The Daily Scoop — Restaurant in Scotland

As a local who likes to bring visitors to Orkney, after my experience at the Daily Scoop today, this won't be on my list of places to take them.

After a long wait to be served by any of the numerous staff, who were pottering around at a snail's pace, I finally put my order in for a black coffee. As there were more staff than customers, I was surprised at the long delay in fundamental service. "Would you like milk in your black coffee?" The teen asked. Perhaps oblivious to the components of a black coffee, I shrugged it off to her lack of training in making hot beverages. Possibly, listening skills might be an excellent place to start hospitality training.

Although there were not many customers, the struggle began to find a table. There were plenty of empty ones, but all were filled with dirty cups and plates. Managing to find the least dirty table, I cleared it myself. Again, there are more staff than customers, and customers must clear tables. I sat for an overly long wait for my black coffee without milk.

When it eventually arrived (without a spoon), it looked like the dregs of the pot with black grains floating on the shimmering, greasy surface. It looked like a butter knife had stirred cheap coffee granules into lukewarm water.

The saucer was filled with biscuit chunks and covered in crumbs, obviously not washed since its previous use. Could the staff not see the chunks and crumbs on the saucer? Did they not realise that serving someone else's half-munched food to someone else isn't really an excellent standard to uphold? It defies basic food hygiene, for starters.

After I made a complaint and returned the putrid coffee and someone else's chewed biscuit, I waited for the replacement, which eventually came after I watched several flies flap around the dirty plates and sticky tables.

Staff were so slow in service and took little to no pride in the customer experience and service delivery. More training would make all the difference. Is it hard to train staff to use clean crockery, as their knowledge isn't up to it? Perhaps train them to listen to what customers ask for and look for other people's half-eaten food on dishes before serving them. We won't go back due to the food hygiene standards and awful customer service. Looking at the long list of reviews on Trip Adviser, these issues are pretty standard, every review commenting on poor service, dirty tables and poor hygiene, and that the teenage staff lack training and management.

Shame that this makes...

We had to wait over 40 mins for our food, we asked about the wait and I was told sorry we are busy. The children had had their and finished when I asked about the delay with the 3 adults meals. There was a bunch of young kids obviously 14 year olds to be able to work. They stood behind the counter laughing and joking and not taking any notice of the customers or the lack of food orders. The drinks were wrong the coffee was wrong. We asked for t spoons for our coffee we got a pastry fork as the spoons had runout. I think we should have runout fast. The bill was £48 and a total waste of money. The drinking glasses were dirty and sticky we are for clean glasses and were told it was because of the dishwasher. Maybe handwash them but don’t hand them to customers. Disgusting. The bacon had been warmed up in the microwave and gone hard. When we finally got my son’s order the eggs yokes were rock hard and the bacon was missing. We complained yet again and the next order was ok. We were hungry when we arrived and having to wait over 40 mins for food is ridiculous. Yes the place was busy but to have teenagers serving really didn’t help. They didn’t have a clue what they were doing and they certainly don’t know how to respect and talk to customers. We will never return and I would advice you never to go eat in this place. A...

We walked into a very busy and bustling restaurant, which was great to see. We ordered two coffees and sat at a table to wait for them. The waitress came over with one coffee and it was not what we had ordered. I told her this and she went away (presumably to check) and came back a short while later telling us what we had ordered as if we were in the wrong and they had made the right drink. We told her she did not have it right and she pulled a face and walked off. At this point we did not know what was happening or if we were actually going to get any drinks at all as she had started making waffles and not our coffee, so went up to get a refund. It was then surprising to not even be asked why we wanted this, they were just happy to see us leave presumably. I appreciate it was very busy, but it takes nothing to offer a bit of good customer service towards people looking to spend their money in your establishment. It is also important to listen properly to customers when they order and understand that it is not a big problem to make a mistake, but it is how you handle or rectify these mistakes that makes all...