'AITA for walking out of a restaurant after the waitress was snotty about tap water?' UPDATED
"AITA for walking out of a restaurant after the waitress was snotty about tap water?"
This has been bugging me for a few days. Went to dinner with my wife recently to a relatively nice place ($30-$45 pp mains). Quick side note, we're both in our 30s and both work in hospitality and worked in kitchens for years, so we're generally on our best behavior at restaurants.
Anyway. We sit down and are greeted by a young woman (early 20s) who drops some menus and asks if we want to start with still or sparkling water. I looked at the drink menu and saw the still was $9 and the sparkling was $12. Neither of us care that much about fancy water, so I said tap is fine. She gave a sort of grimace and a small noise.
I asked "Is there something wrong with the tap water?" She replied "It's very hydrating." Followed by an awkward silence. This was very strange to me so I essentially repeated the question with slightly different verbiage and once again got "It's very hydrating." I looked at her with an expression of "please explain." More silence.
Eventually, I asked "What does that mean?" She said, with no emotion: "It will hydrate you." Now I'm feeling weird about the whole situation. And I flat out asked, with no expression or connotation: "What's wrong with the tap water?"
You guessed it! "It's very hydrating." I stood up and told my wife "We're going." Before my wife even realized what was going on, the waitress said "Have a blessed day" with the smuggest smile I've ever seen. Am I in La-La-Land here? The triplicated response seems really dumb for someone who is a 'professional' at hospitality.
Anyway- my wife suggested I took it too far by leaving. In my opinion, I didn't take it far enough and should have spoken to a manager. But life's short- and I didn't. AITA?
People had plenty to say.
neoprenewedgie wrote:
I think the waitress was a spy. You accidentally spoke the code phrase "Is there something wrong with the tap water?" and she gave you the confirmation code "it's very hydrating." You were supposed to give her the microchip, that's why she kept giving you the confirmation code.
Georgejefferson19 wrote:
NTA that waitress was judging you because you don't want to spend $9-12 on water.
FritosRule wrote:
NTA, next time instead of a tip leave her a note that says “money can be exchanged for goods and services.”
stephnetkin wrote:
NTA, A good restaurant is in business to provide guests with a good dining experience. This waitress is chasing off good business. I'm fairly certain her manager would like to know that this waitress is damaging their business and their reputation. That waitress has no business working in a fine dining establishment.
Impossible_Rain_4727 wrote:
NTA. It is more than likely that she was judging your choice, thinking you were cheap. Although there is another possible scenario: You know when something is objectively bad but you're not allowed to criticize it, so you find a way to compliment something random. Like you're at a friend's house, and they've just cooked a meal that doesn't taste very good.
You can't bring yourself to criticize their cooking directly because you don't want to hurt their feelings, so you say something like "Wow, your presentation is really something else tonight!" or "These plates look so fancy."
That could be what happened here. Their tap water may not have been great quality or it could have had an odd taste. As the waitress couldn't think of a positive way to describe the tap water, she just went with "hydrating."
Update from OP after reading the comments:
UPDATE 1: My wife was cool with leaving. We have a very equitable relationship. If one of us says to the other "we're leaving," or any variation of that, we trust each other to know we made the right call and will figure out the rest later.
UPDATE 2: This is in America. I'm from near there and have had the tap water in the vicinity several times, without issue.
UPDATE 3: Types of water. In my area, it's pretty normal to have 3 choices of water at a restaurant. 1: Still. This is fancy water in a 1L glass bottle, with no bubbles. This was the $9 option. 2: Sparkling water in a 1L glass bottle was $12. 3: Tap water - free. This option was not presented to me, but is a choice if the diner asks.