Restaurant Owner Rejects A Request From Unreasonable Customer Who Wants To Decide On The Menu And The Price

The customer claims he is intolerant to almost everything except the finest pieces of meat, goat cheese, and sweet potato. Also intolerant to paying, it seems. #ChoosingBeggars

Damjan

• Published in Interesting
• July 23, 2020

Every business has its downsides, and one of the biggest challenges that restaurant management and employees have to face are picky and petty customers. Whether it is face to face or email and chat correspondence, it is always difficult for the people in the restaurant business to keep calm when talking to an unreasonable customer.

They deserve a medal for somehow still pulling it off. A , Attila Yilmaz of PAZAR food collective in Australia, posted an email exchange between him and one exceptionally demanding customer. It began when the anonymous customer asked, “I have an incredibly restricted diet, my friends are booking a table, and I believe there will be seven or more people. I think it would be best if I eat before and drink at the restaurant as there isn’t anything on your menu suitable for my restrictions. Can I just sit there and drink, or you can only sit at the table if you are dining?”

On PAZAR’s website, it says, “Reservations of 7 guests or more will dine from PAZAR’s Collective Feast menu, an 8 course shared menu priced at $68 per person.”

This probably means what this person really wishes is not to pay. Maybe they really eat the food from the menu, but if that’s the case here, then they should have chosen a different place to eat.

Yilmaz replied, “Thank you for your email. Our liquor licence [SIC] and only covers us for dining customers. All seats occupied by guest of a large group are required to participate in the collective feast. We can accomodate[SIC] to most needs with notice but can not come up with 8 courses for very special needs.”

We are not sure how true is this liquor license thing, but we don’t know Australian regulations that well. It is more likely that Yilmaz doesn’t want people to feel they can turn up in a restaurant, not eat anything and take up the tables that would otherwise earn him money.

The customer said the party would go somewhere else unless the restaurant could provide them with a “lean steak and sweet potato with leaf and sheep’s milk feta or goats cheese salad and charge appropriately, not a feast $68 price.” 

Yilmaz asked them to explain, replying, “You want to come to our restaurant, don’t like our menu and hence want to create your own menu and want us to cook that for you at a price you determine is fair? Could you please tell me what cut of meat you would like and what you would like to pay for your dinner?”

The customer said he is “sensing a little bit of sarcasm.” He said the group would go to a different place.

Yilmaz probably should have ended the discussion as well, but instead he wrote a long mail in which he compared a restaurant’s menu to a concert: you wouldn’t go see a band and insist they play different songs, according to your wishes.

While his irritation is logical, it is fair to say that a lot of people have allergies that make planning a meal a real torture but have to eat out because of their friends, business partners, social life, etc. It can be hard to avoid every gathering. Their only choice is to find a place that would change their dish considerably. But PAZAR is evidently not that kind of restaurant.

And the customer responded that he actually works for a caterer.

Which, of course, provoked another response from Yilmaz:

And finally, the end.

It’s not inappropriate to ask if a restaurant can accommodate you when you have a special diet but see first how they serve their dishes. If there’s a minimum price for sitting at one of their tables, they will expect to get that money from you.

Damjan