Thanks for your questions. I think this questions “What happens when you send food back at a restaurant?” is very important for all like yours.
Here I’m trying to give your answers in brief.

It depends. If it hit the table and the customer touched it – like for example, the customer took a bite and then said, “I don’t think this is what I ordered.” – it will be thrown away. On the other hand, if the server went to put it down on the table and the customer say, “That’s not what I ordered,” and the server says, “Oh gee, you’re right, I’ll run right back and get you what you asked for… Well, then I’m not going to send it back out to a table, because that would be wrong, but there’s nothing wrong with the food, so I usually give it to the dishwasher, if he/she wants it. Otherwise, there’s a table in the kitchen were staff meal goes, and I’ll put it on there. Someone will eat it, sometimes the whole crew will peck at it over a period of an hour or so, and then what’s left gets tossed.

The same is true for something like an overcooked steak. Yea, we don’t like overcooked steak in kitchens, but we like it a lot more than no steak at all. Steak is expensive, so if a steak goes up in the pass and I can see it’s overcooked, I’ll tell the cook to refire a new steak, and to cook it properly this time. The overcooked steak will be held back, and I’ll see if I can find a place to sell it. Maybe there’s a ticket that’s just come through calling for a steak cooked more than the first customer had requested. In that case, I’ll sell the steak that is overcooked to the new customer who will consider it perfect. There’s only so long I can hold it though, as eventually it’s going to either get cold – if not under a heat lamp – or over cooked – it is under a heat lamp. When the window closes to sell the steak I give it to the dishwasher. The dishwasher always wants steak.

If the dish is sent back because the guest didn’t like it, I make them something else. ONCE! I understand that sometimes people don’t like things, because it’s just not to their liking, but I’m not going to cook dish after dish because someone can’t choose what the hell they like. One time I had a seafood pasta dish come back because the guest said it had a bad taste. It was clearly on the menu that the dish contained saffron. I offered to make something else, but she wanted the same thing prepared again, and this time, “Cooked properly.” Well, OK. I made it again, this time doing it myself, and she didn’t like it. I asked if she disliked saffron, she said she didn’t know what it was, but she was sure my seafood was spoiled! (Oh no you didn’t!!!!!! ) So I brought the tin of saffron out for her to smell, and then she agreed that was what she didn’t like. Then she began to tell me how I was a bad chef for using that ingredient which “is disgusting!” Then she wanted the dish prepared again, without saffron. I declined. Yea, that was ten years ago, and I’m still talking shit about her while smoking in the alley.

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