To think my friend was not BU in this cafe situation?

[TicketsThisWayForTheChatsworthExpress]

My friend runs a small independent cafe that is dog friendly but the dogs have to be outdoors. Over the weekend, a family of six people came in with 2 dogs and were directed outside. The tables outside are picnic benches that seat 10, inside the tables seat six (they’re all the same size). The family went outside and took 2 picnic benches. Which annoyed my friend as that’s depriving potential customers of a bench but she let it go and said nothing.

She noticed one of the children, a boy aged about 8, having a tantrum outside because he doesn’t like eating outdoors and wants to eat indoors. Next thing she knew, his mum had brought him inside and sat him at the last available table (with an iPad blasting). She asked my friend if his order could come to that table as he doesn’t like eating outside so she said he could come in and eat alone.

My friend said she couldn’t allow this, because they don’t allow children to eat and drink unsupervised for health and safety reasons (they’d also ordered the child a hot drink). The outside area is down a large set of steps so they couldn’t have seen him from the garden. The mum said he has ADHD and doesn’t like to eat outside. My friend - who also has a DS with ADHD BTW - said sorry no we can’t take the risk of him eating alone. What she didn’t say but wanted to was ‘You’d also be taking up three tables when you should only be taking up one and I shouldn’t have to turn customers away because of this’.

Anyway she dug her heels in and the mum gave in and went back outside, the 8yo had a (small) tantrum outside and played his iPad full blast for the duration of their meal (he was asked by another waitress to turn it down which he did a fraction).

When the family paid the mum said she would be posting reviews online to say that the cafe owner is ableist and wouldn’t accommodate the needs of a disabled child. My friend said nothing, and nothing has appeared as of yet online, but she’s gutted about this accusation especially with her DS having ADHD. She said she’d never let her ADHD DS eat alone because actually the risk of him being hurt would increase greatly.

AIBU to think it’s not about ableism but about health and safety? I feel really bad for her!

Absolutely

Perfectly normal

Why on earth didn't one person sit inside?

I thought it was your friend, not you that said this. 🤔

The sign ‘Dogs welcome in the garden’ made it clear that that is where people with dogs can sit.

This is ‘dog friendly’ compared to Wetherspoons, for example, where dogs are not allowed i doors or out. ‘Dog friendly’ doesn’t have a defining standard, afaik.
Nor do we know if the cafe advertises as being dog friendly. We just know what the sign says.

So: if the family knew they would need to be outside with the digs, they knew it would not be suitable for their child.

The taking up two outdoor tables is irrelevant. Had other customers arrived either they or the cafe owner could have politely asked the family to move to the same table.

There’s no accounting for folk. These mini blow ups happen.
I dare say the mother was stressed and just trying to (yet again) get through another tantrumming episode.

I also think the "Health and safety" issue falls a bit flat when lots of businesses do let children sit unattended - McDonald's, for example, or other child-friendly places allow kids to sit unsupervised playing games and eating while parents sit elsewhere.

I wish more cafes advertised as dog unfriendly as we are all not fans.

dog point aside your friend was correct about not allowing a child with a disability to eat alone inside for reasons of their safety. D that is the point to respond to a complaint

I bet you're sorry you started this chat op!

It's not unreasonable to ask for young kids to have an adult with them. I agree with you.

But I guess it's about how your friend came across when she said it.

Agreed.

Also re the ‘sensitive wording’ - a running a cafe is busy business, she doesn’t have time to write out some PR statement to pander to the sensitive sod customers who are clearly very entitled and unreasonable.

I'm not even the OP and this is driving me insane. The cafe is not advertised as dog friendly. As has been stated again, and again, and again, and again, and again by the OP it is advertised on fb and on the sign as dogs welcome I the garden.

Your friend was not being unreasonable. They'd have been the first to sue if the unsupervised child got scalded by a hot drink.

In fairness it’s on a very popular walking route and the area gets big walking groups so large tables round here are common and do get used.

So you're saying it isn't dog friendly....🤔😆😆

😂😂

I have to say i get rather excited if I’m reading bad reviews and the owner replies with a totally redeeming tale!

Given that I don’t actually work in customer service I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.

But I feel for those who do who do feel they have to pander to entitled people who thinks the world revolves round their child (or dog!)

Because they needed to be with the dogs outside apparently 🤷‍♀️ I did wonder why they didn’t leave the dogs with the other half of the party they were with (as in people on the other picnic bench) but who knows why they didn’t!

You're weirdly obsessed with the idea of "pandering to sensitive people" when it's nothing to do with that.

Good customer service is all about making your customer feel cared about, heard and listened to, even if you can't actually solve their problem. As a general rule, people don't respond well to bland, corporate responses about health and safety - it comes across too robotic and "computer says no".

You see it on here all the time - people complain and receive generic responses and it just pisses them off even more because they don't feel heard or listened to by the company they've chosen to spend their money with.

I don't think the customers in question were entirely entitled or unreasonable either. I think they were probably a bit flustered and stressed and tried to solve the problem of their son screaming by sitting him indoors where he'd be happy, only for it to cause another problem.

I just think the mum would have responded better to a little human kindness and empathy, really.

That’s a typo - it should have read ‘by’ not ‘my’.

So random question for those who think a dogs-outside rule is dog friendly - is it dog friendly to say “well behaved dogs welcome”?

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

#DogTolerantNotDogFriendly

So you don't work in customer service but think you know what good customer service is?

Okay then

It's not semantics. She doesn't have to describe it as dog tolerant but it's misleading to describe it as dog friendly. It matters because people make plans based on this information. Just as they would do if it said 'vegetarian friendly' or 'gluten free available'

I don't have a dog, but to me dog friendly means that dogs are allowed inside and out, noone minds if they're there if they're well-behaved. Dog bowls are available.

Your friend did the right thing

( ignores the fact that the thread has been taken over by the dog friendly debate)

Again - my friend being unkind and unempathetic is an assumption you are making from absolutely nothing. You are also assuming she didn’t give good customer service - to me, ensuring the customer’s most precious people, their children, are being kept safe, is good customer service. It is not bad customer service to refuse to bend to unsafe and/or unreasonable demands/requests of customers

So only people who work in customer service can decide what good customer service is?

As I’ve said in a PP, ‘bad customer service’ is not ‘Refusing to bow to a customers demands even when they’re unsafe in relation to children’