We’ve been to Nando’s both in South Africa and in London, and were eagerly waiting for it to open in Bangalore. Although the food was great, the service seemed to be hell bent in tarnishing the reputation of Nando’s worldwide.
It started at the door. When we asked the usher how long it would take he wrote our name down and asked us to come after 45 minutes. While we were waiting outside we noticed that a person who had come after us getting a table earlier! When we asked, the usher, his name was Rahul, said that the customer had come earlier. When we asked the customer’s name and checked the list, it was after ours! And then Rahul says, no that was a different guy altogether!
While we were asking why he was not sticking to the rules set by the restaurant, another family who had been waiting got upset because they had been waiting for longer than 45 minutes and left.
That was the first round.
After we went in we realized that the attitude was nothing to do with the usher, Rahul, but with all the waiters at the restaurant! Nobody was interesting in serving! Everybody was busy loitering about and nobody would come to the table unless you actually called out to them. There didn’t seem to be any waiter assigned to our table also!
After ages, we finally called out to someone to order. And the first thing we asked for was water. Of course, the food was great. And after spending an hour at dinner, when the waiter was getting our check, we again asked for the water. This must have been for the fifth time! Even after he got the bill paid and cleared, which itself took half an hour, it took another reminder for the waiter to finally get us our water.
The food was the only consolation, but I think I’ll wait for their take-away. I can’t beleive that the service is so pathetic, so lousy, in a restaurant like Nando’s. The management either needs to do something about it or maybe hand over the managing of the restaurant to people who actually can do that!