My adult daughter & I were in London yesterday, to see a show. We popped into a pizza restaurant beforehand, and all started well. We were shown to a table by a lovely girl, who introduced us to her colleague, the waiter who'd be serving our table.
He gave us our menus and then reappeared, to take our order. We ordered our pizzas and drinks (politely, we thought)! He took our order, then just stood staring at us, before shaking his head and walking away. He then silently brought our food & drinks, we thanked him and he stared again, shrugged and went back to the kitchen.
While eating, my dd pointed out to me a lovely mural by the bar, made up of West End musical titles, entwined with Lindin Tube stations and famous lines from songs. We looked across, admiring it. At that point a stony-faced waitress came over, saying we seemed to be staring at her and was there something we wanted!😲 I said absolutely not, we were admiring the mural behind her! She 'eyerolled', and went back to the bar.
We were toying with having dessert, but felt uncomfortable with the atmosphere by then and asked (again politely) for the bill, thinking we'd get ice-cream in the theatre instead!
Our waiter brought the bill over, I paid by card (I wouldn't have tipped but it was included in the bill anyway). He gave me the receipt and just stood again, as if he was waiting for something! I didn't feel comfortable complaining, so just said the pizzas were lovely, (they were!) and said goodbye.
Such an odd atmosphere. 🤔 The show was fantastic! The restaurant, well, we came out feeling decidedly uncomfortable! We eat our quite often btw, but never encountered thos attitude from staff before!