The hairy shrimp line the manager gave you was really stupid on his part.
But finding a hair in your food could happen anywhere. I don't think it's a big deal at all. Us Chefs and restaurant employees are only human and mistakes happen.
The hair could have been floating in the air or come off your server for all you know. The lady at the table next to you could have 80 cats and have cat hair all over her coat, who knows.
Yes it's gross and it sucks when it happens, but it happens and will likely happen again.
It could happen when you cook at home too.
As for waiting for the replacement it takes time to cook a new plate of food, they don't just scoop it out of a pot in the kitchen, atleast I hope they don't.
When I managed a restaurant and stuff like this happened I would applogize and see what else I could get them. I would make sure their food had #1 priority with the cooks and Then I would have taken the origional problem meal off the bill and probally would not have charged for the replacement. Or I would charge for the replacement and buy them a round of drinks or a dessert.
Or sometimes I would just slip them a $10 gift cert after they paid and ask them to use it next time so they could give us another chance. This was my favorite way because it cost us little to give out a gift cert, it's like a free coupon to us.
Very rarely would I ever comp a whole table that was flipping out.
If people got really irate and crazy on me I would just tell them, very quietly, so I didn't make a scene, that I took everything off their bill and obviously our best wasn't good enough for them and they should leave now and never come back.
This only happened probally twice in 10 years, my familly owned the restaurant so I didn't put up with the bs that chain restaurant managers have to.
