing crap at all, I’m sure, not even if I drained all the money out of our savings accounts and offered it to them. It’s just not that kind of place, and we like it that way. For a special occasion, it’s nice not to even have to HEAR birthday singing crap going on at other tables.
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Finally, here’s a laugh from one of my favorite sites for stuph to laugh at, Planet Feedback. This whiney guy took his kid to the Rainforest Cafe for his third birthday. Now, I’ve heard enough about this place to know not to touch it with a 39 1/2 foot pole…mostly that it’s very kid-friendly. VERY kid-friendly usually not only means excessive noise, but crappy food, as well. Why bother making it any good, when the kids are just gonna throw it around and not eat it? That’s the kind of place I hear that the Rainforest Cafe is, far worse than any other chain place. At least one of our favorite chains, TGIFriday’s, has a separate bar area and adult food on the menu.

Anyhoo, this guy wrote in to complain that the Rainforest Cafe, upon being told that it was his kid’s birthday, didn’t automatically come forward and worship the kid with free gifts and a cake. He claimed that all *other* restaurants do this.

Umm, NO, they DON’T! They will present a cake if you call ahead and arrange it, and it isn’t free. I had actually thought about calling Fore Street ahead of time and seeing if I could arrange a special birthday dessert to be presented to Mike, but decided against it. This is a place that changes its menu every day, depending on what’s good and fresh that day. Who am I to try to tell them what to make; the whole idea is to enjoy what they come up with on any given day. So I decided that it would be better just to see what’s on the dessert menu and have that, with no fanfare. Mike wouldn’t have liked fanfare, anyway.

Anyhoo, HERE is the whiner’s letter. Enjoy it, as well as the great smackdown responses!