Mr Rottle,
My Assistant Vanessa is the dining room manager and is fully empowered to deal with our customers. When you asked to see a manager around 7.15 or 7.30 pm, I was in my office finishing some administrative work and my assistant was in charge of the dining room. It is her role and she is paid for. She came to your table and listened to your complaint about the food being cold and the fact the Lady behind the buffet refused to cut the meat the way you wanted.
Once I was out of my office she reported to me and told me that effectively after her checking, some of the vegetables were lukewarm because they needed to be stired in the warming dishes and it had been corrected. Regarding the meat not being cut to your wishes, I was told that you requested that the whole lamb leg being cut in half in the middle and in its whole lenght because you wanted the part at the heart of it. The lady in charge let you know that she wasn't going to cut it that way, because she already started to cut the lamb leg the way it should be and wasn't going to destroyed the whole piece taking in consideration the other customers in the dining room. Neitherless to say that I do support her about this issue, and I am glad she didn't bent to your request and cut the meat in another fashion that she should have. Regarding the other customers, I would like to inform you that we had exactly 100 of them that particular night, we were not at only 25% of our capacity....
Considering the problem had been dealt with by my assistant and since I could observe your whole group going back and forth several time to the buffet for refill at all the diverse stations , I continued to do my work. Because of that fact I assume the problem fixed.
Then later in the night, while I was conversing with a friend and my assistant manager, you came to us with in your hands a plate full of food items, and asked to my assistant what was her name because you wanted to make sure of it when you were going to write a negative review. She promptly introduce herself to you as "Vanessa" and then you told her she wasn't the manager and that you requested to see THE manager and it was unacceptable that if you requested a manager you should have seen a manager and not her, that you saw her talking to someone (me) afterward, etc...
At that point I didn't said a word yet, then you turn towards me, not saying hello or anything and directly asked me "
and who are you? are you the owner?". (My Friend William can testify of that...) I responded "
no I am the Manager" and your reply was immediat "
aaahhh you're Philippe!" (To me, it almost seemed like planed that you wanted to have "Philippe" at your table that night...)"Why
you didn't came to my table, I am embarassed in front of my friends". Then you started to tell me that the food wa terrible, everything was cold... when you saw my eyes looking at your full plate just freshly refilled, you said "
well some of the food is ok..." and you moved on saying that my whole staff behind the buffet was rude, and that if you ask for the manager you don't want to see an assistant etc... When I started to talk and tell you that my assistant was fully empowered to represent me if I wasn't able to be in the room, you cut me off telling me that I didn't wanted to hear the critic.
At that point, Sir, when I deal with someone who is argumentative and looking for a confrontation my policy is to put the curtain down, specially when you told me "
well, there are still four people at my table who are waiting to tell you what they think..."... another argument in perspective, regarding the fact you had to deal with my assitant and not me in the first place.
No Sir, like I told you, at that point , since you already decided in the first place to write a negative review as I heard you telling my assistant, and decided that I didn't wanted to hear the critic, it was obvious I wasn't going to change your point of view or opinion about anything, therefore my visit to your table was useless and you certainly were not going to get a refund since the cold food didn't stopped you to refill your dishes...
Sometime Sir, attitude brings attitude!
Kind Regards,
Philippe
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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/02/2009 12:26PM by Tabba Khady.
