Random man in restaurant

[Theblacksheepandme]

I'm in a restaurant tonight with my husband and daughter. The restaurant ended up being quite pretentious and in hindsight we should have left and gone somewhere else. The manager made us feel unwelcome and was very unfriendly.

We went for a wine tasting with our food. Wine was excellent but the food was just ok.

There was a couple of obnoxious men in the restaurant which were quite loud. One was with his wife and spoke loudly on his knowledge of wine. In all fairness she was just as bad. He was even on his mobile for 10 minutes while in the restaurant.

We noticed that the manager that also attended to our table was fawning over them. We weren't asked if we wanted dessert or tea or coffee.

The bill came to €160 and when we were paying, the manager asked if everything was ok. I replied that the food wasn't great and that I didn't think they were as good as they obviously think they are. I told him service was terrible and while other people were asked if they would like dessert, tea/coffee, that we were not.

We got up to leave and the man that knows all about wine got up approached me and told me that I didn't need to be so loud in addressing the manager. I asked my husband and daughter if I was loud and they said not at all. Their table was behind ours. He didn't think once to go over to the man at the other side of the restaurant to tell him to stop being loud. He didn't even recognise that we could hear every conversation he was having.

AIBU that this random man had no right to tell me how to behave. I am so angry and upset by this and feel so stupid that I allowed him to ruin my night. He also walked away immediately once he had his say in order to not allow me to reply. I ended up calling after him to mind his own business and called him a pretentious idiot (not my finest moment). His wife looked at me when I was leaving and then looked at my husband and said good luck with that.

To me, this is the most interesting and not surprising yet oh so depressing post on the thread.

😂

Meh. Feel this is one of those situations where absolutely everyone comes off badly. Apart from the 15 year old daughter, who seems to have behaved well.

I actually can’t fathom why when someone asked you if you enjoyed your meal you’d respond ‘you’re not as good as think you are.’ That’s a really mean thing to say to someone.

You're not wrong there.

In what way was the place pretentious?

It sounds as if you felt awkward and out of place from the start. I don't know why you even noticed what sort of service another table was receiving. If he was chatty, interested in the wine/menu, asking questions etc then I suppose he would have ended up with more interaction. Service staff are human and shifts are long - they liked him, he appreciated them, and you got a standard level of service in contrast maybe.

Certainly, the manager did not really deserve the rude comments from you at the end, when he couldn't do anything to improve your experience.

I'm quite impressed that Random spoke to you about it. You must have been very rude to warrant that imo. You imply that he felt brave enough to do it because you're a woman - but he knew your dh was with you and could leap to your defence (although he didn't), and who else would he speak to when you were the loudmouth?

Really, I think you had a chip on your shoulder and wanted to flounce out after saying some unkind things to the manager, not expecting someone else to give you the same back.

@Theblacksheepandme sorry you had your evening ruined and I totally know what you mean about going somewhere and receiving inferior treatment. It can cast a shadow over the whole day if you don’t make an effort to shake that negative experience off.

a few years ago in an expensive London cafe, the service I received was in stark contrast to the ladies next to me, and the two women the waitress were sucking up to ended up being quite rude to her. I didn’t feel sorry for her tbh ( and yes I have worked in hospitality and retail and call centres too!)

I’m not keen on men targeting lone women confrontationally, but I don’t think this is what happened here. The man’s wife engaged OP’s husband in an argument effectively so he had every right to speak up on her behalf to explain why she retaliated against her husband.

And yes, it’s entirely possible for people to be in a group and someone comes along and addresses one of them and the others don’t quite hear what’s been said.

Really, your behaviour is similar to a classic bully. You could be rude to the manager because he'd have to remain professional. It doesn't matter how defeated or upset he was by your comments. But now you are all hurt and offended because someone held a mirror up and showed you exactly what you looked like. Chalk it up to too much wine maybe.

Thanks for that.

It’s always the way on here. As the OP has now conceded, she didn’t air her complaint in the best manner and, as this is AIBU, she can expect to be told us much.

But a lot of the ‘gotcha’ posts are, at best, a massive stretch and other posters have invented various new ‘facts’ to criticize the OP over.

A PP posted about the ‘holes’ in the OP’s story. The only holes I can see are the ones making comments like that.

Random guy was simply a misogynistic small man His kind don't like the little women speaking up Never change I would have responded when I want your opinion I shall ask for it BUT don't hold your breath

OP you're getting an awful lot of flack😔. In short the man and his wife were dicks. Sadly there are lots about and these two also seem to be chauvinistic arses who think they can be rude. Some people seem to think they are special, I tend to leave them to their delusions!!

Oh ffs, the nit picking on this thread is outrageous. That is seriously the pettiest comment I've seen on Mumsnet and I've been here years. People are sooo desperate to join the pile on.

I disagree.

’Legged it’ means ran off.

If the random man said something to OP and then literally ran off then that completely changes the story and he’s obviously an arse.

OP got the meaning wrong though.

I think most people would have gathered that random man didn't sprint to the toilet.

Brilliant, thanks

You thought random man was running through a restaurant? 😂😂😂. Most of us knew what OP was saying.

If we’re going to insist on playing semantics, and while I would usually mean ‘leg it’ to mean running, most dictionaries say it can also mean hurrying or simply walking.

From the Collins dictionary:

leg it
in British English
informal
to walk, run, or hurry

And I think it was abundantly clear from context that the OP meant that the man hurried off to the bathroom.

Random man was full of shite. Perhaps he needed to sprint to the loo.

You thought random man was running through a restaurant?

It wouldn’t surprise me 🤣🤣
He leaned into OPs ear and was gone before her DH caught up to her.

DH didn’t hear random man and OP didn’t hear random Man’s wife.

The random man running would have been just as odd as the rest of the story.

The only thing you did wrong @Theblacksheepandme was to post your experience here. There are some posters literally salivating waiting for someone to have a go at, big themselves up and make you feel crap. I just wouldn't leave myself open to that.

FWIW after sitting there listening to a boorish oaf full of his own self-importance and way too loud (because y'know, he just has to show his superiority off!), being very obviously less well treated than Shouty Man, not being offered dessert, tea or coffee, and being served food that really wasn't great - I think your comment was relatively restrained!! If restaurant manager is that sensitive, then this is probably not the right job for him...

What you said to the manager was none of this man's business and he had no right to approach you. His wife's bitchy comment shows that she is cut from the same cloth as he is. Your DH was quite right to call her out on it - would have been very disrespectful to you for him to just let it go!!

I bet there was no 'concession' either to attempt to make up for your poor experience...

Chalk it down to experience and enjoy the rest of your stay.

Ah, I’ve just remembered a woman interviewed on radio 4 not very long ago. She started a habit of knitting huge jumpers and things whilst listening to people talking, I can’t remember the settings, think school governors meetings or something like that, and she used one colour wool for when the men spoke and another for the women. The results were interesting.

I don’t know why people are struggling with this.

When you’re in a room, particularly one that has a degree of background noise (for example, a restaurant) it is not difficult to address someone at a sufficiently low volume that, while the person you’re addressing might here you, somebody a few feet away might not.

Have you been out in public before, Cocobutt?

From everything I've read, it's obvious this was simply a case of your faces didn't fit / you weren't their 'type' in some way (clique restaurant). You instinctively felt unwelcome from the start and you were given a different level of service to others. This is why you ended up reacting the way you did.

You absolutely messed up by saying 'I didn't think they were as good as they obviously think they are' to the manager, but you say you realise this now.

On a side note: The wine man however, was bang out of order. It's a phenomenon known around here as a 'White Knight Mission'. Unfortunately there's another Knight born every minute (maybe two - it seems to be getting worse); you can't turn a corner without bumping into one (fyi there's one on this thread). You won't be the first one he's done it to, you won't even be in his first 100... Anyway, since you did not enjoy your encounter with the Knight, you might want to avoid them in the future until you can learn to just laugh at them. The good news is they're really easy to spot - big mouthed, spineless, target women (especially women on their own and any man they perceive as weaker than them), talk utter crap, waste everyone's time and always, always run off once they've said their special words. Try to remember, White Knights only exist to entertain the rest of us (they're npc's)!!

Anyway back to your thread: as many here have said, professional staff will treat everyone the same, regardless of how they look / celebrity status / gender / race etc. Leave an honest review for this restaurant, then stick to only eating out at professional establishments. If you come across another clique restaurant, just finish your drinks and leave. There are many excellent takeaways absolutely everywhere if you're worried about finding something tasty to eat of an evening.

And to answer your question: The wine man didn't berate the other loud man as he probably saw in him a kindred spirit! Plus, he didn't want to get his nose broken...

So Shouty Man went from being so loud he was clearly heard at op's table all night long, to whispering in her ear so quietly that her husband - right beside her - didn't even notice that he'd spoken.
It could have happened that way, I suppose... <doubtful>