How long is a reasonable wait for carry out? 15 minutes? 30? Well, we waited close to an hour for our carryout at Houlihan's. At no point did someone come over and update us on our order. We were not there during weekend dinner or any particular rush. So what happened?
We placed our order with a bartender who was prompt and made recommendations. His initial friendliness is what left us shocked at what happened next. After sitting and waiting over 30 minutes after paying (and tipping), we still had not received our food. We did not even given an update on whether our food was coming soon. So we asked another bartender what the status of our food was. Turns out the food had been sitting there (not kept warm) for awhile. Why? The bartender who took our initial order had left. He did not tell anyone about our carryout order.
So after this wait, the fish tacos we ordered was inedible (cold) and one order of our fries. Houlihan's was nice enough to remake the fish tacos, but there was no offer to remake any of the other dishes we had. Does no one realize that cold fries means soggy fries? Plus we were driving home! That's why carryout needs to be given to the diners as soon as possible (so you have time to drive home too)! Anyways, we ended up with remade fish tacos and new soup (not made to order so easy to replace). At this point a simple carryout has translated to an hour wait.
While Mike (the manager) was apologetic about us having to wait. There was no offer of anything else to make up for what happened. We did not ask because at that point we just wanted to get home and eat dinner. He implied that he'll speak with the bartender, but if I do go back and see him. I will not be tipping.