I've often eaten at the Bloomsbury Hare & Tortoise Japanese themed restaurant. Because I am able bodied and have a UK credit card I have found it easy to pay. But yesterday was a very different plate of sashimi.
The food was great, as usual. The service was patchy. No, the service was appalling, as usual. And the kitchen, as usual, supplied the dishes in chaotic order. Until yesterday I put that down to 'eccentric charm'. But yesterday made me decide not to bother with the place again. Not now, not ever. Never.
They won't care, of course. They have a huge queue for the tables. They don't need to care. They don't even care that I'm blogging about it (as if my blog mattered!). My son and I were treated to dinner by a friend who is over from the USA. We had a good time, albeit amused by the inability to catch the waitresses' eyes, the fact that our waitress walked off as we were about to order, the challenge in placing a second order, and the arbitrary arrival of dishes in inexplicable order with arbitrary timings.
What went horribly wrong was the attempt our host made at payment. "Different card, please. We don't take American Express." Hmm. He'd had no trouble anywhere else in the UK. So he presented a Mastercard. He is from the USA, his Mastercard is in the USA, and thus he does not have 'Chip & PIN'. She peered at it, took it away and asked for a different card. He presented his debit card. Same story.
I asked why she would not accept it. She quoted the alleged terms and conditions of eating at Hare & Tortoise. "There is a notice that says we will not accept cards that do not have Chip & PIN," she said. I was shown the notice. It's on the door, to my eyes it does not form part of any contract, and it also does not, specifically does not, exclude non Chip & PIN cards. It simply welcomes Chip & PIN cards. I took a picture of the notice, for the first time actually seeing the benefit of having a camera in my batphone!
I remembered when the UK introduced Chip & PIN that there was a quite a stir about the disabled and their physical ability to use it. I asked if it was their policy to discriminate against foreign tourists and the disabled. It interests me that the discriminate against the disabled, because, by absolutely refusing to take plastic money that required a signature, they actively do discriminate.
"My boss tells me this is the rule. I cannot change it."
Well, no. Catering jobs mean that you can't change it. But the boss was not available.
"You can go to the ATM."
This was getting both stupid and aggravating. Our host paid with the last of the cash he had in Sterling and seriously considered having the already included 10% service charge removed for lack of service. We expected that it was their policy not to do that!
The waitress said she would raise the matter with the boss. I do not expect the boss to care for more than half a second. After all the restaurant is popular, has a queue for tables, is part of a chain. Why would the boss care? The whole enterprise is successful, after all.
But the attention to the needs of the customer is not there. It puts its needs first and our needs last. And the timing of the arrival of the dishes needs Gordon Ramsey to come and sort them out.
I have emailed the info contact email thus:
I had dinner at your Bloomsbury restaurant last evening. My host (a US tourist) attempted to pay using his perfectly valid US based credit card. That card is not a chip & pin card, and he was refused. He was forced to use his last reserves of Sterling.
Chip and PIN is not mandatory in the UK. The disabled have the absolute right to special arrangements: http://www.chipandpin.co.uk/faqs/disabled.html but it appears that you will also refuse the disabled the ability to pay with a card that has no chip, no pin, and simply requires a signature.
Yet a refusal to allow a disabled person to pay with such a card is tantamount to discrimination against the disabled.
Our waitress said that it was your absolute policy not to allow non chip and pin cards to be used. She pointed to the sign on the door, a sign which is neither a contract, not does anything except to state that chip & pin cards MAY be used.
I would be most interested in your formal comments on this matter with special reference to the disabled. You should note that these comments will not be treated as private.
I'll publish the response when it arrives.
