Swim with the Fishes

We had quite an experience at the Rainforest Cafe recently.  We'd gone down to Chicago and stopped in Schaumburg to go IKEA, and went to Rainforest Cafe for lunch.  Jack and Avery were very impressed with all the live fish circulating in huge tanks all around us.  Though the mechanical gorilla was a bit terrifying for our youngest.

It is quite a process to get a table at this place, but we were seated without too long delay, and checked out the menu.  Veggie burgers are $12?!?!  And they don't even include fires.  All kids menu items are also a la carte.  Well, okay.  It's not like we come here all the time, we're all tired.  We adults order our veggie burgers, and they arrive within the twenty minutes that our server had said was the likely wait time.  But the twelve dollar burgers are cold and mushy, like baby food.  After a bite or two, in a rare move for us, we decide that it is inedible.  

We flag down the server to tell her this, and she apologizes, and brings out the manager.

The manager hears our complaint and says: "Well, those are handmade here, so that's how they come out."

What!?!?!

The Manager's explanation is that since they are hand-made, they taste terrible?!?  And are therefore cold???  Aren't handmade foods supposed to taste BETTER than factory made?  We were amazed that the manager made NO ATTEMPT to say the veggie burger shouldn't normally taste like that, no attempt to suggest that if it were redone, it would come out better.  He took the price of the burgers off our bill, but gave us ZERO reason to think that if we came back to the Rainforest Cafe, we would have a better experience.

It is shocking that this passes for customer service at this chain.

The kids enjoyed their meals of spaghetti with sauce and chicken fingers with fries.  But it is not an inexpensive meal.