My family and I had the misfortune of celebrating Christmas lunch at your restaurant this week along with other members of the Belgrade Foreign Visitors Club.
The event started badly. The promotion we received before the lunch promised we would be greeted with our choice...of alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages. A mojito-flavored lemonade was promised to those who didn't want to start with liqueur. You didn't have the non-alcoholic one. No apology, no explanation, just no drink. So of course the kids who attended this family event got nothing.
Then you served the starters. Adults got their goose-liver terrine and fresh brioche...and 20 minutes later, after the adults had finished, the kids got their tepid tomato soup.
Waiting was the theme of the day. Lunch service was scheduled to start at 2 p.m. The first appetizers were served after 2:30. Friends who ordered the vegetarian option left shortly after 4 p.m. without ever receiving the main dishes they paid for.
After an interminable wait, you served the main courses - but only to the adults. It would be 45 minutes after the adults were served that you finally brought lunch out for the children. For my family, that was 45 minutes of a squirming, unhappy, hungry child wondering where her food was, why she was being served last, and why we had come to this bad place for lunch.
Parents at the event had a choice. We could eat our hot lunches in front of hungry children who were squirming and complaining and in some cases crying, or we could wait until our kids were served.
I opted to wait. I ate my cold, dried-out Christmas lunch when my daughter's mini-pizzas and french fries finally showed up. I don't know why it took more than an hour to heat up mini-pizzas or why you chose to serve adults first. Maybe you just hate kids, as my daughter believes.
More than an hour after finishing her soup, she finally got served.
My memory of the lunch is restless, unhappy children complaining about being hungry. I don't know if you really do hate children or if you're just incompetent. I know that my cold, dried-out lunch, all the elements sitting in pools of congealed grease, was not worth the 2000 dinar price. I would not eat the lunch for free. I would not eat that lunch if you paid me 2000 dinars to eat it.
And as for the experience, which was supposed to be a memorable and fun way to celebrate Christmas...well, I spent it consoling a hungry child and assuring her that food would eventually arrive. This will be her memory of celebrating Christmas on her fifth year. You can never fix that. You ruined what was supposed to be a festive event and my little girl will live with that memory forever.
Every time I think of it I get so angry.
I left the event feeling abused and disrespected. My daughter confided to me at bedtime that she now hates Nick, the work-mate who accompanied us there, because he invited us to your restaurant.
I urge you to reconsider your decision to work in the restaurant business. You should find another line of work where it's acceptable to treat customers with casual disrespect, to deliver outstandingly poor service, and to mistreat children without acknowledgment or apology.More