Had an interesting experience at Eudora Station yesterday.

Went there around 5 with my co-worker after a meeting in the Lido. I had bought some chicken from the Lido on my way over so asked the waiter if he could keep it in the fridge until I was ready to leave. No problem he says.

A few hours later when I was leaving I asked for the bag back, and they told me there was no bag of chicken in their fridge and that I must be mistaken. I calmly explained that I wasn't imagining this, that I had given the bag to one of the waitstaff, and asked if they could please have another look.

The woman in charge then lined up her waitstaff and said "which one of them did you give the bag to?" I said I couldn't remember, but it was one of the waiters from a few hours earlier. She told me they've looked everywhere, there is no bag of chicken in their fridge, and that I couldn't possibly have given it to anyone, because if I had, it would be there. In essence, she was telling me I was lying about this.

So I sat down and said please have another look, I'm sure it's in there somewhere. She told me that they had searched everywhere and it wasn't there. That's it. No, "we may have misplaced it" or "the server that you gave the bag to left and didn't tell anyone where he put it. Buhaoyisi" etc. All of which I could accept. Instead it was, "we don't have it and you are lying to us." Kept my cool and calmly asked, "can you please have one more look?"

As she's telling me again that they don't have it, someone comes out from the kitchen with my bag. They have a quick chat and she hands me the bag and says "we couldn't find it because the waiter you gave the bag to left earlier in the day. You should have remembered who you gave it to. We have a lot of waitstaff here."

Unbelievable! It's my fault for not writing down the name of waiter and getting his phone number so they could call him later and ask where he put my stuff.

It was my first time there, and seemed like an ok place to relax after Lido meetings, but frankly I'm never going back there. It was too embarrassing to be accused at least three times in front of the bar of lying about giving them something to hold in the fridge for me and then asked to look at a lineup of waitstaff.

Seriously bad customer service.

If the initial post sounded like some spoiled, whining prat, my apologies. Wasn't my intention.

I'm a pretty mellow guy that's been here many, many years. I wasn't ranting and raving and yelling or yelling at their staff about my 'bag o chicken' or anything, and was quite calm and smiling the whole time.

It was just embarrassing to be treated that way. That's all. It was far more important for the manager to establish that it wasn't their fault/responsibility than it was to deal with the situation (and as far as I was concerned, a very small situation!).

If they couldn't have found it, fine. I would have accepted that it got chucked and just went back to the store and got more.

What I'm objecting to is

1) the manager telling me they've looked and it isn't there, so I must not have given it to them. i.e. I imagined it or was somehow trying to scam them. She didn't say we can't find it. She kept insisting that it wasn't there.

2) Being stood in front a line-up of the staff at the bar and told to point out who I gave the bag to. This wasn't being done to resolve the situation, this was being done to show me that if I couldn't find (or remember) the person I gave it to, then I must have lied about giving it to someone.

3) When they did find it, being told it was my fault because the original waiter went home (even though during the line-up the manager was insisting to me that all the staff were there and if I couldn't show her who took the bag this proved they didn't have it) and I didn't somehow check with him before he left.

I didn't care about the bag. If it was gone, fine..no problem. Stuff happens . As an earlier poster mentioned, it ain't a coat check with a tag. If the manager had said to me, "sorry, it must have got thrown away or something, we can't find it. buhaoyisi", then no worries! I would have just been on my way and wouldn't have thought twice about it. However, the immediate reaction was to insist that since they can't find the bag, I must be lying about having asked anyone to hold it for me.

I put it on the that's beijing forum to let people know, and if the owner/manager reads it he/she can decide whether it's a non-issue and I'm full of sh*t or whether to talk to their staff about it. That's all.