Advice please - tricky situation with restaurant

[hairbearbunches]

Any advice on this welcome. I'm not sure what to do next other than chalk it up to a poor experience and move on, but I'm pretty cross about it. Went to a pretty upmarket restaurant last week not far from where we live. Second time I've been. DH has been a few times more with work colleagues. The waitress dropped some cutlery behind my chair as she was clearing away the plates of the table next to us - group of 5 women. Loud noise, nothing more than that or so I thought at the time. As we were leaving, DH went to loo and asked me to take the dog who had been sitting underneath his side of the table the entire meal. I took her lead and she started paying serious interest in my coat which was hanging off the back of the chair. When I looked down, it was covered in grease marks, there was pretty much a perfect imprint of a greasy knife up the left hand side of the sleeve as well as other biggish greasy marks. It was quite obvious what had happened so I went and told the waitress who had dropped the cutlery. She looked a bit rabbit in headlights and I got the distinct impression she knew it was already there and had been hoping we weren't going to notice. The coat is a waxed coat from Toast. I got it in the sale but it still cost £175. It can't be dry cleaned, hand wash cold only. I've tried to get the grease out and made a decent stab of it, but it's not the same coat. There are still stains on it.
Anyway, long story short, I finally got an email back from them tonight saying they'd spoken to the waitress and the knife (singular) she dropped was nowhere my coat and therefore they believe that my coat was already greased up before I got there and the dog licking it has made it worse (the dog licked it once).
What would you do? Put it down to bad luck and accidents happen or pursue it further. I'm pretty hacked off with their dismissive attitude. I walked in to their restaurant with a pristine coat and walked out with it in a right mess and they've made me feel like I'm trying to pull a scam on them.

I hate situations like this, where all you want is an apology but they're too scared to say so in case you take them to town for liability. Ugh! Sending sympathies OP.

At uni I managed to slice my heel on the stairs in HMV. I went to the staff to ask if there was somewhere private I could remove my tights and apply a plaster and, after talking to the manager I was told I must have walked in there with the wound so I needed to go elsewhere to fix it. Never shopped in HMV again. The attitude and the lack of humanity was disgusting.

I’m a petty cow so I’d leave a 1 star review on Google for them.

Yeah sames! And Facebook and anywhere else I could think of.

If the grease wasn't there the dog wouldn't have licked it?

So the waitress caused the issue!

The restaurant should pay, not with the £50 to spend in their restaurant but a proper effort to appease OP!

And your point is....??

Upmarket restaurant with the dog?

Anyway, I'd chalk it up as one of those annoying things that happens in life. The restaurant have denied it, which they would do. But short of marching in and demanding to look at any CCTV footage (which would make you look mad), there's not a lot you can do.

And expensive as it was, it IS just a coat. Coats are designed to be worn out and about, and with that comes the risk of some mess.

My own similar story - I have a lovely black Kate Spade backpack, that I use for work. I'm a supply teacher and get around all sorts of places. It's about 4 years old now and cost me about £150. I knew the risk of taking an expensive bag into schools, where it gets shoved under desks and in cupboards. And a couple of months ago, a kid accidentally splashed it with blue paint. The paint won't come off, so now my bag has bright blue spots up the side.
Did I mentally curse the kid? Yes.
Did I cause a stink in the school? No.

An accident wit a kid is not comparable to an accident in a restaurant that (one would think) wants to keep your custom and also (one would think) has insurance to cover these sorts of things.

with a kid not wit. (can't see how to edit my post)

I presume some posters are going to explode when they realise 'upmarket' hotels such as Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and Claradges among many other allow dogs in guest bedrooms.
🐕🐩🐕🐩🐕🐩🐕🐩

Glycerine is great for getting stains out

Can’t believe how out of order the restaurant is being!

I’d be furious if my coat was ruined and they are usually much cheaper than yours. Some places have awful customer service and I’d be sure to leave a review that reflects that and never go there again.

Is it a chain? Could you contact higher up?

Since the coat isn’t cheap I wouldn’t let it go too easily and make sure you take cheaper coats next time (unless there is a coat room lol)

I sympathise with your coat being ruined. However
a) it wasn’t an upmarket restaurant if they allowed dogs inside. A cafe at best.
b) if I had an expensive coat with me I would find a coat rack and hang it up. Or fold it neatly and put it somewhere else. coats often get knocked off the back of chairs, trodden on as they drag on the floor etc . If it cost £175 I would certainly not hang it on my chair where anyone could wipe fingers or sauce by accident (mind you I do have kids)
c) it was obviously an accident, waitresses don’t drop cutlery on purpose

I think in this event i would let it go, and make sure I always put my coat somewhere safe when dining out in future.

however if you want to pursue it you could ask the manager to check the cctv and see if the cutlery was dropped close to you. if they say it wasn’t it’s your words against them - there’s not a lot you can do really. If they are a chain restaurant you could try complaining to the parent company and they may send you a voucher towards another meal

Leave an appropriate review on TripAdvisor, Google etc.

I’d be pi**ed at the coat but also even more pissed that the waitress is lying through her teeth, if you confronted her about this while you were still in the restaurant which you did then you k ow for a fact you did not walk into that restaurant with a knife shaped grease mark on your coat.

sorry but I’d be pursuing it as them lying about it is an absolute joke, I’d want a replacement coat and an apology

It has moved on. However, one point of detail- just because damage is caused by accident doesn’t mean that there is no legal liability for that accident. Very little property damage or injury is caused on purpose. People still bring successful claims.

You do realise that some Michelin star pubs allow dogs? Are they not "upmarket"?

She’s lied because I expect the money for a replacement cost will come out of her wages if she admits that she caused the damage 🤷‍♀️

Fairy liquid will damage the waterproofing 💯

It was an accident, maybe don't hang your expensive af coat off the back of the bloody chair, if it was that upscale wouldn't it have a coat check of some description?

@Pineapples198

a) it wasn’t an upmarket restaurant if they allowed dogs inside. A cafe at best.

I don't wish to be rude, but where do you eat out? The idea that I would think a cafe is an upmarket restaurant doesn't say much for my intelligence or worldliness and you're far from being the only one who has said it.

As others have continued to point out, there are Michelin restaurants allowing dogs, particularly if they are rural because they're missing out on customers if they don't. Dog owners fall into two camps where restaurants are concerned: 1) entitled fuckers who would feel entitled with everything including their dog and 2) the rest of us who are so damn grateful that a decent restaurant has allowed us to bring our dog in, we've trained the dog to within an inch of its life to behave itself. If I had a £ for every time someone had said to us 'god, I didn't even know there was a dog with you', I could have replaced the flipping coat several times over.

Fortunately it is only some bedrooms, so you can book a room that hasn’t been contaminated by a dog wiping its butt on the floor!

Yes I do

So many comments commenting that she should wear a cheaper coat, the place couldn't possibly be upmarket and she should suck it up as she's so rich it's not fair to make the waitress pay ( when she's not suggesting they should)

Why the crass comments then??

Again if you had a nice car and someone damages it, albeit accidentally why on earth should she just accept this

@SomethingUniqueThisTime but they'll have walked down the same corridors and be in the same vicinity..... imagine that horror!

Has she actually lied though? The OP is insisting that she knew when told about it as they were leaving but the only justification she has is that she was 'a rabbit in headlights' and 'off' but it couldn't possibly be that she didn't notice the coat at the time as she was being stared and winced at (OPs words) for daring to be human and drop something, while being a waitress, and didn't actually know at the time OP spoke to her, and even OP says she didn't see it happen and only did notice when the dog effectively pointed it out. She was quite likely a 'rabbit in headlights' as she anticipated OP tearing a strip off her regardless of any actual facts.

And I doubt very much if the initial response email came from the waitress - and it was OP that brought up about a 'singular' knife causing it, with it being a knife shaped stain, so that's what they were replying to. I agree it's not a good response and it needed addressing, which it has been, if anything the person who sent that needs a word.

So actually it's not an absolute and forgone conclusion that the waitress lied, unless of course you think that it is simply because she's a waitress. Which is pretty shit.

I totally agree that the restaurant initially behaved badly with the email back, however to accuse the waitress of lying straight off the bat is out of order and I suspect if OP went at the waitress and then the email with that attitude, why she got that initial response.

OP and several posters have been horrified at the very notion of her being accused of lying, but it's perfectly ok to accuse someone else of it because they're a waitress.

Absolutely everything @Maverickess said above. Especially re 'the waitress is obviously lying!'