Would You Like Some BBQ Sauce with That?

So an interesting thing happened to me this past weekend when I went out to eat. It was so interesting that I'm still thinking about it and wondering how I should've handled it then & how I should take it now. So I decided to open it up for public opinion...

I went to this restaurant for dinner and I got a particularly energetic & friendly waiter named Doug. I typically like these types of waiters because it makes the meal more enjoyable than with someone who clearly doesn't wanna be there. Yeah, I know they are just being friendly in hopes of a better tip, but it still creates a better atmosphere.

Anyway, I was in the process of ordering my meal, but I didn't know what I wanted to get. As I was looking around the room at other people's meals, I ended up overhearing this guy ordering the chcken fried steak w/ fries. Chicken fried steak is probably my second-most favorite meal after chicken parmesan, so I decided to go ahead and get it. But that's when things got interesting...

"It's BBQ Sauce... you know you want it!!!"

After taking my order, Doug asked me, "Would you like to replace the gravy with BBQ sauce?" My response was, "What?! I can do that? Sure! Let's go, let's go!" I mean BBQ sauce on chicken fried steak instead of white gravy would be the bomb.com right? But after he left, I started to feel a little uneasy. I wasn't positive, but I don't think the other waiter asked his patron whether or not he wanted to substitute gravy for BBQ sauce. Did my waiter racially stereotype me? Did he only offer me BBQ sauce because I'm Black and we use it more than ketchup?

So then, I was a lil' offended. But as I thought about it a some more, I became a bit conflicted. Let's say Doug did offer me BBQ sauce solely because I was Black. Is that bad? I mean, I was definitely excited about the opportunity to swap BBQ sauce for gravy. Probably as excited as this dude a couple of hours before the picture was taken. So his offer actually made my meal more enjoyable. And in the end, isn't that the waiter's main job? To make my meal more enjoyable? That's how they get the big tips, right?

Some time later, Doug came back with my chicken fried steak with the BBQ sauce on top. But he also had with him an extra little container of BBQ sauce in case I wanted to dip some cut up steak pieces in BBQ sauce as well. Hmmmm... Yet another great suggestion from Doug, but dipping a non-nuggeted piece of meat into BBQ sauce is pretty coontastic, so what was he tryna say about me? Again, I was conflicted on how I should react.

So was my service great or horrible? How much should I tip?

So when the time came to pay and tip, I was unsure of how much I should give. Should I hook Doug up with like 20%+ because of his great service (the BBQ chicken fried steak was amazing by the way) or should I gyp him on the tip because he racially stereotyped me and my inordinate desire for BBQ sauce?

In the end I just decided to go with the standard 15% tip. A friend of mine who recently started waiting tables told me that not tipping a waiter actually means they lose money because the bartenders, cooks, hostesses, etc. get a set percentage of the total sales at the end of the day, which comes out of the waiters' tips. I didn't wanna get Doug like that. But before I left, I socked him in the face just in case I later got pissed about the situation and wish I woulda done something...

---

So what do you guys think? Would you be offended? Was Doug being racist by assuming all Black people like BBQ sauce? Or does Doug just really know his customers and know what to recommend? I mean, Doug could have offered BBQ sauce to all of his customers and I just didn't know it. I'm still not sure if I should be angry and report the restaurant to the Better Business Bureau or go on yelp.com and give the place a glowing review...


This blog post is purely fictional. Any similarity or connection to actual people, places or events is purely coincidental. For educational purposes only.


Update: Check out the facebook note version of this blog entry for many more comments on this topic.