Birthday dinner ruined - restaurant refused eat free offer!

[Heatherstory]

NC’d for this.

Birthday meal out at a local restaurant - they do an offer where the birthday person eats free as long as 1. It’s their actual birthday date and ID is provided to confirm and 2. There’s a minimum party size of 5.

It’s an all you can eat concept where food is brought to the table rather than you go and get it, a great deal as the food is lovely and the offer saves £30.

When we asked for the bill, we mentioned it was my birthday and I said I’d get my ID out of my bag. Someone came over (not the person we asked for the bill) and explained we were not eligible for the offer as only 4 of us had the all you can eat. My 2 year old DD was with us and obviously had a small meal (which we were to pay for).

My DH asked to speak to the manager - the person who came over said that he is the manager and refused to budge. We reluctantly paid.

We’ve checked the offer wording and it’s clearly stated it’s based on 5 dining (doesn’t specify it has to be the all you can eat) which we fulfilled.

It really soured the evening and we will not be returning which is a real shame as it’s a lovely restaurant, but they have been so underhand with this.

OP is still one too many.
I doubt she is the only who didn’t realise. If not plenty it’s still enough. Even if it’s just OP, it’s the restaurant’s fault.

Restaurant should make it clear on their advert.

Sneaky and deceptive.

@myglowupera maybe the restaurant couldn’t believe there were such stupid people.

On the rare occasion me and DH use a voucher we state that when we arrive at the restaurant not when we have eaten the meal. That is the normal sensible thing to do.

Quite a few restaurants will not accept a voucher at the end of the meal.

Can you not write your own review?

Ok! But by definition something can’t be either if it’s something that everybody knows. Just because you claim that you don’t know it doesn’t mean it isn’t obvious. You can carry on with the merry-go round but again, by definition your words don’t work.
If I put a poster up saying ‘the sky is blue’ and you were shocked that an hour later there was little white patches then would my poster be sneaky and deceptive? No. Because it’s obvious there’s clouds.

Maybe with that attitude they shouldn’t be working with the public.

Lol 😂 Everyone knows how the sky works, silly.

They probably shouldn’t because some of the posters to this thread are ably demonstrating just how stupid the public can be, it can never be overestimated.

Yes. That’s exactly the point I’m trying to make, silly.
Everyone knows how the offer works, silly. 🤪

Op didn’t though, silly. 😄

I know exactly what point you were trying to make. But you’re comparing the sky to a restaurant offer. One we all know, one not all of us do, so it’s not comparable.

You also can’t bring yourself to agree that the restaurant should just put it on their advertisement to avoid confusion. I mean what is so wrong with them doing that?

You don't need to ask about the small print, you just read it.

So what if people don’t get it though? Is it really the end of the world? OP wasn’t anti social or a bad customer, she just got the offer wrong. If the owner thinks she’s stupid like you think she is, then yes that job isn’t for them. Especially because of their bad advertising.

She got the offer wrong because of her stupidity and now wants to cause a fuss and give a bad review.

Nothing about the restaurant's advertising was bad.

@myglowupera then she should just accept she got the offer wrong, not then get DH to write a bad review

But i thought you weren't going back?

I never said anything about the review. I think that’s a bit of an extreme reaction and it’s not something I would do.
But I think the OP is fine to complain to the restaurant directly about how it wasn’t clear. It will be a bit of constructive criticism for them. Some businesses like to be told how they can improve things.

It's probably been mentioned, but if I was the manager I would have probably said the child could have the free meal.

Therefore you would have had the £5 off the bill that the child sized meal cost.

Next, I would clarify the wording of the offer for future reference.

She made a post asking for opinions, but then refused to see anyone else's point of view. She then doubled down on her view by saying her DH was going to write a review (the tone of which we can infer) and seemed quite pleased about this.

Sometimes in life you don't always get your own way, and sometimes in life you're a bit inconvenienced by something; this occasion fits both of those. At the end of the day it isn't like the world has ended, and certainly not worthy of "ruining" a birthday. If you were to get annoyed about it, what I'd then expect is for most people to post about their annoyance, receive 99% of replies saying "YABU", then shrug their shoulders and think "ah well, yeah - on reflection, I was a bit unreasonable there", but the OP didn't do that.

I agree MN can be a bit "viper"-like at times, but it isn't great to be so angry you decide you want to trash a restaurant publicly for the sake of a fiver, which is essentially what she's getting annoyed over.

Oh sorry, the offer only saved £5 anyway; I thought it was £30

@Bundleflower

But this is the things with so-called "common sense" - it's not as common as people seem to think it is.

I would have assumed that an offer which stated it applied to "Five people dining" (with no clarification as to the age of the diners) would have applied to anyone, adults, children, whatever.

Maybe I'm lacking in common sense - I've lost track of the times my mother has told me I have no common sense.

But the fact is, quite a few people do lack awareness of things that other people, even many other people, think should be obvious.

I don't agree that the business has been deliberately sneaky, they probably thought the fact that it didn't include children didn't need specifying.

But these things DO need specifying for some people, which is why businesses need to be as clear and precise as possible.

Oh, and you are going to double down on your mistake ! Just make sure the review is accurate and you clearly tell everyone it was a toddler making up the 5 people - just to make sure the adverse impression is given to the right party

Genuinely OP…you can’t be that naive to think that the ‘5 diners’ offer included a toddler sized/priced meal?? Can you imagine if one adult took their four children and expected this offer to stand? The restaurant would be bankrupt!

If the business didn’t have proper terms and conditions attached - the small print that is on them and I can see an argument that they should have honoured it this time.

But not having seen the offer it is hard to say.

what I would say the legal concept is reasonable person rather than common sense and I think a reasonable person would assume it needs to be full paying adults as the default for any offer.

@Tiswa

I honestly would not have assumed that. I consider myself to be a reasonable person overall, but I do tend to take such things as read/as they are worded.

I don't think the restaurant has done anything wrong particularly and if the OP is planning to negatively review them because of this, I think that's an overreaction.

But I DO think that the restaurant wasn't careful/precise enough in how it worded the offer (assuming we can take the OP's word as to how it was worded) and misunderstandings like this are an example of why businesses need to specify exactly what they mean.