I know we often complain about the level of service in many English establishments - more so than in the US or other countries. The complaints are legitimate. And the prize winner for worst service in the world may go to the motorway plazas. The worst of the worst? - Costa Coffee shops. Last year we had an incident where Mark didn't get his coffee because he'd ordered it to go and the young lady would have had to take an additional three steps to get a "to go" cup, so she decided she'd serve all the people who ordered their coffee to drink on site first. To avoid that problem, this year he decided to order his coffee to drink there.
In the meantime, I was across the hall getting a snack. I waited in line behind an Asian family who had to order and pay individually instead of all together. It wasn't a small family, so that took some time. I was surprised that Mark still had no coffee when I got back. I don't know whether they were serving the "to go" orders or what. But people who'd come in after him were getting coffee and he was still hanging out at the counter. They could learn a few things from Starbucks. But it seems Mark can't win there, so we've decided not to go back. Ever.
And now for the "surly waitstaff" prize... While in the Clacton area we often stay at the Kingscliff Hotel. I'd prefer the Premier Inn because it's closer to everything, and has elevators and air conditioning - things that are missing in the Kingscliff. However, the Premier Inn admittedly has a dodgy internet connection and I needed to do payroll one of the days we were staying which made the Kingscliff far more attractive because their internet works reliably. We figured that as long as we had a sea view room, we should be able to open the windows and stay somewhat cool. There used to be a nice Italian Restaurant about a block away but it had been closed down and the building had been turned into apartments. Very disappointing. Anyway, I digress.
On the day I needed to do the payroll, I had problems with the system. And given that the help desk runs on Pacific Standard Time, I wouldn't be able to get help until about two in the afternoon. So we decided to go visit Mark's step mom and then come back to finish up the payroll when the help desk opened. We made sure we got back about an hour ahead so we could have some lunch before I needed to make the call.
I placed an order for two sandwiches at the bar - one ham and one salmon. I took the drinks and went outside since it was a warm and pleasant day. At the time I placed the order, there was one guy sitting at the bar and no one was at any of the tables inside. (This will be important later.) I went outside and selected a clean table. There were two occupied tables out of about 10 total tables outside. We were enjoying the sunshine and everything was fine. A couple of guys came out and sat down at a table near us about 20 minutes later, while the couple at the table closest to us left, making a total of three occupied tables.
We were wondering what was taking so long to make a couple of sandwiches. We'd been waiting for nearly an hour. It was a bright sunny day and we decided to just wait. But when the two guys who came in after us got their sandwiches ahead of us, it was clearly time to take action.
I went inside and asked the young lady where our order was. She looked at me and asked me who I placed the order with.
"You. I placed it with you!"
Well that got her flustered. She told me I'd have to wait my turn, because "As you can see, we are quite busy."
Quite frankly, I couldn't see that. And I did look. I saw that the same guy was at the bar. There were now two occupied tables inside, one group of two and one group of three. (Probably close to 10 unoccupied tables inside) and I knew that outside in addition to us, there was a table with two men and a table with three women. As for waiting my turn, it was pretty clear to me that I'd lost my turn - and I didn't even spin the wheel!
I opted not to challenge her on her definition of busy but simply stated that I didn't understand why it should take an hour to prepare a couple of sandwiches that required minimal assembly. She started to lose her mind shouting at me.
I thought I might have better luck with management. The desk clerk summoned the manager who apologized for the problem and assured me that the sandwiches would be prepared and that we would not be charged for them.
I explained that I'd only allowed an hour and a half for lunch and that I now needed to return to my room to get some work done. He agreed to deliver the sandwiches to the room.
They actually turned up in less than 10 minutes, so clearly it is possible to assemble and deliver a sandwich in less than an hour.
But certainly they were not worth the aggravation. The English may have invented the sandwich, but it hasn't evolved there. My sandwich consisted of two slices of buttered bread with one thin slice of ham. No lettuce, no tomato, no pickle, nothing. Nada. Not even potato chips. And I really don't like butter on my bread with a ham sandwich. It's okay for turkey and chicken but not ham or beef. No science behind that, just personal preference. I make sandwiches at home all the time, and from the days when I measured all my food intake, I can tell you that there was LESS than one ounce of meat on that sandwich. It's a good thing they gave them to us at no charge because after taking a bite of the sandwich and not being able to taste the ham, I ate the meat and left the bread on the plate. Can't imagine what they were charging nearly $10 US dollars for. The Kingscliff is a decent enough hotel but it's not the Savoy. And if I stay there again, I will NOT order a sandwich. Ever. (By the way, the picture above is what came up when I googled images for "English Ham Sandwich" - my sandwich didn't have that much meat.)
The next day wasn't much better. We knew we didn't want sandwiches. After last year's fiasco at the Golden Fillet, we didn't really want to go there, either. Last year we were lectured on what time we needed to arrive in order to be seated when all we wanted was to place a "to go" order. We can no longer get Mark's step mom to come out for lunch with us, so we went around the corner to the Oakwood Inn. This was the place we tried to go the last time we could talk her into going and we called to make sure they were still open for lunch because so many of the restaurants close up between lunch and dinner. They told us they were open until 3. We got there just before 2:30 and were told that they had stopped taking orders. When I pointed out that I'd phoned and was told they were open until 3:00, she clarified that while they were open until 3, they stopped taking orders before that so they could close at 3:00. That would have been useful to know before we got there. But I see how important it is to ask the right question. Anyway, we had a reasonably good lunch at the Oakwood. While they deliver the food to your table, you do have to order at the bar and then pay at the bar. Mark was in line to pay and I was standing off to the side. A man who was old enough to know better asked me if I was in the queue. I said I was not, but pointed to Mark and said, "but my husband is." And armed with that information, he charged in front of Mark and and the person behind the bar just took care of him next. Well, that didn't go down well with Mark, who threatened to leave without paying if they were going to make him wait behind everyone else in the place to pay. And they actually were quite busy. But it's probably just one more place we won't go back to. Ever.
I almost forgot to mention the lunch we had at Toby Carvery near the Martello Tower. Essentially it is a buffet. There is a proper menu but the buffet is a pretty good value. You can order at the bar or you can have a hostess seat you. But if you order the buffet from the bar and pay at the bar, you must sit in the bar area. The hostess cannot find you a table. (I suspect it is prohibited by law.) Although you may sit outside no matter whether you ordered the buffet from the bar or a waitress/waiter. But the young man at the bar was only capable of dealing with one order at a time. He demanded that everyone queue up and then proceeded to take his time dealing with one person at a time. It apparently taxed him to the point where he couldn't deal with anyone because after serving one person, he disappeared to the back. The next person serving the bar failed to demand or even recognize that anyone was in a queue. But "excuse me, I believe I'm next" seemed to work.
It seems that Clacton is the center of bad service (with the notable exception of the motorway service plazas.) So thank goodness there are places like Franco's and Prezzo that get it right without drama.
