The Question You Should Ask Yourself Before Sending Restaurant Food Back

Eating at a restaurant is an activity that can feel so simple and yet so luxurious. For fair reasons, though, it can be significantly more costly than preparing food at home. After all, someone else is doing the cooking and serving. And, let's face it: it's not always easy to replicate a restaurant-quality meal. It's pampering that comes at a premium.

For those with tighter schedules and budgets, eating out at a restaurant is a treat. As such, it comes with an expectation for excellence. And sometimes, even the best of us may deem anything that falls short of that expectation to be unacceptable.

So when your order isn't what you had hoped for, you are faced with a choice: grin and bear it, or try to send it back in hopes of something more suited to your desires. If you're inclined to the latter choice, you may want to ask yourself a certain question before making the request.

Ultimately, your choice when dealing with a disappointing dish should be guided by the question: Is it worth letting go ... or letting go to landfill?

Food waste is a critical — and mostly unnecessary — issue in the United States. "By nature, food is imperfect; the more we demand perfection in our food, the more food goes to waste," Dana Gunders, executive director of the U.S. food waste reduction and management nonprofit ReFED, said to Food & Wine in 2022. According to ReFED, a staggering 35% of the food produced in the United States goes to waste, accounting for 4% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions, using 14% of freshwater, and taking up the most real estate in 24% of landfills.

Even the most seasoned chefs understand that cooking is as much art as it is science. In other words, not every dish is going to be the pinnacle of perfection at all times, but that doesn't mean they're intolerable. By accepting the reality that food may have flaws and focusing on the positive qualities, we can still enjoy them while minimizing our consumer footprint.

Of course, there are obvious overriding exceptions. If something is unpalatable to a point of no return, whether it be unexpectedly hot wings or a bone-dry steak, you deserve a suitable replacement. Or, if you're allergic to something mistakenly left in the dish after you asked for it to be removed, that's more than a fair reason to speak up. 

In the case that you see fit to send food back at a restaurant, ask your server calmly and kindly. Alternatively, if you have the wiggle room in your wallet, consider asking to wrap up your meal to give to someone else who could still enjoy it and ordering a different item for yourself.

While individual choices won't singlehandedly solve the pervasive food waste crisis, they contribute to its impact. It's crucial that we ask ourselves whether we really need to discard our meal altogether in pursuit of something a little more suited to our preferences.