Puerstner — Restaurant in Vienna

The thing about Google Reviews is that they only allow you to give an overall rating, so I want to start with the bad aspects of this place.

When we visited, there was no air conditioning on a really hot day, so we had to endure the heat inside. Unfortunately, our experience was further soured by the waiter, who seemed to be having a bad day and decided to take it out on us. It’s important to mention that the restaurant was nearly empty, with only three tables occupied, meaning it was probably at 10 or 20% of its capacity. Despite this, the service was dismissive.

When the waiter first approached, he asked if we were ready. I ordered drinks and mentioned that we were ready to order food as well. Surprisingly, he refused to take our food order and walked away. I thought he was joking, but he wasn’t. He eventually returned with our drinks, and my wife tried to order food again. He said we could order but then left before taking the order. We finally had to ask another staff member to call him over, and he returned with a sour expression to take our order.

By this point, we were already having a bad experience, which is a shame because the food is actually tasty, the prices are affordable, and the restaurant looks nice. However, the poor service continued even when we asked for the bill. I asked to pay, and while he said yes, he left and didn’t return. We had to ask a second waiter to bring him over so we could finally pay. Throughout the entire meal, every time I said "thank you," he never acknowledged it, which felt rude and dismissive.

This was a really disappointing experience. I have to give this place two stars. It’s frustrating when you make the effort to visit and spend your money, only to be treated like this. I’ve visited over 30 countries, and as a local guide on Google Maps, I write a lot of reviews. It’s disheartening to come across places like this. I hope the owners see this review and take action, because I, for one, will not be returning—not because of the food, the ambiance or even the lack of air conditioning, but solely because of...

Umm, where to begin. You can read my profile and my other reviews to see that I am a very fair and patient patron. I have 14 years experience working in customer service and I was gobsmacked by the way we were treated tonight. I’ve read some of the other reviews of others being treated poorly and I only wish I had seen them before I went there tonight. Yes; they are always upset that you don’t have a reservation it seems. They did however seat us and advise we would have to be gone by 7pm. We said no issue, we would be long gone (and we were). We waited a fair bit of time to be approached for service by a very rude server. We were ready to order our food at the time and we were told drinks first (huh?). We received our drinks and then ordered. Food was fine, if you’ve had Austrian/Germanic food before it ticks the boxes but it wasn’t outstanding. When we asked to pay and requested separate bills (we are colleagues) it was met with distain. “You should tell me at the start.” He begrudgingly obliged us. We followed our servers instructions to meet him at the POS for the calculations (ONE at a time). When I went over I advised him what I had, even added a small gratuity (I regret this now). I went to tap my phone and he said it needed to be the physical card (AFTER I had attempted to pay)… when I went to get my card he let out the biggest sigh as if it was the most inconvenient thing in the world. My colleague told him he was rude to us so she would not be tipping. I’m glad she had the courage to. I’ve seen a lot of responses to reviews from the restaurant that are quite rude as well. Feel free to try to argue this behaviour! Not impressive at all, if you don’t want to work as a server, don’t! We left feeling awful from the way we were treated. I have served in Canada and worked way busier nights with MANY split checks. If you expect gratuity you...

It’s very hard to find good restaurants to eat at in Vienna in summer, as most of them are on holiday or are booked a week in the future. We chose this place as it looked great and wanted to try it out. The food was incredible - I personally had the Wiener Schnitzel which I’d highly recommend and a massive kudos to the chef. The salad was very average but still tasted alright.

However, even though the waiter was really nice at the start, we had a terrible experience at the end. I was waiting for my friend to come back from the toilet as we agreed to split, so I kindly asked if I could have a moment to wait for him. (Bearing in mind we haven’t asked for the bill and we had the table reserved for 30 more minutes), I was met with an instant dismissal.

So, as I had to, I asked the waiter for one second as I had to load more money into my Global card (as I’m now being forced to pay for the entire thing), to which he again said no and made me hurry up. This meant I had to quickly pay with my home card and pay an extra conversion fee on top. I didn’t see one smile or an act of kindness from the waiter which was really disappointing as the food was excellent. He then had the courtesy of saying that I must pay at least €6 for a tip. Of course, I am used to tipping waiters for their work so I did, but I wasn’t expecting to be asked so rudely and cheekily. He was also rude to my friend when he asked a simple question inside.

I would recommend this restaurant for the food, but the service was very questionable. There was a very minimal language barrier as he knew English well, so was simply mistreating us for no reason.

I know I should’ve held my ground, but being in a foreign country and on your own in these situations makes you hold yourself...