Friday, August 01, 2008

Muttering can be dangerous

Mrs M and myself went out on the town with my sister and her husband for a night of great food and some drinks in Belfast last Saturday.

We started off in Ginger, rather early I thought, but it was the only time available at such short notice. I didn't care, we were going to eat in my favourite restaurant in Belfast.

All went very well indeed, the food was good, the wine was good, the service was good.
Until, that is, the muttering waitress. We had finished off our desserts and my brother inlaw ordered another 2 glasses of red wine for us.
I knew what he was at, one for the road, no hanging about etc.
Magic, I thought.

The waitress looked at her watch and told us that she didn't want to appear rude but the table would have to be cleared and set for the next diners (the perils of early dining). Fine we said, no problem, two glasses of wine whilst the bill is being paid and we are gone, we thought.

Mrs M and my sis suddenly looked very annoyed as the waitress walked away.

"What's up?" I asked.

Turns out, said waitress had turned on her heel and walked away muttering "I already told you on the phone you would have to leave by 8.30" in a rather agitated tone.

Oh dear, how unprofessional indeed.

The tip was short after this. Otherwise it would have been more than generous as we had a great time. Up until then the service had been excellent.

I deal with numptys quite a lot but I keep my face straight and rant about it later.

It's just not very professional letting people you are annoyed at hear your muttering.

Of course we will be back, I love the place, but next time I'll book later in the evening.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

She probably thought you'd linger over the wine and go over the 8.30 deadline, but it was a very unprofessional way of dealing with it. She should just have emphasised that you'd agreed to be out by that time. I like Ginger too, though the lack of proper air-conditioning means your clothes can pick up cooking smells which rather puts me off going back. I haven't had any problems with the service.

9:21 AM  
Blogger Mudflapgypsy said...

We had asked for the bill already.
Better ways of doing it, I agree.
I'll pay more attention to the lack of aircon, I didn't notice.

8:25 AM  

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