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You said a mouthful!

Waiters and diners lay their complaints about each other on the table

John Lehndorff, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 1, 2006 at midnight

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Denver waiters are lazy, greedy incompetents who insult customers, expect big tips and work in restaurants because they aren't qualified to do anything else. Denver diners are boorish, stupid slobs who treat waiters like dirt, demand total attention and then leave a few pennies on the table. Honest, that's what some diners and waiters told us when we recently asked what irritated them the most about each other. Many of the remarks e-mailed to us from diners and waiters were pointed - some were unsuitable for a family newspaper. It's not just us versus them: We received a significant number of pet peeves from waiters about other servers and diners about fellow eaters.

Apparently, nobody's happy with everyone, and everybody's a critic. The intensity regarding service is easy to explain: When it comes to restaurants, we may talk about hot soup, well-grilled steaks and perfect chocolate soufflés, but what really matters to us is how we are treated while we're eating it.

According to the Zagat 2007 America's Top Restaurants guide, "poor service" was listed as the biggest single irritation about dining, noted by 72 percent of the 123,000 people who filled out surveys.

Surprisingly, the most common diner complaint in our admittedly less-than-scientific survey involved language. Diners loathe being referred to as "you guys" and can't stand being asked if they are "still working on it."

As food writer Irena Chalmers noted in Chef magazine: "Guests want to be served, not merely fed."

Waiters' complaints, beyond the usual horrible things people do when eating, boiled down to the shocking lack of respect shown by diners.