Lei Garden

Some months ago, I booked up our family reunion dinner at the Lei Garden on the eve of the Lunar New Year, the most auspicious date in the Chinese calendar. We made our menu selection, paid a deposit in advance and arrived in time for the second sitting, to be greeted by a scene of chaos, un-professionalism and a business, clearly out of control. As expected, the restaurant was busy during the transition between 1st and 2nd sittings so we were asked to wait downstairs while they prepared the tables. This area became very busy and there were a lot of other frustrated diners. We too began to lose patience and went upstairs to discover that our table had been hijacked as the staff could not, control the other frustrated diners. I am not sure what was worse, the ineptitude of the restaurant or the rudeness of the other diners. For now I will limit my comments to the restaurant, but this shouldn't have been a difficult situation for them; after all, isn’t taking and fulfilling bookings what they are supposed to do for a living? Naturally we approached the staff to deal with this but to no avail – they were unable to move the other diners, instead, offering our group of 14, 2 separate tables instead of the single table we had booked and paid our deposit on. Why weren’t the other diners shown the other tables? The staff simply couldn't handle the situation. We asked for the manger, only to be told that he was ‘on leave’. ‘On leave? on the busiest night of the year? Quite ridiculous. Despite our best efforts, the situation was clearly not going to be resolved to our satisfaction on the night and with a number of young children and elderly family members in our group, we decided to leave, find another venue and try to salvage something from the night. The junior manager said he would check with his boss about a compensation offer and initially he called to offer a free meal. He was due to call and confirm the menu but after a week we had not heard anything. We contacted them, only to find that now the compensation offer had changed; it was no longer a free meal, but was to be charged at cost. It is impossible for anyone not in the business to understand the ‘cost’ of a meal. How can we even begin to trust their offer? Judging by the shifting compensation deal, this is a restaurant that thinks of itself first and places its customers in a very distant second place. I am not writing this to gain a free meal, the money isn’t significant; this is about the principle of respectful customer service and ruining the most important dinner of the year. Quite honestly I don't even want to take up their offer. Coupled with the horror stories you read about some kitchen staff ‘tainting’ the food of ‘difficult’ customers, I really don't want my family to go through that. The Lei Garden needs to fix its business at the most basic of levels. Set up a booking system that actually works and employ staff who have the skills to manage customers. Finally, the management should recognise that when a group has made a booking, paid a deposit that constitutes a contract. In our case they clearly breached that contract and have failed in their compensation efforts by changing the offer. I have no interest in visiting this restaurant ever again, and would recommend that others find a better place to eat with their families.

Posted on Sun 21 Feb 2010 15:22:58