Restaurants and Chefs Speak Out Against Unruly Customers
In the last two weeks since the announcement of the differentiated dining rules, many restaurants and chefs have come forward to discuss the issues they have been facing with regards to handling customers’ expectations with regards to reservations and dining out.
Restaurants such as Takayama and Labyrinth have talked about their experiences with customers who react badly when asked to showcase their vaccination status, or when told they are unable to recover any of the deposit that customers are asked to produce upon reserving their places on the online platforms.
Chef Han Li Guang, of Labyrinth, took to social media to plea with the public to understand the situations restaurants are in at the moment, with a detailed explanation of the incident in question that prompted the post, as well as an explanation later explaining why the restaurant policy of not refunding the customers was in place.
“The customer has already been informed not once, not twice, but three times [via the Chope booking platform and email] of the rules,” he states on the Insta-story post he made. “We don’t make money on deposits. It only covers the cost of ingredients, not the opportunity cost. $120 per head – that’s just the food. It doesn’t cover manpower, it doesn’t cover part-timers that I hire [during busier days], it doesn’t cover rent or other overheads at all,”
“We want to make the sale. We want to make customers happy. But we can’t break the law. We have to create an environment that is safe for both diners and our staff to work in,” he adds.
And he has a point that customers have to understand when it comes to dining in at restaurants during this point in time. Despite the fact that many restaurants are doing their best to make sure the rules get out to any customers who choose to dine at their establishment, many customers are ignoring these stipulations, whether by not understanding the full scope of what they are, or by straight up lying to the team. Chef Han and Labyrinth are not the only ones seeing this happening. Takayama’s Chef Taro Takayama also reported a situation where customers who reserved their seats chose to lie to the hostesses and staff there in order to eat there, despite the fact that they were not being straight with the staff, as well as arguing with staff and getting verbally abused when debating about the forfeit of the deposit.
It is important for restaurants at this point to continue operations in order to get revenue, and many are choosing to stick by the rules in order to keep going. The forfeiture of the reservation deposit, while sad, is a rule set by restaurants in order for them to offset not just the cost of the ingredients being used, but also a way to make sure people actually turn up for their reservations. This was an issue that occurred before this new set of stipulations by people, and now people who ignore the rules are, once again, taking seats away from those looking to dine in, and also wasting people's time and effort.
The F&B community is already in dire straits due to the two time shutdown of dining-in this year. Last week, we were shocked and dismayed to find out stats from Save F&B Singapore who surveyed businesses and restaurant operators to furnish a report that showed that 80% of business operators surveyed have suffered negative revenue of 75% or more, just for the months of May to June 2021 alone. These new spate of attacks are hurting the businesses who have to comply with the rules in order to continue operations.
