OUCH!
Restaurateur snaps back and brings in gardaí after ‘nastiest person of the year’ review
The reviewer’s friend apologised to staff
A RESTAURANT owner has labelled a customer the ‘nastiest person of the year’ and has filed a complaint with gardaí after she failed to pay for her lobster.
Niall Sabongi, who runs The Seafood Café in Dublin’s Temple Bar as well as two other sister restaurants in the capital under the Klaw brand, was left with a bitter aftertaste following an encounter with one diner.
The anonymous diner gave Mr Sabongi’s restaurant a one-star review on the Tripadvisor website, claiming that she had been served such a small portion of lobster that it wasn’t enough to fill her. But Mr Sabongi quickly took to TripAdvisor himself to respond to her complaints – after she left the restaurant without paying.
The anonymous reviewer wrote that she was initially impressed with the restaurant, which she found to be ‘very aesthetically appealing’, but took issue with the ‘value’ of the meal, as well as how the complaint was dealt with.
‘I do hope though that the Seafood Café learns that you cannot produce this size portion of food and reasonably expect patrons to pay €22 [each] for it. Better to remove it from the menu. I certainly will not return to this cafe. And I would not recommend it to anyone,’ she wrote.
Revenge was a dish truly served cold, as Mr Sabongi’s claws and knives were soon at the ready to devour her online criticism.
‘In this industry, you hear the legend of the nastiest person of the year,’ he wrote, ‘and I’m delighted to let you know that for 2017 you’re the winner. Awarded by us and vouched for by your own company on the night.’
According to restaurant staff, even the reviewer’s friend apologised to staff for her attitude towards staff when making the initial complaint.
There is no name attached to the review, which is the first published by this person’s account, but the restaurant has handed over CCTV footage of the diners to the gardaí after they left without paying.
The €44 bill between both parties included lobster and a side of chips each, but the customer was ‘unhappy’ with the quantity of food, writing that the lobster ‘turned out to contain literally three bites of meat’.
Whole Irish live lobster costs €10 per 100 grams, including innards, so there is less meat inside than the total weight. Mr Sabongi told the Irish Mail on Sunday that the customers were shown the lobster, which weighed about 400 grams, in advance of being served and were given a price for the shellfish, which they agreed to.
The restaurant owner emphasised that this is the ‘most expensive time of year’ to eat lobster due to Christmas menu demands in Europe and hazardous weather conditions. Mr Sabongi added that if one of his businesses receives a genuine negative review, he takes the attitude that it should ‘never happen again’ and his team use it ‘to improve ourselves’.