When I managed in restaurants, I made it a policy to not give freebies to assholes - the more shameless they were the more of a dick id be about it, to the point of loudly comping deserts or giving diacounts to tables for “being such a pleasure to have dine with us.”
Sometimes id give a nearby table a 10% off (a discretionary ‘whenever’ discount we had programmed in, usually unde locals/ friends or similar) then ‘apologizing’ for the disruption caused to their experience.
It worked, too. Had some of the most well known ‘difficult customers’ in town trained to being over the top nice to my staff, in hopes of getting the discount. I also had a lot of the die hard assholes to the point where theyd just leave if they saw me working because they knew their crap wasnt going to play.
Reminds me of the story of the girl who worked at subway, and she would greet everyone with huge smiles except for That One Rude Guy, who got a completely neutral expression and no chat. After a few weeks of noticing his effect on her, he apologized profusely and promised to change his attitude.
When I managed in restaurants, I made it a policy to not give freebies to assholes - the more shameless they were the more of a dick id be about it, to the point of loudly comping deserts or giving diacounts to tables for “being such a pleasure to have dine with us.”
Sometimes id give a nearby table a 10% off (a discretionary ‘whenever’ discount we had programmed in, usually unde locals/ friends or similar) then ‘apologizing’ for the disruption caused to their experience.
It worked, too. Had some of the most well known ‘difficult customers’ in town trained to being over the top nice to my staff, in hopes of getting the discount. I also had a lot of the die hard assholes to the point where theyd just leave if they saw me working because they knew their crap wasnt going to play.
Reminds me of the story of the girl who worked at subway, and she would greet everyone with huge smiles except for That One Rude Guy, who got a completely neutral expression and no chat. After a few weeks of noticing his effect on her, he apologized profusely and promised to change his attitude.