It’s very rare that I have bad service at restaurants. But the sad part is that when I do have bad service, most of the time, I tend to be with my girlfriends. Why would this be the case? Is it because restaurants don’t take young women dining together seriously? They think that couples dining together are preferable as diners at their restaurant, which is why when Chris and I go out together, we rarely get poor service? My friends and I were at The Progress in San Francisco last night, and not only were we seated in this terrible alcove area at the front of the restaurant by the bar where we couldn’t even share a full table (my second friend had her own half table in our dumb alcove), but our server was constantly asking us if we were ready to order when it was clear we were not. We were being rushed to order everything from drinks to mains to dessert. The rush was very obvious, and the snobbery of our server was undeniable. He really just couldn’t wait to get us our bill and get us out of the restaurant.

To get back at him, we tipped him only 12 percent. He was a jerk, and while he may just stereotype us as being cheap Asians for not giving him at least 15 percent (really, 18 to 20 percent seems like the expectation nowadays as annoying as it is), what he really should know is that he was unnecessarily snooty and did not exhibit a good server attitude. The food was good, but fairly overpriced as most new restaurants in San Francisco are now, and not good enough to warrant even considering a second visit. We won’t be back there.