Long but worth reading! As a hospitality professional who is tasked to meet guest expectations, and go on an beyond in creating memorable experiences, along the way, I have come to understand that in order to accomplish such task, it’s essential to create expectations and standards for my own hospitality experiences. Implementing this habit has allowed me to deliver exceptional quality service while discovering and understanding the do’s and don’ts of fine dinning. With that said, I will begin my review. My husband and I went to Mankas for dinner last Saturday. unfortunately, we had a very disappointing and unpleasant experience. Before I get into details I have to mention that my husband and I together have close to 40 years of experience in the hospitality industry. My husbands strengths and knowledge are in F&B/FINE dinning, my strengths are service and guest retention. Our initial (first touch)experience at Mankas was great, the greeting and seating was warm and welcoming, however, things turned sour and uncomfortable when we asked our server for wine glasses. We brought our own wine (2013 Silver Oak) for which we had to ask for glasses, they’re weren’t offered nor brought to us automatically. When our waiter returned with the wine glasses my husband immediately notice they were for white wine. Before he began to pour the wine my husband stopped to ask for Bordeaux glasses, or any red wine glass. We were not prepared to hear our waiters response, he said no! Both my husband and I were confused because we thought we were currently dinning at a “fine dining” restaurant, so, you have certain needs, wants, and expectations. Nonetheless, in disbelief we attempted to get over the situation and enjoy our dinner. Moments after, another waiter walking by our table spotted our wine and glasses. With a concerned tone of voice she asked if we preferred red wine glasses. Without hesitating and throwing the other waiter under bus, we accepted . While we were happy that someone with knowledge acknowledged that we had nice wine that needed appropriate glasses, we couldn’t avoid feeling upset that our waiter had denied us the right wine glasses. By the end of the night we came to the assumption that our waiter had stereotyped us. I find it hard to believe a fine dinning facility would provide such bold inconsistent service, or hire a waiter that has no clue which glasses are to be used with x wine. That’s basic fine dinning skills. Because we know the industry so well we understood the following. Latinos have a horrific reputation on tipping, they either don’t, or and when they do, is less than 10%, yes, terrible! As professionals we tend to steer away from making assumptions of this nature, but, after we replayed our dinning experience we remembered that our waiter not only denied us the right glasses. throughout our dinner his service was mediocre, bare minimum. He hardly checked on us, he waited until the end of our dinner to offer my husband more water. Like I said, basic dining skills, I was drinking sparkling water and was done with it before I even got to my entree, he never offered me more. With that said, It’s very hard not make assumptions if your waiter makes no effort to provide basic f&b service. Nonetheless, our bill was close to $100, we tipped 30%!! We could have done less, but we chose to send a message instead, that is to change perception and put a stop to stereotyping! We are not asking for a refund, free visit etc. We also don’t want to come across as the picky hospitality pros, we believe is far more important to share feedback because that will allow an establishment to make the correction moving forward. We in concept of there or always room for improvement. And if we’re victims of stereotyping or not. It’s very important to understand that in hospitality, no matter who comes to your door, you will always deliver...
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