To be a bit annoyed at this cafe's treatment of us

[womenspeakout]

So, there's a local cafe we go to. Sometimes we'll eat there but a lot of the time we'll have some drinks as a stop. (The food isn't very nice, it's basic catering sausages/burgers, but they charge quite a lot for the food).

Also, if we have drinks, we never have one drink and stay for hours and use the wifi or anything, if w only have one lot of drinks we won't be long in there.

Anyway, we go in a lot and have for years. Yesterday it was me my mother and grandmother, and we needed a drink and a sit dow.

We go into the cafe and there are a lot of empty tables, over 12. So we go in and the waitress asks us if we are going to eat, it was early so we said no we just wanted some coffees. She said if we weren't going to eat we couldn't sit inside and had to sit outside.
I have severe asthma triggered by cigarettes, and the people sitting outside were all pretty much smoking. I said this to her, but she said no, so we walked out and went to Costa.

We was a little put out really, AIBU to not bother going back to them?

The service they are offering isn’t what you want. Go elsewhere.

Where we used to live, there was only a small supermarket, a coffee chain shop, and a sandwich shop. The sandwich shop did disgusting coffee (bought it once), but quite nice sandwiches, so we'd try to give them our business. Because of the layout of the village, we'd go to the coffee chain for coffee, then pick up the sandwiches on the way back. Always takeway, as we were walking our dogs and it was our weekend ritual 'treat'. We did at least once a weekend. Twice the sandwich shop owner criticised us for not buying coffee from him. First time, we ignored it. Second time, we decided never to go back, and just switched to buying from the small (chain) supermarket instead.

I never understand small businesses with bad attitudes.

I'd give them a stinking Trip Advisor review...

Have they got a Facebook page. I would leave a few comments if they do

There was a sandwich shop in my town that was a bit like subway but a it was a small local business, the sandwiches were lovely but the staff were all jaw droppingly rude. Think no pleases or thank yous, huffing, sighing, sullen faces and just general attitude. People tolerated it because it was so nice and there was nothing else like it in our town. This was before social media really took off so no one could slate them on there and so nothing really changed.

Then Subway opened in our town, with staff that were polite and friendly and that finished off the local sandwich shop. They then had a moan about people no they supporting local businesses. Well duh....

I'm always amazed when local business have such awful customer service.

£12 for 3 hot drinks😮in my cafe even 3 large deluxe drinks would only cost around £8!

YANBU. I'd leave them a bad review on sites and never go back there again.

So their drinks are expensive, their food is rubbish, and there's another cafe (Costa) near enough for you to go to instead.

Why do you go to this cafe, EVER?

Wow, I was going to say don't go to Costa's, it's overpriced, but if this café charges £12 for three hot drinks then there is literally no reason why you wouldn't go there.

It may be worth tweeting/Facebook messaging them simply to ask whether it really is their policy that they will never served hot drinks only at whatever time you went in, irrespective of how empty they are. As people say, it may simply have been down to an error by this waitress; and if it wasn't, your message may help alert other potential customers.

People often complain that big business is taking over the night street and its true that you see fewer and fewer small independent businesses these days and the reason is there in the OP I think.

Independent shops can please themselves about policies like this and if they disappoint you or have poor service there is no one you can really complain to about it so the only way to express displeasure is to stop giving them your custom. If that happens too often they will go out of business and a Costa/Nero/Starbucks will move in.

A few years ago I bought a small alarm clock from a new, local, gift shop as I wanted to support a local business. It stopped working within the week. I thought nothing of it and took back for an exchange. The owner was incredibly rude and told me that that it was working fine and my DD was lying about it not working as she was too lazy to get up for school. Once we had tested it in the shop and established that it didn’t work I asked for a refund and not a replacement. She begrudgingly handed over the miniscule amount involved (under £10) and then harangued me out of the door telling me that ‘the little bitch’ would give me trouble in the future and I want to say I wasn’t warned.

It was so short sighted of her. She lost me as a customer as well as the various friends and family that heard about it. I replaced the clock with a 99p model from IKEA (still going strong) and her shop closed within the year and is now a Tesco Express.

That's terrible. I imagine that cafe won't stay open for much longer!

Although your asthma and other issues are important, they are irrelevant. You shouldn't have to justify wanting to sit inside to drink coffees you bought from the cafe!

Poor service. Vote with your feet and your purse.

At those prices I would rather go to Costa - their strawberry lemonade is fabulous, worth a try! Costa’s food options are decent too, literally no reason to go back to the cafe if this is how they treat you.

Because you say that you regularly go to this cafe and order drinks only, wonder if the staff purposely targeted you with this new policy? It seems like they aren’t fussed whether you visit them or not, they were quite rude. I wouldn’t go back.

Although your asthma and other issues are important, they are irrelevant. You shouldn't have to justify wanting to sit inside to drink coffees you bought from the cafe!

I thought so too, but I even told her and she still said we couldn't sit inside.

I think you should be able to sit wherever you want, but when you've told them why you literally cannot safely sit outside, I think it's even worse.

Because you say that you regularly go to this cafe and order drinks only, wonder if the staff purposely targeted you with this new policy? It seems like they aren’t fussed whether you visit them or not, they were quite rude. I wouldn’t go back.

Yes, as I said, we will sometimes have something to eat, but we often have hot drinks, so I believe you are right.

Otherwise, I can't imagine that they would ask everyone if they were only having drinks, they would see what they were having, because you might sit down and change your minds.

I’d be channelling my best Julia Roberts: “Big mistake. Huge.” And then loudly walk by their window with lots of Costa cups every day for a week.

YANBU, go elsewhere in future.

It’s their loss, I would have been inclined to tell them that too.
At least you won’t feel guilty for by passing them and going into Costa now.

For £12 here you'd get 3 cream teas (or coffees), and you could sit inside, outside or on the bloody roof if you wanted to! But I wonder if the cafe could have have changed hands, if it hasn't happened before? If so you might actually be doing them a favour by complaining, before they lose any more regulars.

I think your in-depth analysis of exactly what happened is wasted effort. It’s simple: they didn’t want your custom so take your custom elsewhere.

Write to the owner. They may not be aware the waitress is so rude.

I agree with several pps, it's all well and good people saying "support local business" but if the service and goods they provide are poor quality and over priced customers will understandably vote with their wallets!

I certainly don't give my money to poor businesses.

But I'm equally happy to give my money to good businesses and recommend them to others both privately and on social media.

Small, local independent businesses like this are reliant on good reputation and taking care of their "bread and butter" customers - something too many now seem to forget.

Dd and I once visited a local cafe which we had been loyal customers to previously. Yes it was only the 2 of us but at the time we went there 1-2 times a week and had food and drinks spending on average £10 each time (it was on way home from asc) - that's still at least £520 over a year. Then one time we had the rudest waitress, so abrupt and impatient, took our order and when it arrived my tea was lukewarm (how??) and dds jacket potato and beans - the potato wasn't cooked through (parts still raw) and barely a teaspoon of (again lukewarm) beans on it. When I called over the waitress to complain it was an attitude of "what now?!" We were met with, she argued with us about the quality of the servings, eventually took it back to the kitchen whereupon we heard the cook say "there's nothing wrong with that!" And I believe basically they just put both items in the microwave for a few seconds and brought them back out to us! Long story short I refused to pay and prepared to leave and the waitress threatened us with police! I heard things got even worse and they went bust within 3 months. No new management no idea why they went downhill.

"She lost me as a customer as well as the various friends and family that heard about it." Exactly! Because pissed off customers DO tell others.

"I’d be channelling my best Julia Roberts: “Big mistake. Huge.” And then loudly walk by their window with lots of Costa cups every day for a week." 😂😂 yes very tempting

But yes I've also commented on businesses sm if they've been very helpful, gone above and beyond or who I've just found always give good service. And I share their pages on occasion with a "defo recommend this company for X reasons" too.

When i trained as a saturday girl at Woolworths, I was told that someone who recieves fantastic customer services will on average tell 3 people about it. If they recieve poor customer service, they'll tell 8. It's always stuck with me.

Sorry this might have been answered already - what time was it?