For those of us that have been in Beijing long enough, there are some places you consistently go because you know you'll have a great experience. Bars like the Rickshaw and the new Saddle consistently provides good food and friendly service (even when they mess up an order). Nanjie has some of the most efficient bartenders in Beijing. The Vineyard is also great and their staff members often go out of their way to make sure customers are happy. Up until recently, I included the Bookworm on that "always a sure thing" list. After all, the place is a Beijing institution. It has a great atmosphere, decent menu, and cool events happening all the time. However, even with all the goods it has going, the staff members there have become such a turn-off that its ruined the whole place for me. In a very recent experience there, the staff and service was so appalling it made the worst beijing taxi drivers look good.

First I asked the waitress to help me plug in my power cord, to which she responded with a huffy "do it yourself". In almost every other place with Wifi, I've had staff help bring me a connector or plug in my cord when I couldn't find the power plug. It's not strange or difficult request. If the crappy service ended there, I would have let it go but it only got worse...

After getting my sandwich order, I looked to find that all but one of the ingredients in it wrong. They also added eggplant in the sandwich, to replace it with something they didn't have, when it wasn't suppose to even be in there. Well I just happen to be highly allergic to eggplant! What really angered me though was that at no point in the 30 minutes between my placing the order and getting the sandwich, did a staff member come to tell me that the sandwich may not be exactly what I ordered. So when I opened my sandwich to discover eggplant, I asked the waitress to correct my order. She came back in 2 seconds with the missing stuff (but cold stuff when my sandwich is suppose to be warm) AND left the eggplant in there. When I told her about my allergy, she was just like... mei ban fa. No apologies, no offer of the menu for something else.

Its really sad that such a great place like the Bookworm has gotten so comfortable with itself, it stopped caring about its customers. As a place of business, is it ever ok for just assume that people will go there so you can just treat your customers like crap? I can't imagine any other restaurant, bar or cafe that would let their staff members get away with behaviour like that- not even the small, hole-in-the-wall restaurants. Even with all the things I like about the Bookworm, it has definitely become the last place I'd go in Beijing.

Just FYI, after leaving the Bookworm after that experience, I went to a different cafe. Within 10 minutes, a staff member helped me find a power plug and I got the exact sandwich I ordered.