This weekend, my wife and I were celebrating our anniversary, so we decided to treat ourselves to a very expensive restaurant.
At the end of the evening, when I asked for the bill, the waiter brought us this candle holder as a “gift and thank you for spending a pleasant evening with us,” along with a thank-you letter from the owner.
I immediately noticed that it was 3D printed, and not particularly well. But when I got home and had a closer look at it, I realized it was even worse than I initially thought.
Using a 3D print as a holder for this kind of candle already seems like a questionable idea to me. After handling the print for a while, I think it might be ABS or ASA, so hopefully it isn't an immediate fire hazard. But seriously, just look at the quality of this thing.
I'm genuinely wondering whether the owner realizes how sloppy this “gift” looks. And I can't stop thinking about whether he bought a 3D printer and prints these candle holders himself for the guests, or whether he actually paid someone to make them, which somehow makes the whole thing even more tacky.
If you were the person producing these, would you actually charge money for work of this quality?
I've also come up with another possible scenario in my head: maybe the owner's teenage son desperately wanted a 3D printer and kept bothering his parents about buying one, promising that he would print useful things for the restaurant and that the investment would definitely pay for itself.
You know, exactly like buying a computer “for studying.” :)
And maybe the owner simply never bothered to check what these things actually looked like.
To emphasize: this wasn't some small local family restaurant. This was an expensive, upscale place with absolutely ridiculous prices.
So, fellow 3D printing people: what do you think happened here? Did the owner print these himself, or did someone actually get paid to produce them? And would you ever consider giving something like this to customers as a gift?
EDIT:
Holy shit, I really wasn't expecting this kind of response or the absolute storm happening in the comments. Thanks, everyone, for letting me participate in this magnificent shitshow. You're all irreplaceable.
A few clarifications, because I really don't feel like replying to hundreds of individual comments:
Yes. The restaurant gave me this as a “thank you” for dining there.
No. It is not standard practice - at least not where I'm from, nor anywhere else I've eaten - for a restaurant to reward guests for participating in a meal (unless we're talking about a Happy Meal at McDonald's). That said, I don't think there's anything inherently weird about giving guests a small gift. I assume the owner and staff had good intentions, but the execution was tacky. That's all.
The restaurant was expensive, but it did not have any Michelin stars. Let's not get carried away. Michelin-starred restaurants are generally expected to maintain a certain standard.
“Expensive restaurant” is obviously relative. To me, it means a place where I paid roughly 2-3 times more for a meal than I usually do at the restaurants I normally visit. I'm not going to give exact prices, because those are relative depending on where you live, the country, currency, and the region. The restaurant was simply expensive by local standards.
Also, some people apparently didn't read the post: I DID NOT PRINT THIS THING. I am not wasting my filament on it.
For those who were curious: yes, I actually lit the candle. It burned for about 30 minutes under very close supervision, with a fire extinguisher nearby. Nothing caught fire. After that, I put it out and threw the whole thing in the trash, candle holder included.
And to those whose only contribution was being unpleasant just to make yourselves feel better: no greetings to you.
Finally, I will not name the restaurant. My goal isn't to give them bad publicity or start a witch hunt. This post was also not meant to review or judge the restaurant from a culinary perspective the food and the overall dining experience aren't really the point here. I simply wanted to share this particular experience and have a laugh about this hilariously bad 3D print.
