Inside the House is a DCist feature offering an insider’s view of fine dining issues by the hostess at a D.C. restaurant.

It is an inevitable fact of the restaurant business that, even at the best-run establishments, things can and will go wrong. Orders will be lost. Wine will be corked. Guests will get displeased. What do restaurants do to set things right?

It’s called a “comp,” a four-letter word meaning the provision of something complementary that’s well-known to every restaurant pro. It’s a frequent cry, and a most popular Band-Aid freebie for the wounds of afflicted customers. Things can go wrong in any number of ways, but the solution is nearly always the same — a comp.

The toughest thing about the comping is that there are few hard and fast rules. It always depends on the discretion of the management, the severity of the miss, and the willingness of the customer to speak out. The growing trend of giving out gift certificates by the fistful as a knee-jerk response to any complaints exacerbates the challenges of applying good judgment to the problem on the side of the restaurant, and forming reasonable expectations on the side of the customer. With that in mind, what is fair?