I enjoy taking my family to On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina. In fact, I look forward to it. The restaurants are clean, the food quality is excellent and the value for price paid is fair.

My wife, however, has one problem with On The Border. This single issue has caused us to choose competing restaurants on a number of occasions. Her problem: Servers consistently allow tables to become overrun with used side plates, chip bowls and salsa, sour cream and guacamole ramekins.

During college, my wife worked at her father’s restaurant and learned early on to never leave a table empty-handed when there were items to be cleared. By observing their surroundings and paying attention to detail, the most effective servers would spot discarded straw wrappers, empty appetizer plates or depleted breadbaskets. In this way, the dining tables were kept neat and orderly.

Servers at our local On The Border restaurant appear to be completely unaware of this protocol. With four children, the dishes add up. It’s not long before our table surface disappears behind a pile of used plates, dirty napkins and other clutter. Near the end of the meal, even if we had room for dessert, we wouldn’t have the space for it.

One of the benefits customers cite when justifying the added cost to dine out, is the ability to enjoy a dining experience they would otherwise be incapable of reproducing at home. My family is perfectly capable of producing a cluttered dining table at home. When we dine out, we appreciate an attentive server who maintains a clear table.

Sure, I could stack the used plates, move them to the side of the table and request their removal (I do this routinely at On The Border) but I don’t want to. That’s why I’m out to eat. If I’m going to accept responsibility for stacking plates and clearing table space, I’ll save my money and eat at home.

Restaurant guests appreciate being looked after—even pampered. Servers, by observing their surroundings, paying attention to detail and committing to never leave a cluttered table empty-handed, reduce table congestion and maybe, just maybe will make room for dessert!

What are your dining out pet peeves?

As a customer, do you ever experience a negative unintended consequence of an action that was designed to enhance the customer experience?

Perhaps the bar’s live music is too loud to hold a conversation or the restaurant’s lighting is too dim to easily read the menu. Although these establishments are attempting to design their environments to create desirable sensory experiences, these decisions may be having the opposite effect.

Something similar happened to me over the weekend at an On The Border restaurant during the tableside preparation of its signature appetizer, Guacamole Live.

Tableside food preparation is intended to engage guests in a sensory experience that creates a lasting positive impression and justifies the price premium ordinarily attached to the menu item.

Anticipation was building as the server appeared to my left, opened the tray jack, and lowered a tray containing two whole avocados, diced tomatoes, jalapenos, cilantro, red onions and fresh limes.

Just then, before combining the fresh, aromatic ingredients to create the Guacamole Live appetizer, the server opened a white foil packet containing a disinfectant hand wipe. Immediately, the smell of fresh cilantro and warm tortilla chips was overtaken by the smell of isopropyl alcohol.

I’m not sure whether this was a lapse by the server or a bad decision by management. I can see how management might endorse the use of disinfectant wipes tableside prior to the Guacamole Live presentation to convey sanitary food handling practices to guests. After all, the server will be touching several of the ingredients during the preparation.

If that’s the case, and this was done by design, it’s another example of management making a decision designed to enhance the guest experience (like the volume of background music or the intensity of the room’s lighting) that actually had an unintended negative effect on guest perception.

I can think of many smells that On The Border would hope to convey during its Guacamole Live tableside presentation, but isopropyl alcohol isn’t one of them.

How about you? Have you experienced a negative unintended consequence of an action that was designed to enhance the customer experience?