Banjo’s Bakery Café – St Helens — Restaurant in Tasmania

Congratulations Banjos St Helens, you have the distinction of being the ONLY business in Tassie who treated us horrendously in our two years in this country. It didn’t matter to your incredibly rude staff that one of us was visibly pregnant and there were 3 kids under the age of ten with us. Cuss words and F bombs were dropped with impunity, thankfully not directly at us but loud enough for every customer in your store and our kids to hear them. We were three couples, with one kid each. Before entering the store at 5:35PM, we asked the girl stacking the outdoor furniture if the store was open. She was literally banging the furniture and had a scowl on her face. She confirmed they are open and will shut at 6:00PM. The attitude of this staff member #1 should have made us stop right there but it is our fault that we still entered your premises because the kids were hungry.

1. Upon entering, when one of us took a seat, staff member #1 told us to vacate the seat as that side of the restaurant was already cleaned. We complied. The message was delivered to us in an extremely unfriendly tone with no courtesy. Not a problem.

2. The first couple in our group ordered vegetable rolls as part of the order, but was almost served meat based savory rolls by staff member#2 who was apparently new. She was friendly and polite. Not a problem.

3. The second couple ordered a chicken sandwich but was served ham instead. Noticed before eating and this was readily replaced by the rude staff member #1 with no mention of any apology or a smile on her face. Not a problem.

4. We could hear the staff fighting in the kitchen. Expletive laden language was free flowing. Not our concern. Not a problem.

5. While we eating, we got insolent stares from staff member #1 and #3. We do not know why this would happen because we were very polite throughout our time in the store and complied with their instructions. Not a problem.

6. At 5:59PM we heard the staff say loudly, “One minute to close”. We immediately got up and walked out because of the uncomfortable environment your staff had created. I said “Thank you” before leaving. However, the couple with the pregnant mother took 2 minutes, and this is 2 minutes by the clock and not figuratively speaking, to pack her things. This 2 minute delay generated some very offensive and unacceptable response from one of your staff wherein she walked up to the table clapping her hands saying “out” “out” to our friend’s face. This IS a problem.

We would like to understand if this is your normal and standard procedure to shoo customers away, or do you reserve this treatment for patrons with darker skin? Because we cannot think of any other trigger here, except that we look different.

Either way we won’t let this ugly episode shake our trust in Australian values. The kids that were with us, will grow up here and will go to school here. I can promise you they will imbibe values that will be better than the ones displayed by your staff today.

It might also help you if you stop taking orders minutes before you lock the doors and decide to throw the customers out.

We understand that a couple of hundred dollars in lost revenue isn’t going to ding Banjos one bit, but for the sake of our own sanity we shall not be seeing the inside of any Banjos store...

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