Here's the letter of complaint I'm writing, which explains it all.... except that I lost the plot a bit and shouted at them as I left something along the lines of "AND WE WON'T BE BACK, IT'S CRAP ANYWAY!".... mature I know, but I was upset..... please read on and tell me what you think of this letter. And also should I ask for an explanation of their behaviour?....
Dear Proprietor,
It is with regret that I am writing this letter, but felt you needed to be aware of this.
I have taken my 2 children to Cheeky Monkeys regularly for 2 yrs now and had my sons 4th birthday party there last year. My friends and I often meet up there with a total of 6 children and all have lunch too. But since the incident on Hogmanay, not one of us feel we can return.
We checked the opening hours on the door at the bottom of the stairs and saw it was open until 4pm. So at 3pm I took my 18mth old daughter out of her pushchair and gathered together all my shopping and started upstairs alongside my son. When we entered, my son did as he always did and took his shoes off as I stood holding my daughter and bags waiting to pay. 4 young girls were there; 2 sitting at a table, 1 in the kitchen and 1 in the play area. There were no customers at all.
The girl standing in the play area came out and said ?Sorry, we?re closed?. I replied ?No you?re not, you?re open until 4pm according to your sign outside?! She then continued ?Yeah, but the last session starts at 2.30pm?. Now I could understand her point if there were already too many children in there, but there were none. We (including my friend who was 2 minutes behind me with her 2 children) were willing to pay for the 4 children for the full session (quick calculation = £15 + food/drink). But that was not offered as an option. I told them they needed to change the sign at the bottom of the stairs to stop anyone else coming up. They ignored me.
As far as I could see there were 4 girls being paid to be there, there were no customers there and they were turning paying customers away. I had struggled upstairs with my 2 children and they couldn?t even look me in the eye as they spoke to me, as they knew that they were being unreasonable. I was so upset I nearly burst into tears. My son had been looking forward to it all day and was already in the play area. The girls didn?t even help me get myself together to leave and I was visibly struggling. They just sat at their drinks. My son started to cry asking why he couldn?t go to play and still they just let me leave?..not even allowing him half an hour.
I found this treatment disgraceful and wanted to let you know this as I was most likely not the only Mother turned away. I felt it was only fair that you were informed of the situation your staff instigated.
I am so sorry this happened, as my son and daughter and all my friends children always had such a good time at Cheeky Monkeys. I really hope you can prevent this horrendous demonstration of Customer Service from happening again to someone else.
Yours sincerely,