Have You Ever Had 'Happy Birthday' Sung To You By Restaurant Staff?

[arwalden]

You know... where the entire restaurant staff comes over to your table to sing "Happy-happy-happy Birthday! To-you to-you to-you, OLE!"

They give you a silly hat to wear, present you with a cupcake with a candle it it... and generally make you feel like an idiot in front of your (so-called) friends and the whole restaurant. --- WHAT FUN!

Chili's, Bennigan's, Chi-Chi's, TGI-Fridays, Lone Star, LongHorn, Copeland's, Olive Garden, Applebees... I will not allow any friends or relatives to take me out for a birthday dinner to any of these places.

It scares me.

-- Allen

[Servo300]

1. Yep.

Our family is into going to places like Appleby's or TGIFriday's where they do that.

:nopity:

[Delano]

2. Totally embarrassing.

Feels like something you do to a 6-year old...

[markdd]

3. Don't they avoid "Happy Birthday"

Because the copyright holder will sue them for royalties? So they use something that their staff made up.:party:

[No Mandate Here.]

16. Yes, reps from ASCAP have been known to bust

restaurants who sing the "traditional" happy birthday song. That's why you hear so many inane substitutes.

[asthmaticeog]

4. There's nothing I hate more.

When I'm out for a meal, I do NOT want to be indirectly regaled by a singing waitstaff forced to be "celebrating" someone's birthday. In fact I don't want to be regaled at all. The last time my extended family took me out for my b-day, I made it clear that I hated that and did not wish to be serenaded or for other diners to be subjected to any distractions coming from our table. No singing, no cake presentation, nothing. Just a good meal and a nice time hanging out chatting. It wasn't any less a lovely time for not being ostentatious about what is, in reality, a pretty trivial event, even if it's a milestone birthday. Nobody goes to a restaurant to subjected to other people's shit.

[arwalden]

5. Yes... those "come-on... EVERYBODY sing" moments are too horrible

... so the tables immediately surrounding the victim "sing along" as best they can. Clearly they are feeling as embarrassed as the poor soul being forced to wear the birthday sombrero.

Then, they get to the victim's name... "Happy birthday, dear..." (oh no... WHO IS IT?) "dear... Yooo-uuu".

-- Allen

[LoZoccolo]

6. I think Farrell's may have started this practice.

http://rkbaker.home.netcom.com/new_page_1.htm

I remember when I thought that was like the coolest restaurant though.

[Lou_C]

7. I did and they announced my age

I died of embarrassment and the person that pulled the dirty trick on me by having that B-Day song sung to me I got her back and I got her back real good by having the staff announce her age as 10 years older then she actually was on her B-Day.

[arwalden]

9. Ten Years Older?? Ya Big SNEAK! -- That's A Good One!

-- Allen

[Lou_C]

24. I could have been a bigger bitch

I told them that she was 45 and I could have said that she was 50.

[m-jean03]

8. Do they do that at "Hooters"?

Just wondering. :shrug:

[DAGDA56]

13. Yep...see below...

...at least they did a few years back at the Hooters in Union Station in Indianapolis.

[m-jean03]

15. Next question.. do they do that at Strip Joints?

:shrug: Curious once more.

:hi: Bet that was an experience, DAG!

[camero]

10. A band sung happy brithday to me once

Talk about embarrassed.

[bubblesby2002]

21. Hey you

I'll sing Happy Birthday to you anytime you want.:loveya: :loveya:

[camero]

28. hey

You can sing that to me anytime :loveya: :loveya:

[swinney]

11. Happy Birthday

I love it. 80 yrs and you enjoy any celebration.

[candy]

14. Me too,swinney---at 71 I'll take all the congrats I can get!

I will not put the silly hat on,though!

[DAGDA56]

12. I normally hate it...but one time, a friend arranged it...

...at a Hooters. That was "different".

[Bunny]

17. Yes. Hated it.

Once at Chi-Chi's, where I had to wear the big sombrero.
Once at Texas Steakhouse, where I had to wear the big cowboy hat.
Very embarrassing both times.

[tigereye]

18. I don't like it

but kids seem to. A colleague of mine LOVED wearing the big sombrero.

Hi Bunny. :hi: THe Pirates won two last night with big homers, I heard. Now I wish I had gone!

[Bunny]

29. Hi tigereye!

How bout those Buccos? Think we're on a big streak?

[lazarus]

19. No, but

I have done it as a revenge on someone whose birthday it wasn't.

[baldguy]

20. I've BEEN restaurant staff singing happy birthday.

Believe me, they don't like it either!

[proud patriot]

22. Yes , I love it .....Do it every year

Going to Chevy's tonight for the Sombrero treatment
and Margarita's :D

[SheilaT]

23. Never happened to me.

Those of you who are complaining, don't know how lucky you are.

[sendero]

25. Yes..

.... and I'd rather pull out each of my pubic hairs with a pair of needle-nosed pliers. What a yucky experience :)

[flamingyouth]

26. Yes, at that hideous Farrell's ice cream place

You know, like the place in "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure?" They had a huge drum which scared me, and I tried to crawl under the table, but my mom stopped me. It was a wild 25th birthday! :P (j/k)

[icymist]

27. No! Thank God! n/t

[tishaLA]

30. If my friends did that to me....

they know they'd be ex-friends immediately after. I don't know why it is, but on the two occasions I have gone to El Cholo, the most gringo "authentic" Mexican restaurant in the world, I see loads of cray people having birthday salutations in Spanish. Is it a secret perversion--"I want my birthday song in Spanish and with CLAPPING this year"--or is it just bad taste?

[arwalden]

31. "A Friend Of A Friend"....

had the Chi-Chi's wait-staff sing happy birthday to someone whose birthday it WAS'NT. Just as a gag, to embarrass them.

How MEAN! What a stinker!

-- Allen

[NashVegas]

32. San Francisco - Opera District

Can't remember the name of the restaurant, but it was very nice, and it was sung opera style. Kinda neat.

[Ophelia]

33. Yes, it's annoying.

:grr:

[Pithlet]

34. Thankfully, no

My family and friends have so far known me well enough to know that I would hate it. I even hate it when it happens to a table near me, especially if the victim appears uncomfortable. I even feel a little bit uncomfortable when everyone sings to me at a private party, although that hasn't happened to me in a few years.

This, from a woman who went on stage in front of all her friends and a bunch of strangers at one of those hypnotist shows at a comedy club, and was hypnotized to do funny, embarrassing things. I'm a complicated person.

[JohnLocke]

35. Funniest. Thread. Ever. (nt).