My complaint:
I am writing today to complain of the poor service I received at your restaurant Big Easy Convent Garden branch on 2nd Jan 22. My friends (2) and I attended your restaurant at approximately 4:50pm. Unfortunately, we did not have a reservation, but thought we would try our luck and see whether you could accommodate us who were from out of town. When we arrived, we were told that there were no spaces available because the restaurant was fully booked, despite it being evident there were multiple tables free.
The hostess appeared quite ambivalent about this and started fluttering around, evidently becoming quite distressed, so I asked her whether she was okay. She was then accompanied by another host and It was at that point both parties started speaking in another language amongst themselves for some time, which left us standing there confused.
We decided to leave the restaurant. However, as we were leaving the building, we were approached by a family of 5, who told us that they were also turned away by the hostess and told that there were no tables available. The family said they eventually managed to get a table and were in the restaurant for approximately 1.5hrs and that there were multiple empty tables that had not been used during the time they were there?
We went back into the restaurant and politely asked the hostess and the host, whether we could wait to see if there were any cancellations that we could take, but also could we purchase drinks from the bar in the meantime. This was granted; nonetheless, we were not given any instructions on whether it was a table service or that we needed to attend the bar for our drinks. After attending the bar as no one came to take our orders, the host abruptly approached us and told us that we needed to stay seated and that someone would take our drinks orders.
We sat in the bar area for approximately 1 hour and to our surprise we saw 3 empty tables that had been vacate during our time there. After going downstairs to use the toilet, I realised that there were multiple empty tables. After waiting around for 1 hour with no communications from both hosts, apart from them giving us dirty looks from there booth, we decided to leave.
We managed to get a table for 3 at the Angus restaurant in Piccadilly circus, and can I point out that their restaurant was extremely busier than yours. Our bill came to £163 and we left a 15% tip as their hospitality was spot on considering how busy it was.
I dined at the Covent Garden Big Easy branch about 5 years ago and enjoyed my experience. However, the attitude from your host and hostess was absolutely appalling. We left your establishment feeling embarrassed and belittled based on how we were treated with your hosts speaking in a different language in front of our faces, this is a blatant disrespect, and this should be taken up with your hosting staff.
Customer service training and client feedback is paramount for further development. Your hosts demonstrated poor communication skills and quite frankly I couldn’t understand how and why they would actively turn away customers in today’s climate.
I will also be posting a review on TripAdvisor
Suggested solution:
I would like a written apology from your company and look forward to hearing from you within 10 days.
Staff training
