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.

Hi @hairbearbunches i think I’ve read through all your updates, but I can’t see any mention of CCTV? Surely they would have cctv footage that will prove to them what your saying is 100% correct, it’s their problem, what you wear is your decision as you don’t dress yourself expecting to be covered in grease so your chose of clothing is redundant! I would absolutely not be letting this lie- I’d be asking for a copy of the cctv & if they refuse or say they’ve already watched it & it shows nothing- but still won’t let you see it- I would 100% be threatening with small claims! Cf! I’d not be going to the place either if this is how they treat their customers!

Post photos of your ruined coat on a Google review of the restaurant. They are being horrible. I’m sorry you experienced this.

Yes actually, because you’ve got people suggesting taking this so much further. It is just a coat, she already knows they’re rude and she’s already wasted hours of her life on this.

Actually, now that you put it like this, this is what I would do now also. I wouldn’t go back and I wouldn’t give this any more time.

@WatchandWaitorNot Thanks for the advice. It's not really in my nature to leave a scathing review so I agree with you on that. (although, that said, this hasn't fully played out yet, so I do reserve that right on this occasion😉) The baking soda has really taken the stain down, it's visible still but only just. It has left a whitish residue though that I am now trying to get out.

I've read back over the email exchange between the restaurant and it really is a case of them not reading my words properly. If someone is telling you a coat cannot be dry cleaned, to keep repeating that is all you're prepared to pay for is not helpful. I finally got them to see in the call that the coat would likely need rewaxing after spending extended time in water. The manager didn't say he would pay for the cost of rewaxing, he said he would look at any quote I put before them, so they're still making me jump through hoops. He admitted to owning a Barbour coat himself and understood the nature of such a coat! Go figure on that one!

@threatmatrix good to know not all restaurants are as crappy as this one has been 😀

Thanks all for all the comments. Agreed, this has taken up too much time and energy and I am grateful to everyone who has taken the time to offer some really helpful advice. Time to move on. That said, this is how the bastards grind you down. Whether it's a business, or institution, or government who continually put obstacles in the way, the only time the little people win is when those people are like dogs with bones and won't let it lie. Not that I'm remotely comparing my silly little coat to something like the Post Office scandal, but had Alan Bates not been that dog with a bone, bugger all would have been achieved there either. Onwards and upwards 😀

the audacity. You are calling businesses who feed you well bastards. Good luck on that one.

I am at a total loss as to how you can even write ' your silly little coat ' in the same paragraph as the Post Office scandal...

Not that same situation but I bought some expensive yard boots thinking they'd last at least a couple of years but no, they spilt after about 9 months and I was in an email frenzy with the company who made them and the store I bought them from. I was asked to return the boots to store yet when I got there no one knew why and then I got told from a member of staff
"It's a risk we take when we buy expensive footwear"

I cannot believe you are comparing your coat incident to the post office scandal! Because mentioning it in your post is drawing a parallel regardless of you saying you are not. A bit like “I don’t mean to be rude but you are really quite ugly”.

You have to be taking the piss.

@Picklestop I disagree. It's just an illustration of a principle in a completely different league. Like when you extrapolate a concept to the nth degree for the purposes of discussion.

I'm quite impressed OP stuck around given all the 'who takes a dog to a restaurant' 'it can't be upmarket', 'why was your coat on a chair' comments. Maybe dealing with MN is like dealing with an accusatory Post Office help desk!

The Post Office thing was an analogy. But I’ve learnt over the years never ever to use an analogy on mn, they always go down badly, with a barrage of ‘but how can you possibly compare…..!’ bollocks.

I agree. I’m another OP admirer. I particularly like her point about how lucky you’d have to be to walk into a restaurant with an obvious greasy mark on your coat and for something to then happen which allowed you to there and then, and with plausibility, blame the restaurant for the greasy mark.

If the question of how the greasy mark got there was in front of a reasonable judge who had to decide it on the balance of probabilities, OP would win.

Woman pays £175 for a coat. Then it gets dirty. So she goes in a restaurant and spends £200 in order to pretend they damaged the coat and get them to clean it for her. 🤣

There’s no real evidence that this was the waitress and the greasy mark could’ve realistically come from a number of things.
I think the restaurant’s response was proportionate and appropriate tbh. You really can’t pursue this any further

This is getting very tedious.

Cam I just point out that OP posted an update over 24 hours ago in which she said she had received an email from the manager in which

He is suggesting that given the circumstances as I describe them, it is very plausible that the damage happened in the restaurant.

Even the restaurant is accepting that it happened there!

To put it as we would in a piece of legal advice- liability is no longer in dispute.

What remains in dispute is “quantum”, in other words the appropriate amount to compensate OP for the damage. That is all.

There is evidence. Not least that a representative of the restaurant has now said it’s plausible that the grease mark happened at the restaurant. And the photo of the mark. And the OP’s account which some might say is credible.

Claim on their insurance!

The restaurant should be paying the full cost of getting the coat cleaned or replaced if cleaning doesn't work. Yes it was a mistake, but you try to make your mistakes right. To me there is nothing tricky about the situation.

Helpful.

How would you do that? Unless you had their cooperation?

When you make a liability claim against a third party it’s common practice to tell them that they should notify their insurers and ask them to confirm that they have done so. You’re not claiming on their insurance directly but the insurance will indemnify them for legal liability to third parties i.e. you. often the insurers take over conduct of the claim completely and instruct lawyers to sort it out.

However something of this value is likely to fall within the policy excess. It would still be notified but the insured would have to pay compensation until the excess was exhausted. Sometimes legal representation is available even for claims within the excess, depends on the terms of the policy. The longer it goes on the more legal costs will rack up, so the insurers could end up paying for part of it if not settled quickly.