Terrible service! Do not go!!

Joined: Feb 19, 2011
Posts: 26
Review of
1

BAD. Best to avoid this place. Went for a late Sunday lunch with friends and stayed because of outdoor seating, but that was the its only saving grace.

First off, the patio had seating for both Kenny's and Moka Bros so 3 of our friends went and got smoothies from Moka Bros while we waited for our food. But as soon as they came back and sat down the waiter came over and said in a very not nice tone of voice that they couldn't have those there. I can understand if you don't want a competing place's drinks at your tables but you can say so politely. Instead, he basically was telling our 3 friends to get rid of their drinks or leave in a very rude manner. One of us finally suggested that we pour the Moka Bros drinks into plain cups without the logos and the waiter agreed, easy as that. When you deal with people, good customer service should be about solutions (advice to that waiter).

After that debacle, about 40 minutes after ordering our food, they brought out our drinks and nachos. Then came up to our table of 9 and said we had to pay first before they would cook our food. WTH. If this is standard procedure for them, they should have told us right away, and not 40 minutes after that they will only start cooking our food once we pay. Then, one friend wanted no lettuce and tomato on her burger but they refused, then another friend wanted no mayo on her burger but they refused to do that too because it would really be too difficult to omit 1 or 2 things on a burger?! They're even SAVING ingredients by not putting extra stuff in.

They also said they only had tap water, and would otherwise charge for bottled water. But we saw another table with water, so they eventually gave us some. Hope it wasn't tap water because we drank it.

Food was mediocre. Burger small, truffle fries not really truffle-y. Poached egg in salad was cold and took forever.

Would give negative stars in this review if the system allowed it.

This is so traumatizing. I would probably expolde with rage if any one of the things you described has happened to me.

Some restaurants close their counter in the afternoon, so sometimes they want you to pay after you order, so that they can close the system, but that doesn't sound what happened to you, because if that's the case, they should have told you much ealier about it, not 40 minutes after you ordered.

To my mind, if you have the time, the key to punish these snobbish restaurants is to say no, so that you can transfer the predicament from your side to their side. For example, I worked at the world trade center for a short period and I had lunch everyday at the Subway on B/1 level of Kerry Center. There is a pizza place next to it, and there was one time that the Subway store was fully loaded but the pizza place had many empty seats outside. The two stores were next to each other and from the outside it was even hard to tell which seats belonged to which store, so I just decided to eat at a table that fell more to the Pizzaria side. 

A couple minutes later a waitress from the pizza shop came, and asked me to leave very rudely.  

And you know what, I refused. 

She went back and a couple minutes later she came back with her manager, a middle aged woman, and the manager asked me to leave. I again refused, and I told her very decisively that if she insisted on getting rid of me, I was afraid that she had to do it by force. She kept bothering me and I didn't even talk to her anymore, and finally she said something very unkindly I don't remember and I was instantly raged and I stood up and yelled at her face to stop bothering me from eating my sandwich and I eat wherever I want to eat, and I told her I'm very lowly and thug so if she wants to move me by force she can try it. 

And then she fucking told me that the chairs were theirs so I had to leave because I couldn't sit on the chairs they bought.

And I was raged like a crazy cow and I took my tray and I put it on the floor, and I started to eat by sitting on the floor. She gave me a very cheap laugh and told me I'm too naive and this would do me no good, but I told her she knew nothing. I told her this is a communist country, and nobody owns the land, and I told her she is also a proletariat like me so she should give me some compassion by not letting me eating by squatting outside the building in Beijing's Februray gusts of wind.

Then she called the buidling security. About a couple of minutes later there came two security guards. I secretly checked them. They were probably in their 60s, about 5"6-5"7, and were totally out of shape. I'm about 6 feet so I wondered even with these two guys they couldn't easily knock me down. So I decided to keep finishing my sandwich, but I had secretly prepared for their move. I silently held a leg of chair near me so that if they dare to give me the first punch I'd immediately throw the chair to them. 

Nothing happened at last. The two "security guards" told me it's not good to occupy a place without spending money. I gave the shop a fifty and told them to give me a drink, and they did. I finished my sandwich very unpleasantly and left my drink and change to the waitress and apologized to her. 

Point is, physical deterrance is very important in China. As long as you give them a thug face and make them known that unless they could bring 3-5 good shaped men, they couldn't easily move you, most of the time they'd give up with their unreasonable requests. 

Trey Canning are you serious? 

That does sound like a bad experience but I wanted to just comment on this:

> They also said they only had tap water, and would otherwise charge for bottled water. But we saw another table with water, so they eventually gave us some. Hope it wasn't tap water because we drank it.

It was tap water. How else is it free?

Perhaps they boiled it first, but that doesn't get rid of the heavy metals which cause cancer.