Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask whats theme worst service you've ever experienced in a restaurant or cafe?

248 replies

JellyDiamonds · 26/07/2015 21:05

I wonder if it can beat what happened to us this afternoons?

Went out for Sunday lunch at a mid price range gastro pub type place. We used to be regualrs there and its always been excellent, however today it seemed to fall apart. Lots of new staff who I'd never seen before. We arrived, were seated with menus and drinks were orders taken. The drinks arrived quickly but my coke was flat and I had to send it back, a fresh drink was then brought to me but no apology was given and it seemed to get worse from there.

We sat and waited for our orders to be taken (menus obviously laid out in front of us), and we waited and waited and waited. In the mean time a family on a nearby table were starting to get really stroppy with the waiting staff because they'd also been sat there a long time and no one had taken their orders. We continued to wait, countless staff passed us and I'm not sure how they couldn't have noticed we were ready to order, but they ignored us. I could also see and hear a couple standing by the till arguing with the manager about poor service.

Eventually after waiting for over 30 mins a waitress appeared and admittedly did apolgise for the wait and took our order. Food arrived pretty promptly and my roast potatoes were burned, but worst of all was my cauliflower cheese. It was basically just lukewarm cauliflower with cold cheese sauce poured over the top, it obviously hadnt been put in the oven to brown off as it should be. It was revolting and made me feel physically sick, in fact it's quite possibly put me off cauliflower cheese for life. I didn't mention it to the waiting staff because I could see and hear other customers laying into them and didn't want to make a fuss. The waiting staff were all obviously inexperienced, I watched a young lad almost drop a bowl of soup over a childs head because he wasn't balancing them on his arms properly (I used to wait on and there is an art to carrying lots of plates, but you need to be taught it before actually waiting on). All the while manager just stood there, not directing the staff or stepping in to help.

So anyway it was shite and I'm actually quite shocked at the service ive received. I've always been lucky in restaurants and have always had pretty good service so this was an eye opener.

Can you beat it?

OP posts:
HazleNutt · 27/07/2015 20:50

Chinese restaurant where we had a glass of house wine. When it arrived, it was immediately obvious that the wine had been open for a loooong time, it was basically vinegar. When we complained, the owner did not apologise but literally yelled at us: 'This good wine!! GOOD WINE!' She refused to taste it herself, for some reason..

greenfolder · 27/07/2015 21:06

Without doubt Chessington world of sodding adventure. It sticks in my mind forever. It will be an hour wait they said. Bit of a monopoly so I said ok and tried to send the kids off to do something. At the hour mark I went and asked to be told that I should be patient. At an hour and ten food arrived but no cutlery. Went back and said where is the cutlery? They don't leave it out because it gets stolen (wtf?). Another 15 mins and the cutlery arrived to eat our now cold lunch with. Sent the kids on ahead and calmed myself with a total rant at the so called manager.

whatevaar · 27/07/2015 21:26

Went to a fairly decent pub/restaurant with a friend and ordered vegetarian hotpot, which was clearly marked on the menu.

Food arrives, I start eating and realise straight away that it's meat. So I called the waiter over and politely explained that I'd ordered veggie. He apologised and bore my dish off to the kitchen. Next thing I know, the cook comes storming out, stands right over me and starts literally shouting that I am a liar, there's no veggie hotpot on the menu and banged my dish back down on the table. I half expected her to tell me I had to eat it or get no pudding. Despite pointing out on the menu the very real veggie hotpot option, she insisted I was wrong, I must be lying and she didn't cook vegetarian food for anyone.

Both my friend and I were Shock, as was everyone else in earshot. It was utterly mortifying. The waiter clearly had no idea what to do. After a brief stand-off, she stropped back into the kitchen. My friend, who was a bit more collected than me at the time, stood up and announced to the waiter that we were leaving and wouldn't be paying.

I was honestly stunned. The cook was extremely aggressive and while I'm not one to be intimidated, being confronted over my lunch threw me for a tailspin. Unfortunately, this was in the days before Tripadvisor and Twitter.

itchychin · 27/07/2015 21:42

A few...

The restaurant that gave me and XDH toxic tuna the day after our wedding (waiter offered antihistamines on the quiet) and ended up with us both in A&E an hour before we flew on honeymoon....

A very popular pub in south london where you could choose an instant carvery on wait an hour for something else. We knew the score. We opted for food from the menu. After waiting for at least 1.5 hours the meat eaters food arrived but our vegetarian was told they had no veggie burgers left!!

The new years day lunch in Dorset, with a fairly aged and very hungover waitress so had clearly been napping between courses (with increasingly absurd bed head!)

Best service ever was a tapas restaurant in London who called me up the day after a birthday meal to enquire if our party of 8 did have 16 plates of prawns (and promptly refunded 10 of them!).

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 27/07/2015 21:51

DH and I stayed in a hotel where every request was met by the manager telling us how busy and short staffed they were.

Room not ready "busy"
Toast? "It'll be a while, busy"
My main course , I thought was fish because it seemed to be a lump which flaked. Turns out it was the sauce frozen
It was returned to me after microwaving so the sauce melted all over the plate and the veg was that horrible shrivelled way that nuked veg goes.

It was flipping ££ too.
Get some more staff if you're that busy.
Not my fecking problem to hear how understaffed you are but you're happy to take my money eh?

I wasn't surprised he couldn't get staff. He was an arse.

smileyfacechocolatebutton · 27/07/2015 22:29

Pub lunch with a friend, who kept saying the jacket potato she had ordered tasted strange. She lifted it up a bit and there was a huge clump of mud stuck to the bottom of it. How they managed to cook it and get it in the dish without noticing worried me most, and the staff acted like we were being fussy!

SistersofPercy · 27/07/2015 23:28

I recall rushing dh out of the house one night to get to a carvery in case they ran out of food. He ribbed me mercilessly for it all the way there only had to apologise when they did indeed run out of meat just after we'd been served.
I guarded my slices of turkey as all hell broke loose in the queue.

It was funny though and to this day one of us will quip 'hope they don't run out' if we go to a carvery.

ZazieSiddharta · 27/07/2015 23:54

Seafood restaurant in Oban. Ordered some prawns as a starter that came with salad garnish. Have allergy to lettuce so asked waitress if I could have them without the salad. Fine, no problems. Few minutes later the manager came over to insist that I have the salad garnish as "it wouldn't be very nice for the other customers to see a plain plate coming out with prawns on it but no garnish". Really? Would they have all walked out/thrown up into their seafood platters/spontaneously stabbed themselves in the eyes with forks to blot out the horror of a plate with no lettuce on it?

Rubgyshapedlegs · 28/07/2015 00:30

Majorca, not that long ago - big family holiday, aunts, uncles, cousins, all eating at a little tapas bar. Great good, lovely atmosphere, friendly service, all done single handedly by the owner...

...who thought nothing of carrying on chatting from behind he bar as he pissed in the sink.Shock

SorchaN · 28/07/2015 05:31

Many years ago, when my eldest was a baby, my family went to a popular local American-style pizza/pasta restaurant. The food was awful: we had a clue at the beginning when we asked for some bread for the baby and were told they "didn't do bread". "But," we said, "there's garlic bread on the menu, isn't there?" Apparently this arrived on the premises pre-treated with garlic. Fine; the baby was happy with garlic bread.

I ordered lasagne and it turned out to be a few watery sheets of pasta with ketchup in between them and what looked like Kraft cheese slices melted on top. I've never seen anything like it. I can't remember what my husband and brother ordered, but they didn't finish it, which has never happened before or since.

But the worst came when we'd given up on our food and were getting ready to leave. There were two waitresses standing chatting nearby, and one said to the other, "Whenever I see a [racist slur] I just want to kick them." My husband was on his feet in a second, explaining (not at all quietly) why such remarks are unacceptable. The manager didn't even wander over to see what was happening.

All in all it was a very unpleasant experience.

Tanfastic · 28/07/2015 06:07

Worst was in Pizza Express. Myself, dh and son. Ordered starters and mains and sat and waited, and waited. After half an hour we asked how long because ds was getting fidgety and was told they were on their way. Next minute waiter appears with our mains....erm we've not had our starters yet!

Looks at us like we were trying to pull a fast one, huffs and puffs and then takes our mains away to fetch our starter.

Waits another ten minutes and a different waitress comes with....our mains again. Grin. By this point wed written off the starter as we were so starving and just said forget it we will just have our main course.

We did complain but they were quite huffy about it and I'm convinced they thought we has eaten our starter but was trying to get a second for free!

ChopinLiszt · 28/07/2015 07:37

Small country pub with the type of decor that suggests you've made a mistake the minute you walk in. But we were hungry so we stayed. Then bf ordered ham, egg and chips. It arrived and when he went to cut the ham, he noticed it was varying shades of grey and green on one side. We called the (young) waiter over and he looked at it before saying "Nah, I wouldn't eat that either." !!!

When I was 16 I worked as a waitress in a pub. They regularly used to drop food on the dirty, greasy, hairy floor and then retrieve it and put it on plates with "What the customer doesn't know won't hurt them" !!!

Fadingmemory · 28/07/2015 07:38

Appallingly slow service in a restaurant set in the middle of a lake. Sounds good but there were fly screens on the windows with hundreds of flies battering themselves to get in. The place was very hot. I complained and managed to get a 50% reduction of the bill. It was in one of those holiday stalags which divide opinion on MN. Nearly 20 years ago now, never went back.

ChopinLiszt · 28/07/2015 07:47

Rub!!!! My jaw just dropped! ShockShockShockShockShockShockShockShockShock

IAmNotAMindReader · 28/07/2015 11:56

I have two:

The first was from a Frankies and Benneys. The meal itself was ok but nothing special. The dessert however left a lot to be desired. We kept it simple and ordered ice cream, which somehow contained large chunks of cardboard. Our desserts were not charged for.

The second was a bit bizarre. Went to an up and coming pub but soon noticed people kept calling the manager over and complaining. All they were getting in response either we're busy or its supposed to look like that. We had ordered before we noticed this so hoped for the best. My DH had by this time got out his phone and was making a lot of notes. unfortunately our experience matched the other customers and our food was slow to arrive and inedible when it did.

I was resigned to paying for over priced garbage as the management was giving no quarter on the refund front when my husband called him over and had a quiet word. The managers demeanour changed slightly from one pissed off at all the inconvenient complaining to one of oh shit things might be going tits up.

Our drinks were the only things we were charged for and apologies came forth along with the management's sincere wishes we would return soon. I was rather baffled and asked DH once we got outside what on earth he had said. He confessed to me he'd shown the manager all his bullet point notes on the poor quality of food and service and then blagged that he was writing a blog for a site collating restaurant reviews from local people up and down the country. The place had received rave reviews in the local paper recently and the manager obviously didn't want to be responsible for a bad one so apologetically requested he put a favourable spin on things.

I'd like to think he realised things were fucked up and started to listen to the other customers rather than blaming them for not wanting to risk food poisoning but as we had already left I will never know.

ElkeDagMeisje · 28/07/2015 13:21

Zazie I also ate at a seafood restaurant while on holiday in Oban. I ordered salmon, and it was lovely, but as it was put down in front of me by the waiter (who seemed also to be the manager, it was a small place), he instructed me to eat the skin as well (something to do with the full flavour).

I don't like eating the skin, nor being told how to eat, so I left it. He came back a further times during my meal to remind me that I should be eating the skin and tutted as he took away my plate, reminding me for a fourth time that I would have enjoyed it much more had I eaten the skin.

He hovered around during the whole meal as well. I'd have enjoyed it much more if he hadn't!

HazleNutt · 28/07/2015 13:26

itchychin totally unrelated to the topic, but as you mentioned toxic tuna and antihistamines - can I ask if you both got allergy symptoms after eating the tuna? Histamine poisoning?

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 28/07/2015 13:41

I see someone has mentioned Wong Kei's, in Chinatown. Dh and I actually got engaged there, and he had his stag do (a meal with friends and dbil) there too. They were fine, but a large party came in, and tried to move two tables together - so they could sit together - and got shouted at, and thrown out!

Another meal out, at a hotel where dh had been staying for a couple of days, and I'd come to join him for the last day - I decided not to have the tomato soup, because the huge, catering sized can of soup was on the hatch between the kitchen and dining room - and when another member of the party queried how freshly baked the baked potatoes were (having had one the day before, that had been minging) was told that they were cooked a couple of days ago and just reheated.

One of our favourite restaurants, when the boys were young, was Daquise, in South Kensington (close by the tube station) - it's a Polish restaurant, and when you walk in, it looks appalling - decorated in varying shades of dark brown, with plastic table cloths - but the food is wonderful, and the staff are amazing. When the boys were little, they'd take them off, and lift them up so they could look down the dumb-waiter shaft that led to the kitchen.

The first time we went there, on the way out, the elderly lady sitting by the door (clearly in charge of the place) stopped us to give us a cake in a bag, because the boys had been so nicely behaved.

Some people on here have mentioned over-salted food, and that's something I have experienced a number of times. I wonder if it is because, whilst in normal life, we have been trying (on health advice) to reduce the amount of salt we use, and food manufacturers have been reducing it too, this hasn't spread to restaurants, and chefs are still seasoning food to the extent that they always used to - and teaching new chefs to season that much too - and it is too salty for our palates, which are used to much less salt on a daily basis.

I watch programmes like Masterchef, and Masterchef Australia, and the judges are always going on about things being underseasoned, when it looks as if the contestants have seasoned it - and I always assume that it is a palate issue, and that the contestants' food probably tastes fine to normal people. Anyhow, I would rather add a bit extra seasoning to my food, if it isn't salty enough for my taste - that is a lot easier than taking salt out, once the chef has loaded it in!

Another not-so-good experience was in the Marco Pierre White Steakhouse, in Hotel Indigo, in Glasgow - the food was fine, but all the art work - every single piece - was huge, bigger than life-sized, black and white photos of Monsieur Pierre White, looking down at you from every wall. How up yourself do you have to be, to have your own photo as the ONLY art in your restaurant??

Mygardenistoobig · 28/07/2015 13:41

Many years ago I went to an Italian with several other mums.

I ordered a pasta dish.

The waiters began to bring out the orders. One of them then decided to inform me that what I had ordered wasn't avialable so would I have x as they did have this.

I reluctantly agreed because everyone else was eating by this stage.

Time passed and the waiter then brought out a completely different dish, neither my original choice or the one he had asked me to have and plonked it down infront of me without saying a word.

I stared at the meal and asked him what if was. Oh it's blah blah he said, but that's not what I ordered either as a first or second choice and I don't really want this I said . No it's not he replied but it's what The chef has chosen to cook!

I was so stunned I ate it without any refund or apology but have never ever gone back and have no doubt put many people off from going there.

Treeceratops · 28/07/2015 13:52

Restaurant in the Lake District for our first wedding anniversary. Very poor service from start to finish (we couldn't leave as it was 9pm and we'd got a taxi there) and the only time I have felt like our money was not good enough. We love eating out and had been to a few v. smart restaurants by then. Drinks arrived in a different order to requested (we dared to ask for coffee before any other drinks). We had to ask for the sommelier 3 times to get any other drinks ordered. Starters took 20 minutes to arrive once we were told to go to our table. We waited ages for our bill despite being about the only table left by then.
It seems petty in comparison to some of the stories here but it was a special night at a Michelin start establishment ffs and we felt like shit by the end.

FruSirkaOla · 28/07/2015 15:47

"Some people on here have mentioned over-salted food, and that's something I have experienced a number of times. I wonder if it is because, whilst in normal life, we have been trying (on health advice) to reduce the amount of salt we use, and food manufacturers have been reducing it too, this hasn't spread to restaurants, and chefs are still seasoning food to the extent that they always used to - and teaching new chefs to season that much too - and it is too salty for our palates, which are used to much less salt on a daily basis."

SDT, my over-salted, Michelin-starred disaster was considerably over 10 years ago, so I quite accept that chefs, back then, did over-season. But I'd also stopped cooking with salt before then anyway because my Mum was into healthy eating and some of her ideas, looking back on it, were considered quite innovative then!

It was odd though. I'd eaten there a few times previously and the food was great. I've eaten there since then - and the food has been great. The restaurant just seemed to have a bit of a 'blip' for a few months. I'm happy to say that it's still very popular!

Hoppinggreen · 28/07/2015 15:49

hazel I had a bad reaction to some skate years ago and now any fish that's not really fresh makes my mouth tingle.

Incandescentage · 28/07/2015 15:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Bilberry · 28/07/2015 16:06

Not poor service but on holiday in Poland and tried to book a nice restaurant as treat for the end of our break. Waitress had a look through her book, "sorry but the President of China is eating here that night" and he was!

gabsdot45 · 28/07/2015 16:34

This happened to a friend of mine. It was her work Christmas do and they had opted for the £50 menu option and someone in the office collected the money and made the booking.
There were about 15 people in the party and there was a screen around their table so that they had a bit more privacy.
The service was very poor, the food wasn't great and the screen fell down and hit several of them. The waiter at one stage apologised and explained that the chef was off that night.
Eventually they decided to complain and the someone was nominated to be the spokesman. He said that they were very disappointed and that the food was very poor considering it was the £50 menu option. The waiter looked a bit puzzled and he said "but you booked the £30 option".
Immediately the girl who had collected the money and made the booking, burst into tears and ran out the door.
The mad thing is she still works there and they never got their £20s back.