I think my worst experience so far was at a Friday's in downtown Philly (adding to my dislike of Philly). My wife and I were there for several weeks on a work project, and had sworn off this Friday's years earlier from a bad experience.
Previously, the waitress served the wrong salad twice after taking forever, and wrong drinks. This was on our lunch break from work, so we didn't have time to deal with it all. The manager just brushed it off as "she's really busy!" even thought the restaurant was nearly empty.
Anyway, years later, when back in Philly again, we decided to give it another shot. We went in later in the evening to get some dinner after a long work day, and it was on the walk back to our hotel. So we go in and sit, and wait...and wait. It takes forever to finally get someone's attention. I think it was a busboy. We asked him about our server. Finally, this guy who looked like a burned out Abercrombie model, comes over to our table and just huffs and says "Order". No greeting. No "My name is". Just "Order".
Since we had been waiting a while, we decided to order our appetizer and meal at once. So I order mine, and then my wife orders hers...she wanted one of the pastas without the meat. He barked back "You can't do that". She replied that she ordered it this way in plenty of other Friday's restaurants. He argued with her for a couple more rounds, and finally said "Alright, but I can;t discount the price for no meat." She said "I didn't expect you to...I just don't want the meat." His response, "Hey...I was just trying to help you out." All of this in a very condescending tone.
So now we wait, and wait, and wait...and finally get our drinks. Then we wait, and wait, and wait...and we see him coming with our appetizers. As he comes down the stairs, he loses his balance and drops the tray, so some of the stuff falls down on the floor, one of them being the bowl of chips for the spinach and artichoke dip. He proceeds to pick up the bowl of chips, with about four chips left in it, and comes and drops everything on our table without saying a word. Four chips in the bowl. Which had been on the floor. There was something else that I can't remember that he picked up and threw on our table. The guy was just a total douchebag.
My wife and I stared at each other in disbelief. By this time, she was practically in tears. We decided that we were done. I looked for someone to call over a manager, but yet again, no one was to be found for several minutes. I finally went up to the bar and demanded that a manager come see us at our table. Finally, a manager came to see us and I, very calmly (surprising even myself), told her the string of events. I told her this was the absolute worst service I had ever experienced at a restaurant, and that we were leaving, and not paying for anything. I also let her know that this was the second time we were writing off this restaurant for the bad service. She begged us to stay and that she would comp our meal, but there was no way. Not if I had to even see that server guy again. I hope that guy got fired that night...he had absolutely no business serving people.
So we left and went to another place where we had a wonderful dinner, and service.