Forbes and Hamilton Coffee House — Restaurant in London

Here's a short story on why customer service is undervalued. Massively.

So, a colleague and I went for a meeting at the Wild and Coffee shop.

We ordered 2 espressos and were having a great catch up chatting about work, remarking on the lovely Harry Potter like surroundings...you get the picture. When the waitress brought us the bill we tipped a little extra, I used to wait tables and know it's not easy.

Now here's where it gets interesting. The manager came back, and said "we don't take tips" and briskly walked away.

Hmmm..we thought. So we wrapped up our chat, but before we left, I wanted to clear the air with the manager.

Me: Hi, I'm a little confused at what just happened, could we have a chat? Manager: You can't come in here for an hour and just buy two espressos. I have a business to run. Me: OK, but I wanted to tip your staff, I'm wondering why you won't take the extra money I'm offering. Manager: I have a business to run. I've been doing this all my life (side thought from me 'wow, you did this as a baby?'). How old are you? Me: Well, I'm not sure that has much relevance. I've run my own businesses and know how important it is to make sure your customer is happy. But I'm being treated really badly here. I love coming here, but you're giving me few reasons to come back again. And I really want to. Please accept the tip. Manager: No. Let's just agree to disagree. Me: I don't disagree with you. Maybe you should state how much more we should pay for the hour? Is £5 enough? More? It should be written somewhere so the same thing doesn't happen again. Manager: We'll have to agree to disagree.

Now, at this point his staff mouthed 'I'm sorry' to my colleague. Something was telling me this has happened before.

Me: OK, this is really embarrassing. I come here all the time. Can you just take the tip and we start over. Manager: She's (my colleague) looking at me badly. She's being rude. My colleague: This is really bad service.. you know that, right? Manager: I have a business to run. Me and my colleague: Which we understand. Manager: Let's just say, we have difference of opinion. Me: Yes, we understand that, but I'm also offering to make up for this. Just so we leave here happy and you do too. Manager: I don't want your money. Me: OK, so now I'm confused, because that's how this all started.

My colleague walks out, she's massively offended.

Manager: (quietly) OK, so you seem like a nice guy, but she was looking at me badly. Me: Yes, I think it's understandable. We want to pay for this, please take the tip. Manager: I'm sorry, but we disagree on this. Me: OK.

As I walk out I leave the tip on the counter.

Lesson for me: Sometimes now matter how much experience you have in your job, it's doesn't mean you'll...

As you may have seen on the Cronut Crawl post a week or so ago, we tried to go to Wild & Coffee only to find out that they weren't selling any on Sunday. That sucked, but luckily Becky managed to get there the following Tuesday at 11am and get her hands on three of them. One for her, one for me, and one for my delighted cousin who happened to be meeting me later that day.

It turns out that Wild & Coffee's cronuts are actually made by Cocomaya and shipped over Mon-Sat at 11am. You can call ahead and reserve your cronut if you want (quite a useful thing that) but I'd recommend trying to get there as close to 11am as possible as the cronuts start to lose some of that lightness as the day goes on.

This cronut was massive and required a bit of jaw unhinging to get in a full bite, but damn it was good. It's an airy flaky pastry with defined layers and a doughnut-y softness inside moistened just a bit by drops of cream. A potent sicilian lemon glaze on the top gives it most of its flavour and it's dressed with scattered flower petals. All in all, it gives you a strong impression of spring backed up by it's fresh and clean flavours.

For £3.70, it's a bit pricey and the most expensive cronut we've come across so far. Taste-wise, it's on par with Rinkoff, but loses points for the much worse value for money...

I reviewed this place for another website when it first opened and loved the place. The decor - recycled church pews, wooden panelling for the walls - is amazing and the coffee isn't bad either. In terms of the pricing, the flat whites are pretty much around the same price as any other independent coffee shop. I wouldn't consider them expensive given that the owners do have overheads to cover. The pastries, from Clarke's and Villandry, are tasty, and I highly recommend the ham and cheese croissant if it's available. What keeps me from awarding it a fifth star is the fact that the service seems to have gone down over the years. I go to Wild & Wood on and off (it's hard to be a regular when it's not around the corner and there are a lot of good coffee shops in London, so the owners do know me by name. The thing is, the last time I was here, I brought a friend along with me to show her the place, and her comment, "for a place that knows you, the owners definitely don't seem that friendly." And that's true, it seems to have become a little more impersonal the last few times I've been, and...