I have been to Chandni Chowk quite a few times, every time I was pissed off with their service but always overlooked for the good north Indian food they served. Recently on 14th Feb I had gone there with my wife and few friends. I knew the place would be crowded so I made a booking before hand and landed there around 9:45 PM. As promised I got my table almost on time, although they made five of us share a table for four. Just to remind you, the low stone seating and table arrangements makes it very difficult. Acceptable as it was a special occasion and they wanted to make the most out of it.
We settled down and were very quickly handed over the special menu for the day, to elaborate, the special menu for the day had the same items but with a premium price tag, again acceptable considering the fact that it was Valentines Day. We thought we would directly jump to the main course as it was already late and it took us around 5 minutes to decide. What was surprising was the Stewart who has to be called 3-4 times on regular days visited us more than 3-4 times to collect the order. He gave us a stare when we asked him to give us few minutes to decide, we ignored him considering the above mentioned reason.
As expected the order took more than 45 minutes to be served which on normal days would take approximately 35 minutes (which is also long). The stewart who served the food was rudely announcing the items as if he belonged to a family of street hawkers. He was rude and I asked him to lower his pitch and explained that we were sitting right next to him and could here him even if he speaks softly. The request was ignored and he continued his rude behavior.
We were done with the dinner and had asked for the menu to order some desserts, to our surprise we were presented the bill. We told the stewart that we would want to order some dessert, the request again went unheard. after few minutes the same stewart came to our table to collect the bill and the amount. After seeing that we’ve not paid he banged the bill on the table and stared at us. Just for your information, only two of my lucky friends got finger bowls.
I couldn’t control it anymore and headed to the billing counter and asked for the manager, the guy at the billing counter ignored me, I again told him that I need to complaint against the service and if he can point me to the manager. Again my request went unheard, I shouted at the guy, he got up from his chair and fired abuses at me, I pushed him and when I was about to hit him the manager came into the picture and started apologizing. I narrated him the entire episode and all he had to say was sorry. he didn’t even bother to warn his staff.
End of it all they almost managed to spoil the evening for me and my friends, what’s the point of charging a premium on special occasions and not serving your clients well. I guess I was at fault because I never complained about their bad service when I visited them earlier. Moreover such people feel that their business will not effect even if one or two people get upset every day and decide not to visit them again because there are hundreds of others who queue there everyday to taste the food and bad service they provide.
Also the staff is not well trained, they just pick up illiterate jerks that are not even fit for serving at some road side dhabas.
May be its time the consumer should open their eyes and teach such people a lesson. I hope my review would help you take a decision on visiting this place.
Thanks for you time.
Shailesh.