I got home from the airport last night. There was no food in the house and it was a Sunday night, nothing was open. I was hungry. So I placed an order for me and my friend through Deliveroo at 21:50. I do appreciate that it’s 10 minutes before closing time, but it was an option on deliveroo, and so I went for it. I’ve worked in the service industry for years and I wouldn’t dream of walking into a place 10 minutes before closing time. But since it was an option on deliveroo, I assumed they’d be happy with the custom.

So we get a phone call close to 22:00 to say that they are out of chicken and to point out that the order was placed 10 minutes before closing time. I’m not sure what one has to do with the other, but apparently Nando’s are out of chicken! I couldn’t believe it either, dear reader, and in fact I still don’t. Note - there was no offer to send us other food (burgers, beanie patties, halloumi, etc), just a strong suggestion that we have to go on the deliveroo app and cancel the order, apparently this is preferable to them cancelling it form their end. Again, I smell something here; it probably looks better on the system for the customer to cancel rather than the restaurant to do so.

Also - note that after 14 hours of travelling and whilst hungry I had to spend 30 minutes arguing with deliveroo about cancelling this order, their app and staff were quite confused and being very slow. Apparently they couldn’t get in touch with the restaurant…

By this time it was too late to order something else with anyone else, as most restaurants don’t take orders after 22:00. If I’d have known that, I’d have placed an order with another Nando’s (such as the vaults in Bolton) or basically any restaurant that doesn’t lie to their clients.

Here’s what should have happened:

• staff at Nando’s middlebrook should have turned off the option/availability on deliveroo when they ran out of stock.
• the food items that were out of stock should have been marked as unavailable.

None of the above happened, which makes me think that they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be marked as available on deliveroo, but not actually fulfil orders that aren’t convenient for them.

Again, I’ve worked in the service industry for years, and I know what really happened there. From about 21:30 onwards, perhaps as the last few customers were having the last of their meals, they cleaned down the kitchen and possibly even sent the kitchen staff home. Fair enough, really, and I would have done the same. BUT - I would also have switched off availability on deliveroo at this point.

So these guys got caught out with an order at 21:50, and decided to call us and tell us that they’re out of chicken (REALLY?!) and that we had to cancel the order. I hope management sees this and deals with it accordingly. Guys and girls - there’s a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, grab it cause YOUR PANTS ARE ON FIRE!!!