A restaurant has responded robustly after a customer complained that she was charged a £60 fee for failing to turn up or cancel her booking properly.
A woman claimed she couldn't turn up to her booking at The Laundrette in Chorlton, Manchester because members of her family, including her grandmother had fallen ill with Covid.
But when she complained about the charge and left a one star review on Tripadvisor, the restuarant owners wrote back robustly saying they were fully justified, the MEN reports.
The Laundrette currently holds the top spot for the highest-rated restaurant out of around 1,700 venues in the city on Tripadvisor.
Read more: The 40 places in Wales where you have to eat out this year
On the website, the user named "laurenbH5350XX" said that she had been hoping to go to a pre-booked meal at the venue on December 30 last year, but "may have forgotten to cancel" due to the "chaos" of checking in with her unwell family and working to cover for a colleague that had also tested positive for the virus.
She wrote: "I’ve eaten here a few times, and brought many friends when they’ve been visiting Chorlton.
"So when my family wanted to get together around Christmas I booked in advance a family meal on December 30, my only day off that week.
"Unfortunately, on the day a couple of my family members were taken ill with Covid, one of them being an 82-year-old.
"Not only was I worried for her health but also was being told to go into work to cover for my head chef who had tested positive too.
"I thought I had cancelled the booking on the email link, but I was later charged £60 on my card by Launderette."
She added: "In the chaos of checking in with my grandma regarding her health, having to go into work on my only day off, and worrying about the consequences of my head chef having to be off for 10 days when I work in an incredibly small kitchen team to start with, I may have forgotten to cancel."
She went on to mention that she understood the procedure the restaurant had to follow as she also works in a local restaurant, but had tried to explain the circumstances and asked for a refund.
She added: "I completely understand the annoyance of having a table no show. We've had it constantly throughout Covid and understand the inconvenience caused.
"But at my restaurant we wouldn’t just bill the card payer and not display any sympathy to the circumstances.
"I would like to think that despite these uncertain times, local businesses still appreciate human error and genuine mistakes."
The venue hit back at the disgruntled customer on review site Tripadvisor.
It read: "Regrettably you didn’t cancel your booking and your table sat completely empty for two hours on a day we were fully booked....This is why you were charged.
"We are a tiny restaurant and you booked one of our largest tables.
"As you mentioned, you work in the industry so you should know way more than most how detrimental tables not showing up is for small businesses."
The woman left a one star review on Tripadvisor which also irked the restaurant bosses.
The venue's statement said: "And on top of that you then seem to think it’s acceptable to leave a bad review on TripAdvisor despite knowing you are 100 per cent in the wrong.
"We make it extremely easy to cancel bookings. You can do it online yourself, you can message us on any platform, you can call us.
"As you live on the road you could have easily just mentioned it to any of our staff while walking past.
"Unfortunately you didn’t bother doing any of these. Even just five minutes notice would have been enough for us to try and resell your table.
"Normally we are absolutely demoralised by negative reviews but I’m more than happy for this to stay up and be public so everyone can see.
"Not showing up for restaurant bookings is an extremely rude and disgusting practice. It’s the only reason we have put our charging system in place
"We hate charging no shows but it’s the only way to protect ourselves."
The MEN contacted the venue to ask if they wished to add anything to their Tripadvisor response.
To get the latest news from WalesOnline sent to your email inbox click here.
