Chain Restaurant Assistant Manager Threatened to Call Police

Legacy_user

My partner and I went for a meal, and we had a voucher we'd recieved from previously providing feedback on request. The voucher clearly said it was upto a value of a certain amount and excl drinks.

When ordering food, several of the dishes we liked were not available and so we were thinking outloud of returning some other time. Then the assistant manager said don't worry if you prefer you can use the voucher on food and drinks.. I asked are you sure that's okay and she said yes, just bring me the voucher when you want to settle up.

The drinks took ages to come and my first meal was burnt, they took it away and the second meal was really greasy but returned with the same chips etc as I had the first time hence cold.

At this point approx 40/50 business people turned up all ordering drinks/foods (still wearing name badges etc) and it got very busy.

I couldn't get the attention of our waitress but I don't think it's her fault, she had people queing up wanting to order.

They finally took our meals away and we ordered one dessert which was made very badly. We left it and decided to call it quits and leave.

I queued after about 10 people from this big party and finally the waitress came over and asked if she could help. I said that we were settling up and had been asked to go and see the assistant manager with the voucher.

Our waitress said she could do it for us, and picked up that it said excl drinks on voucher. I told her assistant manager had said it was okay on this occassion. She asked the assistant manager, and said she'd never allowed drinks before and asked how to do it and assistant manager said no can't do it.

Imagine my shock after first being given different advise not so long ago. Being busy the assistant manager came over and said if I didn't pay for all my drinks she would call the police as drinks are from a different area than food. I said to her my food was terrible anyway, and my meals were not eaten due to the quality and she said well you had a voucher (as if what's the issue).

She kept making threats to call the police in front of all these business people who were queing and in the end my partner said can we just pay and get out of here.

It was awful to be treated this way, I've used some of the other chain restaurants and the food/service has been good but this left a nasty taste..

Also, this wasn't a standard type of voucher like 2for1 etc that you get sometimes but a specific one addressed to you individually so when she agreed to allow drinks under it I didn't think that this would be wrong as she was in charge that night.

She said the manager was not at work that night and she would not disturb him. I felt I had no option but to pay a bill which I shouldn't have and also the voucher wasn't used in a nice way as the meals were terrible..

The worst thing was her attitude, she was so rude and aggressive and raising her voice at me.

Has anyone else ever been threatened with the police before on something like this

omen666

name and shame

KILL_BILL

i wouldnt have paid - let them call the police - they (police) would not have been able to interfere as its a civil dispute and not a criminal matter.

ChrisCobra

Why do we see so many of these posts of people in this situation and just agree to pay up , you should have let them bring the police in , although i can understand wanting to get out of there from embarassment.. Wouldnt have bothered me though

System

I guess some of it is not really knowing your rights in this particular situation, my partner was worried that if they called the police we'd get in trouble as she kept saying you have to pay and she was so aggressive..

I would have let her call the police but I didn't know if I could get in trouble and really didn't want to be there all night.

I've written to them but thank you for your comments it really is appreciated...

hollydays

So,are you saying that at first the Assistant Manager said you could use the voucher,then denied saying it later?

Reggie_Rebel

Call their bluff, Plod wouldn't have cared. They'd probably arrest the chef for having a knife

System

hollydays wrote: »

So,are you saying that at first the Assistant Manager said you could use the voucher,then denied saying it later?

Hi hollydays, yes that's what happened. I am so shocked. If it had been a different person then fair enough they could have said it was an error and shouldn't have been offered to us but it was the Assistant Manager.

adouglasmhor

You have paid now, other than contact their head office (and get more vouchers probably; I would assume you wont be going there again given the circumstances), you really have little recourse, unless you want to name and shame to warn others.

dacouch

You should have allowed them to call the police, they would only be interested if you had intended / tried not to pay for the food. If you explained the situation they would tell the restaurant there is no crime and it is a civil matter

System

dacouch wrote: »

You should have allowed them to call the police, they would only be interested if you had intended / tried not to pay for the food. If you explained the situation they would tell the restaurant there is no crime and it is a civil matter

I wish I'd have known this (i.e. my rights) at the time. I would have let them call the police in that case. My partner thought we'd be in trouble if the police came. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before but I do appreciate all your comments and advise.. I hope nothing like this ever happens again but just in case at least I now know (and others know if they read this) that you shouldn't be frightened if restaurants threaten you with police.