Sometimes, luck is not on your side, and your booking advance perks are nowhere to be found. A woman took to Reddit to explain her experience when she had made a reservation for 10 people, months in advance, to celebrate her father-in-law and mother-in-law’s birthdays.
However, upon arrival, they found that they had not been seated at the table they had initially booked due to the rain.
‘’I had made a reservation for a group of 10 at a new up-scale restaurant months beforehand. Because it was also a winery, we arrived 2 hours early and checked in with the restaurant to see if they could seat us earlier. Despite an empty restaurant, they said they couldn't.’’
She explains that it didn’t bother them as they thought the restaurant could be low on staff at that moment and decided to do some exploring around the area until their reservation time.
‘’Nearing their reservation time, I got a text message from the restaurant to be seated just as it began to rain. We walked over to the hostess. She informed us that because it was raining and because our table was outdoors, that they would not be able to seat us tonight.’’
She explained to the hostess that a reservation was made months in advance, addition to that, she wasn’t informed that her reservation was for an outdoor table or subject to rain, there were not any options offered for, indoor and outdoor tables.
‘’I explained to them that it was for a 60th and 64th birthday party. I asked if they could split us up between tables, and they just kept saying that there was nothing they could do and that it wasn't their fault because "we can't control the weather," she adds.
She did the decent thing and emailed the manager to ask them if there was anything they could do because our experience was so terrible. But she received no response. The woman decided to get ‘petty’ and made multiple gmail accounts, and left what was a fairly new restaurant receive various one star reviews.
The woman left a negative review of a restaurant, warning people not to book it for a large party. The author's criticism included the restaurant's failure to find them a table elsewhere, inability to fix their mistake, overbooking of tables, lack of effort to accommodate their needs, and failure to offer any compensation for their inconvenience.
Eventually, their Google rating dropped by two stars. After seeing the reviews, they reached out offering a comp meal for the group of 10: ‘’They reached out offering to comp a meal for my in-laws IF "our group" took the reviews down. Which I refused.’’
Lesson of the day: Don’t mess with a woman and her reservation.