cafe annoyance

[rhizobium]

I don't know why but this has just given me such frustration, and I'm not normally a stressy person.

Last Saturday I had a big work deadline and no food in the house, decided to pick up a lunch from a local cafe so I could work through. Asked about a particularly dish (stew type thing) and if it was vegeterian, cafe person confirmed it was. Cafe is very expensive artisan type place, I regularly go in there for coffee.

Got home, started eating, about half way though I realised I had eaten a couple of pieces of something, sort of thought they were sun dried tomatoes. Upon closer inspection I realised it was smoked sausage Have been veggie for 20 years, so not ideal.

No email listed on their website, so I just messaged on their v active SM account to double check if I had recieved the wrong food. There's so many realistic fake meats I thought I'd double check. Message seen, no reply. I forget about it and have toast.

Next day I pop in, woman apologises, confirms it was wrong and says they were very busy. Says she can't refund me, takes down my name and number to ask boss.

Hear nothing, pop back in today (cafe is literally next to my flat, I walk past it all the time). Speak to someone else to just ask if I can get that refund.

Manager comes over, says boss is very confused about instgram message as he hasn't seen anything, they do have an email address (not one I can see literally anywhere on the internet), but "not to worry it's done now.". She can't refund me and am I "adamant" I want a refund? I'm a bit annoyed now by the language being used, I've been really polite and literally just want acknowledgement I paid 15 quid for a dish they were advertising as veggie, and that they've put some measure in place to stop it happening again.

They offer to give me some food in lieu. In typical British fashion I say thank you very much, I'll pop back in another time, but now am just annoyed by their response which seems to imply they cba.

AIBU for being so frazzled by such a minor thing? I go into this cafe at least twice a week, and the implication that from them that I'm BU has given me the rage!

It's in these cases I give negative reviews on social media etc. They haven't handled it well at all. My DH has serious allergies and a mistake like this could make him seriously ill.
I always give companies a chance to correct their mistakes and 9/10 they do. I'm not one of these people who jump into giving a negative review but in this case this place deserves it.

I'd not use a café that's systems are so slack they don't know which dish is which, can't communicate when a potentially major problem has happened (which with allergies this could be), where they don't see the problem in fact. Definitely time for a better run place.

Yeah, definitely social media. You’ve tried to resolve it with management and they’re not interested.

Keep fighting. This happened to me in a local restaurant and the manager was pretty blasé - just ‘Sorry, but mistakes happen’. I made it clear that this wasn’t good enough and pointed out that if the ‘mistake’ had meant I’d eaten something to which I was allergic, it would be a damn sight more serious. We got our wine free in the end. I’d still never go back though - I just wouldn’t risk it.

This is outrageous, imagine for a minute that you checked for allergens and was told everything was okay, that meal could have at best caused you to become unwell or at worst you could have died.

Excellent title.

If you have offered the cafe the opportunity to refund you and asked them to amend the description of the dish and this hasn’t happened, then I would post a negative review. I don’t like doing this to a small business but they haven’t handled this well.

They should have apologised right away and not made excuses for themselves and given you the refund or a voucher instead of faffing about and making it a bigger issue. I'm vegan and I'd be raging if this happened too!

They've broken the law and should be panicking in case you report them to trading standards.

Social media route is all you can do, they've been really irresponsible and I'd also report them to environmental health.

I think you should put a review up. People with allergies need to know it's not a safe place to eat.

Make one last phone call stating that you are coming in at a particular time for a refund.

If you get any pushback put up a review and go to trading standards

This happened to me in a cafe local to us.
I ordered red pepper and tomato soup. The woman knew why I ordered it since there was only beans on toast as an alternative.
My daughter had the full English breakfast.

When the soup arrived it had some chewy bits in it. When I asked what they were I was told it was Chorizo.

The woman insisted I knew despite having heard me saying that I do not eat meat.
The owner spoke to her and we heard her defending her actions by saying it was my fault.

He told me I did not have to pay. I paid the full amount and we have not been there since.

Could fall under Natasha’s Law.
Full ingredients must be on hand in an easily accessible place. There shouldn’t be any guess work from the staff, no matter how busy they are, it’s no excuse.

I'd be putting up a warning review then contacting trading standards & health & safety...& anyone else I could think of.

They're clearly not going to change anything about their process and they could kill someone. fuckwits.

Report to Trading Standards. All places which serve food need to be fully aware of all ingredients because of allergies. They could literally kill someone. A Indian restaurant owner was prosecuted after someone died due to a nut allergy and there are multiple other examples. This is a serious issue.

I don’t think it is a minor thing actually. Like others have said, it could have serious consequences for those with allergies but also, people who can’t eat certain meats for religious reasons would also have had issues with this meal.

I would be understanding if somebody was apologetic but not with this bloody attitude.

You need to leave a review on a public website stating they have repeatedly refused to refund, and that you are not confident the same mistake won't be made again. I understand you may be reluctant to do this but it is something they need to acknowledge properly. & you should have your money back!

I agree that it’s not a minor thing-a op mentioned Natasha’s law which is in place because of tragedies that can happen if serving staff don’t know what they’re serving.

Report them to trading standards. You can do it here
www.food.gov.uk/contact/consumers/report-problem