Shakespeare's Head - JD Wetherspoon — Restaurant in London

Appalling experience tonight at the Shakespeare’s Head. After a long haul flight and being awake for the better part of 36 hours, we headed to this pub for a quick dinner before taking the night train home to Edinburgh.

For context, it was fairly quiet and there were plenty of free tables. We were both totally sober and keeping to ourselves.

At some point after the food arrived I started feeling a bit lightheaded, and moved the plate with my almost untouched meal forward, so I could rest my head on the table for a few moments. While I was doing this my companion was using his phone to send a message to let people know we were home. A couple of minutes later, the waiter who was serving our table came and loudly banged a glass against the table three times next to my head. My friend said that banging the table was a bit harsh, and tried to explain we’d just arrived from a long haul flight, and the only reply we got was “neither of you responded when I spoke to you so I had no option.” He carried on to say something along the lines of “I don’t care, and you can’t do that” in a very dismissive way. He then left abruptly. There was no recognition that his actions were unreasonable, unjustified or disrespectful.

At no point he asked if I was ok, or seemed to care about the well-being of one of their patrons.

After finishing our dinner and drinks, on our way out I spotted the manager clearing a table and I thought I would bring the situation to her attention. To my surprise she said she was aware of the incident, and said that he had spoken to her and had advised him that he should have rapped his knuckles on the table first rather than bang a glass.

She justified the waiter’s actions by saying that he’s a very softly spoken person and neither myself or my friend responded when he allegedly spoke to both of us. He had told her that he had no other option than use the glass to get our attention.

We explained that he had made no attempt to speak directly to my friend who was clearly using his phone at the time.

There was no apology or recognition of the disrespectful way we had been treated and on neither part other than the statement that he had been advised to knock on the table.

I have no problem with the fact that the staff would be concerned that a customer appears to be asleep at a table, my grievance is the way in which both the member of staff concerned and the manager were reluctant to make any apology about the way in which they treated me and also misrepresented the efforts they made to speak to us before banging a glass on the table beside my head. Also, the fact that the manager didn’t approach us with an apology despite the fact she was aware that had happened. It was me who started the conversation that was met with a defensive manner and no apologies.

Tl;dr Rude staff, unresponsive management and your usual average food you find...

What an eventful evening originating from something so trivial.

When I was waiting to be served, the staff ignored me and service someone who came to the bar counter after me. It was not busy and there were only 2-3 people standing in front of the staff at the time.

When I mentioned it to the staff, she apologised and I said it’s fine. When she was pouring my pint, she said the pint is lively and went on to serve someone else. I went to check on the pint straight away and it was set already, so I asked someone else to finish off pouring the pint.

This was something new to me, as I had never came across this at any Weatherspoon, nor any other pub, when the staff would go on to serve a different customer when the pint is lively.

Also, she didn’t not ask me if it is ok to wait for the pint to set, she just told me and went on to serve someone else.

Therefore, I decided to rise a complaint and spoke about this experience with her colleague. I said I was not happy with the service I received.

She was standing next to the colleague and intervened. Her colleague tried to deescalate and said that specific staff is new. After hearing that, I said it’s fine and did not make an official complaint at that point.

Later when I went back to try to get another pint, that specific staff refused to serve me and said it was because I ‘went behind her back to talk about her’.

I tried to speak with the manager on duty about this and he said if one of their staff decided not to serve me, all of them will not serve me, regardless of the reason. He said this is part of how they operate.

I explained to him about what happened and empathised that I did not insult anyone and did not misbehave. I was only trying to raise a complaint by following the normal procedure.

He said he is aware but he still would not serve me.

It was already late and me and my friends decided to call it a night.

My question is, what is the standard procedure to raise a complaint against a staff at a weatherspoon without being refused to...

bbcreporter observer reporter Queenafricanancympanzu

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