Guess she wasn’t a true friend

[Rustymoo]

A friend had arranged a girlie day out with lunch at a local restaurant. As it was at a restaurant I hadn’t been to I checked the food hygiene rating (as I always do) it wasn’t good. I messaged the group to say I wasn’t coming and why. I then got a very aggressive message from the friend who’d organised it basically saying I was out of order for checking and how dare I put this on the group chat. Now if it was me I’d have been glad that the rating had been highlighted and I’d have arranged somewhere else. I found out today that she’s removed me from the group. Am I being unreasonable in thinking that you should be able to be honest with a friend and she really wasn’t such a good friend as I thought she was.

I don't see anything at all wrong with this.
You didn't say, "Oi everyone, Sally's picked a shit restaurant and I'm not coming."

If she has the hump then she needs to get over herself.

Thanks very much - that's really interesting to see.

So, as PP have said, it's not necessarily difficult to fail badly and get downgraded on something that the majority of us probably wouldn't see as any concern at all.

Even a 3 - which looks rather poor on the face of it - is 'generally satisfactory', which sounds OK to me.

Incidentally, I wonder what procedures are in place for the many delicious takeaways and restaurants that specialise in the cuisine of a different country and are largely staffed by people from that country, where most of the behind-the-scenes staff may not speak fluent/any English?

I would hate to think that they might be unfairly marked down - when the bi-lingual owner/manager is perfectly capable of properly training and supervising them to run a safe, hygienic, professional kitchen - if the officer doing the checks and ratings can't directly communicate with them as to their competency and understanding of the law and good practice.

I think you could have messaged her privately and gently said that the reviews weren't great, and explain what the main theme of complaint was. If she refused to change plans, I wouldn't argue as she was the organiser.
I wouldn't have publicly stated on the chat that I was refusing to go as it comes across as difficult and unappreciative in front of others. It all depends on how you worded it.

A relatively low rating is always dreadful. A 5* rating isn’t some unattainable peak that all aspire to but few attain, it’s the acceptable level of hygiene that any food outlet should be reaching. I’m in the industry and I do check ratings and I will quite happily refuse to go somewhere with a lower rating. Perhaps because I know what I’m talking about no one has ever taken offence.
I don’t think people have any idea think how bad a place can be and still be allowed to operate. You can have pigeons in the kitchen in some areas and still get a 2!

I totally see where you’re coming from and can now see both sides. Other friends have contacted me to thank me for making them aware. The venue wasn’t changed though a few decided not to go for food but to meet for drinks later.

why you didn't tell her in private about it and offered to go another restaurant nearby with better food ratings?

I don't think it's unreasonable at all. I don't get the embarrassment factor, it's not her home kitchen so not a personal criticism.

I mean, even if my friend had suggested somewhere and we all got food poisoning I wouldn't think badly of them as I know they would have picked in good faith as they're not psychopaths trying to get us all poisoned on purpose.

Friendships shouldn't be this difficult!

I agree with @ComfortFoodCafe . A simple PM to your friend telling her away from the group chat about your findings would have been better. That way you could have come up with an alternative between you and updated the group chat accordingly. You were right to raise it, but likely embarrassed her by doing it on the group chat.

YANBU. I could not be as fastidious as your friend for a kingdom. In my friendship groups we could say this openly very easily. I wonder what it would like to have to tiptoe around something as trivial as this.

Why on earth would you not contact her directly? You caused maximum embarrassment to your friend and now are saying she is not a good friend?! At the least you were thoughtless and tactless. At the worst, you were trying to one up her in front of others.

Yeah you sound like a massive twat. Who does that?? 🤣

It’s got to be the wording.
Theres a massive difference between Ops original post
I messaged the group to say I wasn’t coming and why.
and Ops follow up post
I don’t feel comfortable eating there.

@Rustymoo i work in hospitality and would never dream of looking at hygiene ratings. I also would never dream of embarrassing a friend and showing myself up in a friendship group like you did. I believe it may be you who isn’t the true friend…

With what dips/sauce?.

Agree, esp with thread title wasn't a true friend if she'd done what you wanted, would she be a true friend?

For clarity I said I won’t be coming as I don’t feel comfortable eating there. I did suggest an alternative as I did want to catch up with everyone but didn’t want to go there. I knew it wouldn’t get changed as friend is very inflexible

I don't think it's at all wrong to check the food hygiene rating of a restaurant someone's recommended. Contrary to popular opinion you don't get a low score for something trivial like paperwork. You're judged on basic things like handwashing facilities, the state of the building and appliances, food safety awareness among staff, etc.

With common sense and following the law it's pretty easy to get a high score, so to get a low score a place has to be really rank. (How it's still allowed to operate is a mystery, but that's for another thread.) Personally I wouldn't go to an eatery with anything less than a 5 rating. Most people have no idea and think 'Scores on the Doors' is just a fussy thing some people have. If only they could see behind the scenes.

As to who's to 'blame' for the falling out, I'd say it's 50/50. You sound like a logical, plain-speaking person, and presumably your friends are used to that. So your organiser friend shouldn't have accused you of intending to be rude or hurtful. But you ruffled her feathers, and got an unexpectedly aggressive response back. So next time something like this comes up you could try a more tactful approach.

The good thing is, everyone seems to have calmed down and is back to just getting on! Put it down to experience and hopefully having these things out in the open will bring you all closer.

It wasn’t a case of her doing what I wanted. She’s the one that’s fallen out with me. I wanted to remain friends and thought that if she was a true friend then I could be honest with her. I have another group of friends and we can all be honest with each other and no one takes offence or falls out.

People can be a bit funny sometimes about hygiene and take things as a personal reflection on their own hygiene. It’s just one of those very triggering topics.

Personally, I’d brazen it out, turn up for the drinks afterwards, and say absolutely nothing about it. Look slightly puzzled if it comes up. I definitely wouldn’t allow someone having a strop about nothing push me out of a group of friends particularly when you’re getting messages of thanks.

This is one of the few scenarios where I think men as a rule do better. I think the chat would likely either drag OP for looking up the rating at all and either ignore suggestion or change it. But either way, I think very unlikely those involved would sacrifice a LT friendship over it 😬

For what it's worth, I don't think food hygiene ratings are worth the paper they are written on. Even in a clean kitchen, you can get severely marked down for paperwork issues.

Of course, paperwork is important so you could say these places deserve to be marked down for not having everything logged correctly.

But at the same time, you'd be surprised how many establishments get 5 stars when their paperwork is all bullshit. For example, chef comes in in the morning and realises all temperature logs weren't completed the day before, so backdates them with made up figures (very easy to do). They then get a 5, when a similar place who dont bother to go back and make up the paperwork get a 1 or 2.

That's a convenient and handy drip to your story.

Is it the case then that you refused to go to this restaurant and enjoyed controlling the narrative by convincing others to take your lead and not go also? I would have viewed this as an outright public challenge if I was your friend.

I hate the responsibility of arranging group nights out, it makes me very anxious and worried that I'll be judged if something is not up to scratch. This is a 'me' thing, very over sensitive to (perceived) rejection/ criticism (while also being a people pleaser) and wanting to organise things so people have a good time)

I would have found your message to the group humiliating and it would have made me want to react like your friend did. I (probably!) would have been able to regulate my reaction and not kicked you out of the group/ flounced and been able to realise it wasn't intended to be a critism or rejection of me, but immediately after seeing the message I would have not wanted to go / organise anything ever again/ see you.

Perhaps your friend has a reason she reacted in such an extreme way?

I can understand your concern, OP, but I think the very fact you looked up the hygiene rating online in advance suggests you’re quite neurotic and hard work. I wouldn’t think to look up the hygiene rating, and I don’t think I know anyone who does this? Do you have health anxiety or something?

You strike me as neurotic and hard work, and either you always look for any problems and reasons to ruin plans, or you insist on looking up hygiene ratings every time and make out these places are below your exacting standards so you can’t possibly attend.

You would piss me off. Why does it matter if you have never been before? Your behaviour is odd, and you probably worded it really snobbily, I can just imagine how it went.