The owner of a dog-friendly pub posted an epic response online to an unhappy customer who slammed the establishment’s “rude” service.
The Clickham Inn in the UK is a historic countryside pub and restaurant which has a five star rating on TripAdvisor. In January 2023, it has amassed an impressive 686 "excellent" reviews, and was in the top 10 best-rated restaurants in the whole of its District.
Despite this, there was one diner who was not pleased with the service, and left a "terrible" review on the travel website. The customer, who posted a review under the name John, titled the feedback "WE WON'T BE BACK!!!," before going into detail about his experience.
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John explained that they had visited the pub in December for his wife's birthday meal, which was "ruined" by a "very hostile owner". He said that his main issues with him were that he was "rude," "abrupt" and "has zero customer service skills".
He also said there was a "dog barking at his table” and “begging for food". In a stinging response, owner Stephen Bailey said: "We are all collectively really happy that you will never be returning as we are known for being attentive and polite and its easy being nice to nice people."
Steve, writing under the username Geri B (who is also an owner of the pub), started with: "This review was expected and anyone who read your nasty words will be interested to read the truth.
"Firstly, upon entering the your entitled self important self was rude and dismissive of our helpful staff to the point that the staff warned me about the terrible people on table 15."
"After being escorted to your table and a short while after your drinks order being carried to your table an experienced member of our staff asked if you were ready to order. This was met with how you wanted to wait until your ready to order and how amateur we were for asking."
The owner added that the "rudeness" continued throughout the meal. When Steve introduced himself, he claimed John had "talk over me and had an opinion on everything".
The diner had asked to see the dessert menu at 9.45pm, but Steve explained that the kitchen closed at 9pm. He added: "Ordinarily we would have made your sweets, regardless of the time but you were not going to be rewarded for your bad behaviour."
Owner Stephen told Cumbria Rack that they rarely get bad reviews on their TripAdvisor page, but that staff had "warned me how bad he was and in the end he walked out shouting after he paid for the meal but I wasn't getting into a shouting match".
He added: "It’s just one of those rare bad occasions, but I’m not going to be ruled by bad customers, otherwise you open yourselves up to all sorts and lose control."
The Clickham Inn describes itself as a traditional village pub in a "great rural location, complete with open fires, fine beers and a very warm welcome". It's also dog friendly.
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