13.7.11

I don't like to think that I live to make people's lives a nightmare, but this experience at Heartland Brewery in Union Sq. was awful. The manager there was terribly rude and did not give a shit about customer retention. Anyway here's the letter I wrote to their corporate office.

Hello,

I hope this message is directed to the proper person, as I received your email address from the website- I dined at your Union Square location yesterday and had a pretty terrible experience when dealing with the Manager, Drew (I believe that is his name, bald white male). We were seated at about 6:50 P.M. At 7:20 our drink order, along with water finally arrived. It was 90ยบ F out that particular evening, I was really disappointed to not have had water by 10 minutes after sitting. Once food arrived I excused myself to talk to the manager. Upon approaching him I was greeted with "Back and on the right." Not a hello, but the bathroom directions. Awesome. I really just wanted to know why service was so slow. I also work in the service industry, so if they were understaffed that particular evening I understand- it's really not the server's fault, but management's for not doing the scheduling properly or other staff member's who called out. But I did expect some sort of compensation from the manager. Instead I received a confrontational attitude and remarks like, "We had a party of 100 up here. He was taking care of both sections" and "Well if you don't want me to get the server in trouble (which I didn't) what do you want me to do? Do you want something for free? (which I did)" I suggested a free round, or maybe to remove an appetizer from our check, which was over $400. He said he couldn't do that. So I walked away. Speaking to him was more infuriating than the service. What is the point of having a manager that is not backing their staff and not pleasant with customers? Why was ONE server taking care of a party of 100 upstairs and a section downstairs?

I went back to my table and got the check. The server asked if everything was okay with me and I told him no. Drew managed to figure out how to deduct 10% of the check which a nice gesture, and appreciated. His attitude towards me however, was not. He needs to learn how to turn on a smile, even if it's a fake one: Customer satisfaction is his job.


Thank you,

Atiya Jones

10.7.11

i'm finally going to let myself cry about it.