Caused a scene in a cafe today. Now wondering if we were unreasonable

[pennytoffees]

I'll start off by saying I'm welsh, born and bred and speak the language as does my entire family.

We visited (my mother and I) a local cafe today and had such an awful experience. We haven't been there in years but don't remember it being that bad. We don't sound welsh and spoke to them in English so they obviously assumed that we were tourists. They were very cold towards us.

Anyway, we placed our order and another staff member brought the food over to us. We asked for some sauces to which she replied "go and ask her" and then pointed to the woman at the till. There was a queue and we didn't want the food to go cold so asked her if she could get us some. She gave me a filthy look but reluctantly handed them over. I just want to add that at no point did she say that the sauces cost extra so we just presumed that they were free like most cafes/restaurants. It turns out that they weren't (to be honest I think it's pretty greedy charging customers for sachets of sauce when they've spent £14 on a meal and I don't know any other local businesses that do it but thats another argument). We would have paid with no issues had she explained that to us.

The main issue is that she came over to a couple sat behind us and started talking about us in Welsh thinking that we didn't understand. Funnily enough they asked for some sauces and she gave them for free but when we asked it was an issue. The only difference is they were clearly locals. At this point we'd had enough so I asked to speak with the manager and she asked me "why, is there a problem?". I said "yes but I'm not discussing it with you". Anyway, he came over and I explained what had happened. She was on the other side of the counter and came over and said "I'm sorry, I wasn't talking about you". She wasn't close enough to hear us talking so obviously knew what she had done wrong and was just trying to cover her tracks.

He apologised and we left it at that, didn't even finish our food as we felt so uncomfortable. To be honest I don't think he knew what to do but after reading the reviews online, it's clearly a regular occurrence and he doesn't care how his staff behaves or treats customers. It was embarrassing as everyone was looking at us. We don't like confrontation or causing trouble but felt we had to confront her. I believe we would have been treated differently had they known we were welsh. I was actually embarrassed to be welsh to be honest. They forget it's the tourists keeping them in business.

AIBU? Would you have confronted her or just walked away?

Omg I totally get it! This one time I went to London and I was charged £5 for a cone of chips. Put me right off English people that did, never been back. Shame because England seemed nice and all, but I won't be treated like that

In reply to SlugsWon, was everyone in the queue being charged the same, or just you? That was my point.

Carmarthen, the bakery is quite famous for it apparently. And there's a cafe gifts shop in llandysul, yeah that's got "we're Welsh" vibes too & quite a few have mentioned it to me, I've had experience directly of that shop

Em well no not quite, so it's more like you walk in, they're not talking at all, you say hello in English, they then start talking in Welsh, even though they can obviously talk English & probably know I don't know what they're talking about!!

The OP says I'll start off by saying I'm welsh, born and bred and speak the language as does my entire family.. She lives in a Welsh speaking area, goes to a cafe in another Welsh speaking area where the staff speak Welsh and yet chooses to speak English. As a first language Welsh speaker I just find that very strange.

Hello in English and Helo in Welsh sound very much much the same.

Do they speak to you in Welsh, or each other?

Well,how very dare people in Wales have a sense of their own national identity eh.

I was joking 😁 my point is if you write off an entire country based on one incident 50 years ago, you really miss out! Individuals may not always be nice or kind, but don't use that experience as a judgement against an entire nation of people

I don't believe for over minute the OP is Welsh or even speaks it.
It just didn't add up

I don't believe she is either.

She claims to have lived in Conwy all her life yet describes herself as "local" when in Anglesey which is (depending where in Conwy and where in Anglesey) could be anything between 30 and 50 miles apart.

If she genuinely lived in Conwy she would know that it's sufficiently far from Anglesey that she wouldn't be "local" there.

If she was genuinely Welsh and a fluent Cymraeg speaker she wouldn't be inviting Mumsnet to pile-in on her fellow country-folk.

It is possible she might be a non-Welsh speaking Welsh person. There are a lot of them and some have a bit of a chip on the shoulder about Cymraeg. She might be one of those.

I guess we'll never know given that it looks like she's not coming back. So we can just draw our own conclusions

I agree, none of it made sense. She got what she wanted though- a massive Welsh bashing thread.

She doesn't say that Welsh is her first language and she doesn't know that the cafe staff speak Welsh whereas she knows they will understand English.

I remember childhood trips to North Wales where fairly typically the locals would switch from English to Welsh when we entered shups and cafes.

As soon as you walked in?

The op claims to be from north wales, born and bred with an entirely Welsh speaking family. That means being immersed in the language from day one. As for visiting Anglesey, the presumption is that the locals/workers speak Welsh not the other way around. The majority of Anglesey are Welsh first language, schools are wholly Welsh bar for English lessons and learners who are given more mixed work. Secondary is more lenient but primary schools expect Welsh to be spoken at all times. The majority of jobs in NW Wales expects you to be able to speak Welsh, so knowing this it would be incredibly surprising if the op had found one of the rare people on Anglesey who wasn’t a Welsh speaker at all.

Yes, there’s a magic whistle that only Welsh people can hear when English people walk in anywhere that signals you must instantly switch to Cymraeg or the dragon comes bite you on the arse at midnight…

As soon as we spoke

@Skodacool how could you possibly know what language people were speaking before you walked in though?

Do you seriously think that first language Welsh people were randomly speaking their second language before you walked in? How could you even know which language they were speaking before you walked in

I can’t believe how many people have said this on this thread, it’s baffling

I had a similar experience in France, it was so annoying. As soon as I walked into a shop, all the locals started speaking French to each other. Cafes too would you believe

No, they seem to believe there is something so astonishingly important about them that people instantly feel the need to talk in another language as soon as they walk in. Because obviously as soon as an English person walks in, the Welsh feel the need to discuss them amongst each other. It’s completely unfair to people like that poster, who should be able to understand any and every conversation going on in every shop/cafe/pub etc they walk into. I mean that’s the whole point of going to these places isn’t it, to listen to other people’s conversations.

I'm from Carmarthen. Which bakery is this? I've never, ever heard anything about it.

That's happened to me too.

Before I walked in they were chatting in English, but as soon as they saw me they looked at each other knowingly and switched to French. I understood every word of course and told them that I wasn't Anglaise, and then they smiled with relief and switched back to English.

French people in a French cafe were speaking English to one another?