I witnessed a horrible dressing down of restaurant staff at the Andaz Delhi in Aerocity that left me shaking my head in disgust over the entitlement.
Entitled Family Demanded Free Meal At Andaz Delhi
After a long day, I sat down for a late dinner at AnnaMaya, the main restaurant at the Andaz Delhi. I was seated next to a family of three (mother, father, teenage son) who did not appear to be hotel guests since they did not ask to sign for their for dinner. We ordered food around the same time. The mother ordered a vegetarian dish, the father ordered chicken, and the son ordered the lamb shank (same thing I did). They also ordered drinks and some appetizers.
They ate their food…they ate all of it. It appeared the dad ordered Makhan Wali Dhungar Murgh (butter chicken), but whatever it was, it was something with chicken.
The waiter eventually came over and asked how everything was and then dad went on a tirade about how he had found a small bone in his chicken. The manager came over, profusely apologized, and said his dish would be comped along with the appetizers. He also brought over a bag of baked desserts, offering them on a complimentary basis.
Nice solution, no, considering dad had eaten the meal?
Oh no. The dad blew up, bloviating about how “outrageous” and “unacceptable” this was and saying, “At a reputable place I would expect the entire meal to be comped! It is incredulous that you would try to take any money from me!”
Without making any gross generalizations, maybe there’s a cultural aspect to it and I don’t get it?…how is it proportional to comp and entire meal when all three meals, appetizers, and drinks were consumed? Of course it is unacceptable to find a bone in your food when you are not expecting one, but come on…that strikes me as a sign that food is freshly made.
A back and forth ensued. The manager gently tried to explain that it was unreasonable to comp the entire meal but the man grew angrier and angrier as his wife and son looked embarrassingly away. They went back and forth for several minutes before the meal was ultimately comped.
He still stormed out, leaving the baked goods on the table and huffing about the “horrible service” at this place.
I was so disgusted I flagged the manager, probably causing him to skip a heartbeat by first saying, “I’m outraged that there was a bone on my lamb!” before bursting out in laughter. I went on to have a very nice conversation…I felt so bad for him. He tried to so hard to be polite, but this entitled loser was going to play the full charade of faux outrage in order to save a few bucks on his dinner. He lamented that he deals with stuff like this all the time…
Disgusting person. Sorry, absolutely disgusting. If it were my restaurant, I would have thrown him and told him never to set foot in m restaurant again. No, the customer is not always right and you will not talk down to my employees like they are trash.
Frankly folks, it would not surprise me if this cheapskate brought the bone from home and staged the whole thing…
What do you do with folks like this?
He probably did bring the bone.
Many years ago I worked at a pizza chain. Someone reportedly found glass in their pizza. I was very skeptical as we had a strict no glass policy in the kitchen but it was a hectic Saturday night service so I comped the meal to resolve the problem.
Imagine the shock on the guests face a couple of weeks later when I arrived at the table in another branch I was covering where she’d reportedly found glass in her pizza again! I gave her the choice of paying her bill or I’d be calling the police and she wasn’t welcome back.
Her family were also extremely embarrassed and I felt for them having to live with someone like that
Hope India is treating you well and not spending too much time in traffic!!
Plenty of cheapskates worldwide that will always try to get something free. Stories abound about blackmailing for bad reviews. Didn’t Josh Cahill try something similar? Anyway you eat it, you buy it
Alain Ducasse of the Essex House, NYC, was known for tearing up the checks of complaining patrons and telling them to never return.
That’s India for you. Service workers are treated like scum.