Terrible Service

Today, I experienced the worst of all bad service so far. I was eating at a cafe with company, and the place was fairly crowded. After a reasonable wait, part of our order was delivered. Given the crowd, it was to be expected that the other part would take awhile. Of course, this is where the problems began.

We ordered a pair of pizzas, and only one arrived. The waiter said that the second one would come soon. It occurs to us that no plates, paper napkins or utensils were brought out. We ask for water. Fifteen minutes pass. We ask the waiter, and are assured that the pizza would come. Still no cutlery, and no water either. I had to chase them for the napkins and cutlery. Half an hour passes. Still no pizza. The water had to be collected personally even though it should've been served. The kitchen has been instructed to prepare one as a priority order. Three quarters of an hour. The waiter indicates that the order has been passed down, but the kitchen isn't bringing it out. Food continues to flow out to other tables. An hour passes. Waiter asks whether we wish to cancel the pizza order. What. The. Hell.

I think I do not need to describe exactly what went wrong here. The situation is quite self explanatory. Perhaps I should have declined when they turned out to be really sloppy with the reservation procedure. First I tried calling them. They said the reservations were only taken online. Fair enough. I made a reservation online a few days in advance, and was told that the place was full out. Wow that's pretty hot. I got a call yesterday saying that one reservation was withdrawn, so I was happy to be slotted in. I requested that they send a confirmation email just in case. They did not. I sent an email reminder, figuring that they were bus and forgot. Still no response. On hindsight, I figure that if they could not be bothered to respond promptly to their sole means of securing reservations, I shouldn't have expected them to provide good service. There goes a potentially good evening.