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Indeed. Unless you're some kind of VIP, the relationship between you and the restaurant is that serving you is the necessary dance required to get money from you, to be done as cheaply as possible. You don't pay enough for the business to actually care about responding to your individual preferences; it's cheaper to let you go and for a less preferential customer to take your place.

This is the usual race to the bottom on the market.

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I think this attitude is true for many businesses, but not restaurants.

Restaurants are one of the few areas of the market where local businesses that are deeply connected to their communities still thrive.

There are plenty of restaurants & pubs near me who recognise me as a regular customer by name. The people at those places genuinely enjoy making their customers happy. It's much easier to care when your customers are living, breathing human beings with names you know whom you see frequently. The same can't be said for McDonald's, but there are places that aren't so soulless.

Spoken like someone that has never run a business

Spoken like someone that has just started to run a business and has not yet gotten burned out from asshole patrons/users/clients that absolutely ruin the experience. In my experience, it is the middle of the spectrum of users to shoot for. The upper to top end expecting so much stuff to be given to them and expect way too much babysitting and pampering at the expense of other customers and give lots of attitude. The middle segment just wants the service at a fair price and to be treated with respect and are typically polite about it. Then the lower end wants the same services at the lower price tiers and complains that there are other things not included at the base price. There's no way to make everyone happy all the time.

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