Caused a scene in a cafe today. Now wondering if we were unreasonable

The staff here were clearly out of order.

But, everyone's had enough of entitled English tourists.

@Birdscratch indeed! The cafe was in Anglesey and we are from Conwy.

I would have spoken very loudly in Welsh to her so the entire cafe could hear. And have done on a similar occasion many years ago.
I've had a few instances in the past where people make the assumption that I'm English .....once when I was a lot younger with a mouthful of metal braces I was in the pub with some friends. A group of very respectable men was nearby, one of whom commented in Welsh that he wouldn't like to imagine what performing a certain sexual act - you can imagine what - with me would do to his member. This particular man was quite well known in Wales at the time, and was often on TV etc.. I stood up and walked over to him announcing in Welsh in a very loud voice, and crooking my little finger at him that he would never have the opportunity to find out what that would be like, Boi Bach! Much laughter and applause to that and his friends made him apologise.

I'm certainly seeing a lot of xenophobia on this thread.

It’s clear from this thread that some English people hate Welsh people and are uncomfortable with hearing them speak a British language that they don’t understand.

If you walk into a pub and all you can hear is Welsh, and then start to pick up the odd word or phrase in English (which is natural for Welsh speakers) you’re going to focus on those English words and think people have switched languages when all they have done is continue to speak as they were speaking.

It’s clear from this thread that some English people hate Welsh people and are uncomfortable with hearing them speak a British language that they don’t understand.

If you walk into a pub and all you can hear is Welsh, and then start to pick up the odd word or phrase in English (which is natural for Welsh speakers) you’re going to focus on those English words and think people have switched languages when all they have done is continue to speak as they were speaking.

Whether it should be or not, don’t you think Xenophobia is unacceptable?

Some Welsh people do hate English people. That’s all people are saying. They’re not saying all Welsh people hate English but some do and English people on this thread have experienced that. However when we’ve talked about our experiences other posters have called us liars. Do you think that is ok?

Well, it really shouldn't be.

It’s still unacceptable. It’s xenophobia, which is a term used interchangeably with racism.

The English are not a race.

Edit to expand a bit. I am the same sort of age and from theh same sort of area as Lenny Henry. We are both English. He's experienced racism and I haven't and that racism was not because he is English.

I understand the intention behind sharing a personal experience, but have you read the whole thread? It’s full of unnecessary, vile comments about the Welsh, and it’s clear from the number of us here that many Welsh people are genuinely hurt by this.

All of this over one rude waitress who happened to be speaking Welsh and a conversation about HP sauce! Was it really worth opening a thread, knowing it would invite such negativity and reinforce harmful opinions? ‘The welsh hate the english’, how funny - when i’ve married an Englishman! Hurry up MN and take this thread down!!

It’s an unacceptable thing to say whatever the context. You are clearly just making excuses for blatant xenophobia and racism. Racists do tend to believe racism doesn’t exist.

Again you’ve provided no context and I will continue to disbelieve this was said in some random announcement.

I'll start off by saying I'm welsh, born and bred and speak the language as does my entire family.

We visited (my mother and I) a local cafe today and had such an awful experience. We haven't been there in years but don't remember it being that bad. We don't sound welsh and spoke to them in English so they obviously assumed that we were tourists. They were very cold towards us.

Anyway, we placed our order and another staff member brought the food over to us. We asked for some sauces to which she replied "go and ask her" and then pointed to the woman at the till. There was a queue and we didn't want the food to go cold so asked her if she could get us some. She gave me a filthy look but reluctantly handed them over. I just want to add that at no point did she say that the sauces cost extra so we just presumed that they were free like most cafes/restaurants. It turns out that they weren't (to be honest I think it's pretty greedy charging customers for sachets of sauce when they've spent £14 on a meal and I don't know any other local businesses that do it but thats another argument). We would have paid with no issues had she explained that to us.

The main issue is that she came over to a couple sat behind us and started talking about us in Welsh thinking that we didn't understand. Funnily enough they asked for some sauces and she gave them for free but when we asked it was an issue. The only difference is they were clearly locals. At this point we'd had enough so I asked to speak with the manager and she asked me "why, is there a problem?". I said "yes but I'm not discussing it with you". Anyway, he came over and I explained what had happened. She was on the other side of the counter and came over and said "I'm sorry, I wasn't talking about you". She wasn't close enough to hear us talking so obviously knew what she had done wrong and was just trying to cover her tracks.

He apologised and we left it at that, didn't even finish our food as we felt so uncomfortable. To be honest I don't think he knew what to do but after reading the reviews online, it's clearly a regular occurrence and he doesn't care how his staff behaves or treats customers. It was embarrassing as everyone was looking at us. We don't like confrontation or causing trouble but felt we had to confront her. I believe we would have been treated differently had they known we were welsh. I was actually embarrassed to be welsh to be honest. They forget it's the tourists keeping them in business.

AIBU? Would you have confronted her or just walked away?

Did you mean to go to North Wales but accidentally end up in North Korea?

Sorry you experienced that. The people who justify xenophobia or pretend it doesn't happen are part of the problem.

I'll start off by saying I'm welsh, born and bred and speak the language as does my entire family.

We visited (my mother and I) a local cafe today and had such an awful experience. We haven't been there in years but don't remember it being that bad. We don't sound welsh and spoke to them in English so they obviously assumed that we were tourists. They were very cold towards us.

Anyway, we placed our order and another staff member brought the food over to us. We asked for some sauces to which she replied "go and ask her" and then pointed to the woman at the till. There was a queue and we didn't want the food to go cold so asked her if she could get us some. She gave me a filthy look but reluctantly handed them over. I just want to add that at no point did she say that the sauces cost extra so we just presumed that they were free like most cafes/restaurants. It turns out that they weren't (to be honest I think it's pretty greedy charging customers for sachets of sauce when they've spent £14 on a meal and I don't know any other local businesses that do it but thats another argument). We would have paid with no issues had she explained that to us.

The main issue is that she came over to a couple sat behind us and started talking about us in Welsh thinking that we didn't understand. Funnily enough they asked for some sauces and she gave them for free but when we asked it was an issue. The only difference is they were clearly locals. At this point we'd had enough so I asked to speak with the manager and she asked me "why, is there a problem?". I said "yes but I'm not discussing it with you". Anyway, he came over and I explained what had happened. She was on the other side of the counter and came over and said "I'm sorry, I wasn't talking about you". She wasn't close enough to hear us talking so obviously knew what she had done wrong and was just trying to cover her tracks.

He apologised and we left it at that, didn't even finish our food as we felt so uncomfortable. To be honest I don't think he knew what to do but after reading the reviews online, it's clearly a regular occurrence and he doesn't care how his staff behaves or treats customers. It was embarrassing as everyone was looking at us. We don't like confrontation or causing trouble but felt we had to confront her. I believe we would have been treated differently had they known we were welsh. I was actually embarrassed to be welsh to be honest. They forget it's the tourists keeping them in business.

AIBU? Would you have confronted her or just walked away?