Denny’s Christchurch — Restaurant in Christchurch

Complaint Letter

Date: 08/07/2024

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to express my disappointment and concern about my recent visit to your Denny's restaurant in Christchurch on July 7th, 2024, at 4:35 pm. I was accompanied by my child, who turned 5 years old yesterday, and was excited to celebrate his special day with us.

As we were dining, your waitress was very friendly and informed us about the birthday special offer, where customers can buy one meal and get one of equal or lesser value free. We took advantage of this offer and were pleased with our food. However, the experience took a turn for the worse when I interacted with Dinesh Patel, who claimed to be the main manager at this branch. When i explain i would like to use this offer and show my child passport.

When I asked Dinesh about the birthday special, he asked if my child had eaten the food, implying that a child of that age wouldn't eat much and i told him go check the cctv footage as he was talking with me on higher tone. I felt offended by this question, as it was an unnecessary assumption. As an Indian individual myself, I believe that it was also a stereotypical and judgmental comment. Unfortunately, Dinesh's demeanor and tone were unprofessional and made me feel unwelcome.

As someone with 7 years of experience in the hospitality industry, including owning and managing my own restaurant chain, I was shocked by Dinesh's lack of customer service skills. I have worked in various roles, including waitress, manager, and partner at Little India Restaurant in Merival. I am concerned that this attitude may lead to further complaints from customers in the future.

To make matters worse, I had to send my food back as it was cold specially fries and did not meet my request for crispy fries. It was clear that the food had been sitting out for some time before being served specially fries.

I hope that you will take my complaint seriously and take necessary action to address these issues. As a regular customer of your establishment, I expect better service and treatment from your staff and i respect the manager on our last visit he was super awesome even interacting with kids, i guess his name was Neville.

Please investigate this matter and take steps to ensure that your staff is trained to provide excellent customer service. I will leave this feedback on google review and other platforms as well as i didn't wanted that bad...

After returning the third item we got replacement meals only for them to be so caked in Chilli, pepper and "Moroccan" seasoning that it completely overpowered the lamb, so much I couldn't tell if it was rump or lamb. The vegetables were soggy and the cheese sauce had no cheese in it. The mashed potato and gravy was worse than KFC...

We came here for my birthday but this was horrible.

The pumpkin soup tasted like it came out of a sachet, was lumpy, had tons of sickening sugar in it and the garlic bread was just a loaf that had been fried on one side with a soft bread back. Not proper garlic bread.

I came here for my birthday and will never come back and I would recommend you don't either.

The deep fried kids meals were pretty good and the curly fries were good as well.

I did like the coconut prawns but the rest was so underwhelming! The tropical smoothie was full of seeds and only tasted of passion fruit.

The raspberry coke might as well be called raspberry drinks.

The milk for the kids however was good.

Edit:

To add insult to injury, the manager then charged us $45 for some fries and chicken nuggets and some drinks.

Even though it was my birthday he still charged me full price!

After calmly explaining to him that we bought two meals and with the birthday deal we were meant to get one for free.

He butted in and spoke over me three times before I asked him to stop. After speaking over me again another three times I had to raise my voice for him to be quiet and actually listen to me.

He then begrudgingly gave me a $7.50 refund.

In total he butted in and spoke over me 9-10 times and was quite rude.

Just because an item has been on your menu for 10 years does not mean it will automatically taste good or be cooked right.

Left with a bad taste in our mouths not just because...

I recently visited Denny's to celebrate a friend's birthday and was extremely disappointed with the customer service. Upon arrival, we stood waiting for someone to acknowledge us. After several minutes with no greeting or instruction, we took menus ourselves and seated ourselves at a table.

The manager then approached us rudely, asking who had seated us. I explained that no one had attended to us despite employees being present. He curtly informed us that the kitchen was closed and only desserts were being served, pointing out a sign.

We are regular customers and have dined at this Denny's at similar times before without issue. When I mentioned this, the manager dismissively claimed that things had changed and insinuated that things have changed now,despite our last visit being just on September 10th.

The manager’s attitude was condescending and unprofessional. He showed no understanding of customer service and made us feel unwelcome and disrespected. Ultimately, we decided to cancel our order and leave. Instead of attempting to understand our frustration or retain our business, he simply said, "Oh, thank you, have a good night."

This experience was incredibly disappointing, and I would urge Denny's to invest in proper training for their staff, particularly their managers, to ensure customers are treated with the respect and courtesy...