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

I wish everyone would stop believing that north Wales is Wales and lumping us all together. There is around 180 miles difference for a start. Do any of you actually have this problem and hostility in South Wales?

I find it hard to believe that the diversity and different worldwide languages spoken especially in Swansea and Cardiff would mean that "the Welsh" would be unfriendly to just English speakers and "the English". Even Welsh speakers in Llanelli and Carmarthen are very friendly to anyone.

What, you mean like every thread about moving to Australia or New Zealand on here?

The best thing you can do is vote with your feet and leave a review so other English speakers can do the same. No way can a cafe in Anglesey be sustained by welsh speakers alone!

People are rude and customer service is bad universally. This has nothing to do with the cafe being in Wales. OP you were right to complain, I hope you were not charged if you didn't finish your food.

We live in the north west of England and often visit wales, it's beautiful and I've never had a problem with the people. But it's a shame that this reputation, plus the proposal of introducing tourist tax could potentially kill tourism in the country.

Just don't believe this story. I speak very little Welsh and have an English accent. I've lived in Wales most of my life and have never experienced this nor has anyone I know. It must be very seldom an occurrence and this example is a very weak reason to come to Mumsnet!

OP your reaction was minimal. Make sure you leave them a terrible review online.

Personally, I’d have probably set up a public protest outside akin to the one Phoebe does outside Monica’s restaurant in Friends. 😄

Followed by a phone call to environmental health saying I’d seen a rat on their counter.

😎

So what exactly did they say about you in Welsh ?

Was this cafe at the miniature village by any chance? Only I went there once and it was the weirdest place ever. The guy running it was actually having a blazing row with a customer. I thought he was going to punch him. When we later went on trip advisor it seemed this was a regular occurrence. It was the oddest cafe I've been to.

I knew this would be North Wales. We went on holiday there frequently. The locals use to go silent and then switch to Welsh when a tourist entered the shop. So often unfriendly or rude.

What a horrible experience. Charging extra for sauce is bat shit. I'd take my own if my local cafe charged 😂

Dp and I are originally both from Liverpool but live on the Wirral these days. We visit NW all the time and I can say (I'm probably jinxing myself now) that each time I've been I've never once and we go at least 3 times a year had an issue with anyone. I've found locals from all over warm and inviting.
Often making the joke there are more scousers in Wales than the Welsh.

I honestly think any place depends on who you get on the day because I've always heard how the Welsh hate us but never once encountered anyone who's shown that in their behaviour luckily.

I don't find Wales a friendly place to visit full stop so I'm not surprised they were rude. Leave a review. Never return.

@pennytoffees Really sorry to hear this. I hope you managed to salvage the rest of the day with your mum.

I think you were right to complain and it doesn't sound like you made a 'scene'. A reasonable request, with no shouting, is completely appropriate in this context.

That's fine, hopefully you won't come back, then.

I generally find customer service just average everywhere. Don’t really expect too much, but rudeness shouldn’t be tolerated.

To be fair I think there might be something said for a bit less technology and more appreciation of the beauty of nature.

But I appreciate that's all well and good when talking about a place you visit rather than live, when so many services now are dependent on internet access.

But yes, it is stunningly beautiful.

Sounds horrible. I guess in a touristy area they feel they can get away with an obvious two tier system of service. It's madly unprofessional to talk about customers to anyone, except your colleagues in an instructional way. 'This person would like xyz etc'. The language thing makes it worse as they think they've got a veil of secrecy to be rude and exclusionary or even racist.
Definitely leave a bad review and don't go back.

@pennytoffees Of course you should have complained. The service was poor and discriminatory. Potential breach of the Equality Act. I hope you didn’t pay.

My friend was once on a bus in a European country where she was living. Two local women sitting behind her were being disparaging about her (assumed) nationality, complaining she should ‘know her place’ and sit further up the bus, presumably thinking she couldn’t understand them.

She turned round and said (perfectly) in their language: ‘I’m British actually. And you’re clearly racist’. Needless to say, she enjoyed the shock on their faces.

Anyone who talks about people in another language is foolish. People speak all sorts of languages you wouldn’t expect.

Snowdonia is WAY more stunning than the Lake District which looks like it's been painted on (imo). People have different views on what they find beautiful.

@BreadInCaptivity Wales is beautiful, if there was decent internet and phone coverage there it would be overrun.

There was a brilliant story about this on Facebook once, which I like to think was true. A half-Greek woman had grown up in Wales and spoke both Welsh and English, as well as Greek learned from her mother. She spent a year back in Greece working in the family restaurant in a not-too-touristy area.

One day, a Welsh-speaking family came in and proceeded to slag off absolutely everyone Greek and everything about Greece, etc., but also the people working in the restaurant, including the quite elderly grandfather of the waitress (the woman telling the story). Of course, they must have thought they were pretty safe doing all this in Welsh. The waitress smiled politely and at the end of the meal handed them the bill with a cheery "Anything else I can get you?" in Welsh. She wrote that their looks were absolutely priceless!

Oh and just to add for balance on my last visit, when entering a room where people were speaking Welsh they switched to English to include me/my family.

I guess "incidents" like that just are not as notable.....

This makes me really sad.

My maternal family is Welsh (Grandparents Welsh speakers). South Wales if that makes a difference.

I spent a lot of time of time there as a child/young adult and have such fond memories.

Found the vast people there really friendly and welcoming (for reference English father and my mother though born in wales doesn't speak (very much at all) Welsh or have a Welsh accent).

It's a beautiful place.

However, there were very, very occasional incidents I can't deny that. One with my grandparents present (my GM was a bloody marvel) where suffice to say I couldn't follow what was said when she heard people talking about us in Welsh but she gave back both barrels and I could read the body language of a profuse apology/grovelling 😂.

Upshot is there are twats everywhere.

We don't as a rule visit places and on the basis of a bad experience tar everyone with ingrained xenophobia.

I think it's becoming a bit of a trope about the Welsh behaving badly to tourists and with recent visits to north wales I have not encountered this.

Yet there are underlying issues. Like most picturesque places to visit the local populations are being priced out their own heritage by second home owners and the likes of AirB&B.

It's a difficult balance between needing tourists to support the economy and destroying the culture of the location people visiting are drawn to. Plus not all visitors are respectful of the local environment.

I think it's understandable why some people are angry about this, even if I think their anger is misdirected.

We need government to do more to protect local communities particularly in reference to housing and making tourism sustainable.

You can tell when someone's a xenophobe as they start banging on about "Well it's understandable to be xenophobic towards THAT nationality. They don't count!" They don't realise that all xenophobes think their prejudice is justified.

I'm Welsh first language and live in North Wales and honestly this thread is bloody depressing. Not the OP- that was bad service and you weren't wrong to complain. But there are some horrible comments about Wales and the Welsh on here and it's really sad to see. We don't switch to speaking Welsh when English people walk in- if you hear it, it's because we were already speaking it. My mum and DP are English so I have no issue with English people but maybe look up the history and understand why there might be some slight resentment at times. Our language is literally nearly dead because we were forced not to speak it in favour of English for generations. Can't get over the ignorance on this thread and the amount of people who seem to think we only speak Welsh out of spite.