AIBU to never go here again & tell everyone I know how awful it is?

[FrazzledCareerWoman]

New fancy "mums brasserie" type place has opened in the London suburb where I live. Think zone 3, up and coming area. Lots of yummy mummies, baby classes, mums fitness, etc around. People have money to spend.

So they open this place that is marketed as a wellness and foodie experience where you can have lunch and spa treatments while they watch your little darlings. Sounds amazing, non?

They also will have classes for the kids that are put on by external providers, and a soft play area.

Okay, fine. Me and NCT friend decide to go and check it out just for lunch.

Well, I think I'm still in shock. No alcohol at all firstly - I tried to order a glass of Prosecco and they were like "what's that"? So clearly missing a trick there 🤷🏻‍♀️

Secondly, waiting staff obviously had never worked in so much as a greasy spoon previously as they were faffing around doing very little, extremely inattentive and managed to take an hour to bring our starters and a further 30 mins for our next courses. To be fair they claimed this was due to a power cut (which lasted about 5 mins after we had already been waiting for an hour).

Thirdly, it was eye wateringly expensive. Their sushi chef hadn't started yet and so they was barely anything on the menu that was available.

Our bill was £43, no alcohol, 1 tea, 1 latte, 1 dip with crudités, 1 broccoli soup, 1 stale foccacia slice, 1 eggs Benedict with cold sauce , 1 basic salad.

I waited an hour for a “Japanese style avocado salad” that was cucumber tomato and iceberg lettuce. The bread with my soup was stale.

So you would think we were offered our meal for free after all that wouldn't you? Well not only am I ashamed to say I didn't blink and paid the full £43 when asked but the owner had the audacity to offer us "a free dish next time you come".

I feel like they are totally ruining something that could have been great! And they are clearly mental and have done zero research. Membership is around £500 a year.

Just speechless.

Oh north south troubles again ?!

I thought this was satire/a piss-take (along the lines of the 'Overheard in Waitrose' - "put the papaya down, Orlando!" thing) but op is actually serious, isn't she?

"Aspirational lifestyle"
Trying really hard to be offended but I just can't get there

What a great thread

What’s wrong with a bit of gentrification? Don’t people enjoy going to nicer cafes rather than greasy spoons always?

Why are the English obsessed with paying lots of money to make themselves feel exclusive? This is the toddler equivalent of a golf club. Keep the riff raff out.

@Moralitym1n1 RTFT. The original post was meant to be read a bit tongue in cheek as this is AIBU

frazzled can you try harder? You have an audience.

It is a funny thread

Ha at audience

It's definitely amateurish and shows a disregard for customers when you have: power cuts, no electricity and no chef yet still open and attempt to serve food in order to get money in your till. Of course it didn't pay off.
You should have, as professional business owners, simply apologised, been genuine about being upset in your failure to deliver and then stated you'd be delighted to host OP in better circumstances on the house in future and look forward to her coming away with a much better experience which matches up to the standards you pride yourselves on.

love this thread and that the business owners came on to defend themselves. Am going to fall into the "no sense of humour" brigade but only one other poster has mentioned the part of the Ops original post which made me lose any sympathy that might have been there..."they were clearly mental"!!!
MENTAL????
As a mother of a daughter with mental health problems who has started her own charity to encourage young people to speak out about the stigma f mental health, I'm beyond saddened at that comment.
Will stop here so as not to derail the thread. As you were

Erm, dementedma...have you read your username?

As a mother of a daughter with mental health problems who has started her own charity to encourage young people to speak out about the stigma f mental health, I'm beyond saddened at that comment.

Posted by someone with “demented” in their username....

Erm, dementedma...have you read your username?

This.

"demented" has various definitions including harrassed, stressed, worried etc.
Saying that someone is "clearly mental" because they didn't serve a nice salad is slightly different imo

How interesting that almost 50% of your ‘five star’ google reviews have been added in the time since this thread @childsplaybrasserie 🤔

Next stop Daily Fail
I really wish that theses business owners who come on forums like this to try and defend themselves would get a bit of professional marketing or Social media advice. They don’t help themselves
Also, “vision and dreams” don’t make a business - actual paying customers do. I’ve seen many businesses fail while the owners sit and complain about how the customers really don’t understand what they are trying to do.

I wonder why I'm reminded of Harry Enfield's ''I saw you coming' sketches, which I recently revisited on YouTube.

Not for the food prices, but for the wanky 'wellness' stuff - and the £500 a year membership.

I wouldn't bet more than any spare change I can find down the side of the sofa, on the place lasting long.

@hoppinggreen absolutely agree. That line made me wince.

The OP didn’t ‘out’ the business at all, she just said she lived in London zone 3. The business owner came on here and outed herself, with her business name. Of ALL the ideas she could have had... this wasn’t the most forward thinking. I wonder what proportion of the comments coming shortly before after that to defend her were new posters.

dementedma

Well, it could be argued that ‘mental’ now has many meanings, because language use changes over time.

Having had a family member suffer from dementia, I could take offence at what your username means to me, because of its original derivation.

I mean, I don’t, because I don’t usually take things personally.

But I could.

Oh god, now hamster’s gone and busted out the m-word...

OP, your Cringe Detector was malfunctioning.

Get a re-set to Real World, and you will avoid the risk of entering any such embarrassing Mummy-Spa-BabyClasses-Sushi mash ups ever again.

You can get prosecco at my local softplay. Sorry, that’s not a big deal these days. If anyone has an issue with that, maybe they’re projecting their own issues onto other people.

What's this crazy notion that parents shouldn't drink?