Aura Grill and Bar — Restaurant in Epping Forest

Subject: Disappointing Customer Service Experience at Aura Grill & Bar

Dear Aura Restaurant Management,

I hope this email finds you well.

I am writing to express my disappointment regarding the customer service experience I encountered during my recent visit to Aura Restaurant on Sunday 29th October 2023. While I appreciated the delicious food, I am sorry to say that the poor customer service overshadowed my overall dining experience, especially as it was meant to be a special celebration for my birthday.

To begin with, even though we had a made a reservation, we were given a table near the bar, which was quite unpleasant as it was quite noisy, awkward with stares and disrupted the ambiance of the restaurant. I have informed a member of staff about this, and requested to move our seat at the back of the restaurant, which she said it closed.

The most disheartening aspect of the service was the arrival of my birthday cake. Before the arrival of the cake, my friend was approached by the server to discuss the cake as it has lost its shape and some parts of the decoration have been ruined. My friend asked the server to clean off the ruined decoration, but the server replied that the kitchen was busy and ignored my friend's request, and brought the cake in its current state (please see the picture of the cake). Also, there was a £20 fee to cut the cake, which we were surprised by.

The person who bought the cake appeared to be uninterested, rudely answered our questions, didn't often check on us, and seemed more preoccupied with other tasks than providing us with a satisfactory dining experience. Additionally, when we requested plates, one of them arrived wet, so we had to dry it with a napkin on our table.

While the food at Aura Restaurant was undoubtedly delicious, it pains me to say that the overall dining experience was tarnished by the subpar customer service we received. I believe it is crucial to raise these concerns as it is essential for your team to be aware of the impact such incidents can have on customer satisfaction.

I sincerely hope that this feedback will be taken into account, and constructive measures will be implemented to improve the customer service standards at Aura Grill & Bar.

Thank you for taking the time to read and consider my...

We chose Aura Grill and Bar to celebrate our anniversary, and it did not disappoint. The aesthetics were really pretty I loved the theme of purple, black and grey. As soon as we walked in we were greeted by a lovely waitress who got us seated in a great spot very quickly. Customer service was amazing our waitress always came over to check if we were good or needed anything. They didn’t come over too much which made it a whole lot better.

For starters we ordered bread and hummus, mini burgers and Bbq Boa buns. I personally don’t like hummus but my partner really enjoyed it. The bread was amazing and whatever seasoning was on the bread was so tasty. The mini burgers were amazing and the Boa buns were the best boa buns I’ve ever tasted.

For mains we ordered a beef burger and chips as well as Beef bbq ribs and mash potatoes, and for the sides we ordered Macaroni and cheese and sweet potato fries. The beef burger was not great to be honest it was tough, dry and very salty. The chips were fine though and the Beef bbq ribs were so nice, it literally fell off the bone. The bbq sauce was amazing and the mash potato and vegetables really made the whole meal. Their Macaroni and cheese is the best restaurant Macaroni and cheese that I’ve tasted, and I’ve tasted 3 different restaurants.

The drinks we ordered were the Summer aura, Strawberry daiquiri, and a Virgin mojito. The summer aura was amazing I had to get it twice, it was full of flavour and I don’t normally have mocktails because there is always something I don’t like in them but this was amazing. It contained strawberries, watermelons, raspberries, mango juice and strawberry purée. I don’t like raspberries so I removed it but it still gave what it needed too. The Strawberry daiquiri tasted way better than I thought and the virgin mojito was decent.

We didn’t ordered dessert as there was nothing we really wanted on the menu and they gave us a cute small piece of pistachio baklava to celebrate our anniversary. Which was nice but extremely sweet, too sweet. But we were very grateful. This restaurant is definitely...

Arrived at 8.30 to have a drink at the bar a drink was a 15minute wait. Our table of 10 was booked months ago for 8.45pm. We kept being told ‘5 minutes’ every 20minutes… finally getting to our table at 10pm we were crammed in at a table of 8 where they then added a small round table to try and fit us on the end. We were told not to get comfy as they are moving us across the floor when a bigger table is free. At 10.40pm we were told they are not moving us they are fully booked. Finally at 11pm we were given menus and our first drinks. (Still no apology or any sort of customer service from ‘managers’).

The food… at 11.30pm arrived stone cold, soggy, greasy and vile. Prawns were raw, chips were hard, the spinach was drowned in creamy water, the Mac and cheese has an odd taste. Nothing short of inedible.

The only saving Grace was the lovely waitress we had who tried to help us. They were understaffed for such a busy night and none of the 5 ‘mangers’ tried helping their staff… they stood there drinking and bossing people around.

We asked to speak to the ‘managers’ regarding the bill… we had to wait 30minutes for one of them to leave their drinks and come to us. We then see the most arrogant and rude ‘mangers’. From the get go they spoke down to us, he told us that he ‘dictates us’, no apology and just pure rudeness. We had already paid £240 deposit which covers our drinks but to be asked to pay for inedible food is quite clearly unjust.

They then went on to shouting at us and then not letting us leave the premises… they had 2 big bouncers at the door who would not let us through. They tried to intimidate us into paying which worked as we were worried about what they would do as they were just so rude and horrible. Once we had paid what they had forced us to pay the ‘manger’ went on to shouting ‘GET THE F OUT’. And this is all because they were greedy taking on too many bookings than they can handle. If they were apologetic and had some sort of ‘nice’ customer service this could have ended...