A Scots diner has spoken out after restaurant staff included her in an email chain that discussed complaints she made. Rachael Avis visited The Garden Bistro at Saughton Park, Edinburgh with her parents and children on Monday, August 15.
Unhappy with the food and service at the new establishment, she left a review on a local Facebook group, Edinburgh Live reports. However, after the post was removed, she emailed the company directly to complain.
But in the restaurant's response, they accidentally included a series of emails discussing her complaints. The Garden Bistro staff claimed she was "causing trouble" and said she should have been more "patient" - and unwittingly sent their in-house grumbles directly to her.
Sharing her experience Rachael told Edinburgh Live: "So we walked over to the bistro for some lunch. On arrival, I stood at the host station for some time before I entered the bistro to ask to be seated.
"We were told there were no tables, so I asked if I could sit at a table to the right of the host station, and the waiter said yes. The table was dirty, so I asked for a cloth and the guy said he would bring one. He didn’t. We sat anyway and waited for menus.
"Menus didn’t arrive, so my mum went in and got some, then we didn’t get anyone coming to take our order so my mum again went to ask for the staff to take our order. We ordered food, and on arrival it looked nice but we had no cutlery. They said they would bring it, they didn’t my mum had to go and collect some.
"When the waitress came back to see us, I told her that the bread tasted stale and none of us could eat it. We had ordered two beans on toast, one scrambled egg on toast, and I ordered soup with bread. All the same bread and all stale. The waitress said she would tell her manager, and returned to say she had let them know and here was our bill."
The mum-of-three, from Midlothian, said she was let down after spending £56 on the meal and more on hot drinks and snacks. She also claimed there was no acknowledgment or apology from staff so decided to provide a review on her local Facebook page.
Rachael explained: "This caused a bit of a drama with over 100 comments, mostly reporting their bad reviews also. It was then I received a email from a member of the horticultural society asking me to remove the post, then before I know it my post was gone.
"I emailed the bistro directly with my complaints and then today received an email that was meant for staff of the bistro, about me in error. I replied saying I can see the extent of the email he had written, and he replied asking me to delete the correspondence.
"To be fair, if they had just apologised I’d never have posted this on social media."
While staff discussed the complaint, they accidentally sent all the emails to the disappointed diner.
In the email correspondence, the team at the bistro discussed how several of the issues Rachael complained about could have been avoided if she had been more "patient." They also accused her of "causing trouble," and eventually decided to pay her a £10 voucher. Rachael declined the voucher and The Garden Bistro later donated £100 to charity as a way of apology.
They added: "At the end of the day, we are very passionate about our business, our staff and our customers. When we receive feedback, we will look at what is said and make changes if we believe they are valid.
"From the issue raised by Rachael, we will now serve the kids beans on toast on bloomer bread rather than Sourdough. Rachael has been keen to point out repeatedly that the bread was stale, however we receive daily deliveries from our Edinburgh baker, so would dispute serving stale bread.
"Our focus is to survive through what has been and still is a very difficult time for any hospitality business. This issue has been a misunderstanding that has escalated in to an abusive and distressing time for us.
"We look forward to putting this matter behind us so we can concentrate on providing high quality produce and service to our loyal customers who we thank for their continued support."
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