I live near this place and the food isn’t bad so I keep giving it another go. But no matter how many times I eat here I always come out with the same impression – the waitresses are completely and utterly brainless.

It’s not that they’re rude – they all seem like nice enough girls. They’re just hopeless. I once ordered a salad and they gave me my neighbor’s order, which was similar, so I hoed in without initially realizing I had the wrong dish. The salad I had ordered had pieces of bacon in it, however, so my non-pork eating neighbor wasn’t impressed when she was landed with my order.

Other times I’ve ordered a meal and the staff have failed to give me any cutlery, or they’ve forgotten my order altogether. Then there are the huge sandwiches they serve as one giant slab – it never seems to occur to the staff to cut them in half to make them more manageable.

None of these things are a big deal taken in isolation, and living in Beijing you get used to certain level of bad service. But it grinds you down when you’re constantly having to instruct the staff in the basics of café service.