Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Bad restaurant day

1. We went to Lime Lounge in Bath, usually a favourtite of ours. it opens at nine for breakfast. At nine forty we arrive. The staff greet us at the door, let us sit down, let us examine the menu then come over.

" I'm sorry. The kitchen is nowhere near ready to serve breafasts yet."

Sigh. So why is the door open to customers then? We leave.

 

2. A couple of streets away the door to Cafe Lucca is open. Snother usual favourite. We walk in. Through the open door.

"Sorry. We are closed," the waitress says.

So why is the door open to cust.... Oh never mind.

 

3. We go to Same Same But Different. the door is open and so is the kitchen. but the teapot arrives with a chipped spout. i say, very nicely, in a very pleasant way, " Did you know the spout was chipped?"

" Oh," says the waitress," Sorry about that." and walzes off leaving me with a chipped spout. i rather meant her to change the pot.

4. Now in London and pre the Hockney exhibition I agreed to meet Dennis at Pontis. It is not there. There is a building site but thanks to mobile phones we find each other and go to Ristorante Biaggio which has an upstairs and a downstairs. Ŵe are seated downstairs and I see that, unlike all the other food I see coming from the back of the ground floor, our dishes are carried down from upstairs into the lobby which is open to the street and thus the rainy air and back inside to our table. My pasta is cold. So is D's pizza. We ask the waiter to reheat it. No he says. It is not cold, the plate is cold but the food is hot.

No. It. Is. Not. Quite possibly because you put it on cold plates.

He is persuaded to take it away and comes back suspiciously quickly with very hot plates. And barely luke warm pasta. I call him back. I tell him is is still luke warm. He tells me it is not. I tell him it is and I am happy if he just puts it in the microwave. He tells me it is not cold. I tell him he will give people food poisoning and I am not arguing with him, he should just microwave it. He says it is not cold.

We leave ( without paying for cold food or the drinks) and in the twenty minutes now available to us cross the road to Pret A Manger who CAN do a hot sandwich.

Is it just me?

 

 

2 comments:

Featheronawire Sally Bramald said...

The thing which makes this truly odd, is how the day kept compounding the experiences. I wonder if you could calculate the possibilities of this all occuring on one day. You should buy a lottery ticket right now.

Working Mum said...

What happened to customer service and the customer is always right? Are these places doing so well they can afford to lose customers? And don't they know the power of the internet to spread the stories of their inadquacies? Poor, just poor.