Breakfast Disaster.

 

 

The Place to Eat
John Lewis
Broad Street
Reading
Berkshire
RG1 2BB

Tel: 01189 575955
www.johnlewis.com


If ever there was a more inappropriate name then I have yet to find it, and sadly this first floor multi restaurant in one of the most highly respected names in the land reached rock bottom on our recent visit for the most simple of meals.

An early visit to Reading on the last official Saturday of the summer encouraged us to have a late breakfast; selecting John Lewis as a place we could rely on, a store built upon service, quality and value.

Sadly for us the delivery of our full English breakfast turned into an object lesson in how not to do it, leaving us with memories more Fawlty Towers than John Lewis. I would love to be able to report on the excellence of the food, the quality of the service and the efficiency of the team work but honesty prevents me from doing so, all were missing, and Sue and I left after a chapter of failures which, collectively, heavily diluted my memories of high standards and fine service.

Let me take you through the highlights, you then can be the judge.

The place was clean, tidy and the room echoed with the chatter of excited customers although they had fallen a little behind in their collection of discarded trays and empty plates, cups and saucers. We found a comfortable table and decided to enjoy the delights of a full English breakfast, sausages, bacon, eggs and mushrooms, complete with toast and coffee, tradition on a plate.

I paid and was given our coffees which I duly delivered to our table, opened my copy of The Times and thought all was well with the world, excellent coffee, time on our hands and the prospect of a professionally prepared and cooked breakfast to be delivered to our table, neatly adorned with a numbered flag.

By the time I had reached the crossword and completed the first few easy clues I was beginning to hear the sounds around me of dissent, agitated mothers with young children requesting confirmation that their meals were en route. Our excellent coffees were long since enjoyed and our hunger increasing.

Twenty one minutes after I sat down and coffee a distant memory our dishes arrived with the plated piping hot.

At last!

Alas our joy was far from unconfined, as we were discussing the finer points of breakfast and enjoying our cooked bacon we realised that our plates fell short of being a full English breakfast, the sausages were missing, a culinary crime whatever the language!

I asked a member of staff who had spent the previous ten minutes seeking discarded trays and returning them to their rightful place and who turned out to be the restaurant manager if there was a sausage shortage?

'No, you should have been told that there was a delay in the cooking of the sausages, and we should have been given additional bacon to compensate' came the frosty reply, passing the blame on to the energetic young staff at the counter. Two minutes later she arrived at our table to deposit a sausage on each of our plates and promptly disappeared without a word!

Whilst we were totally bemused at this I was by this time matching my solitary sausage, sizzling! What a way to run a restaurant, what a way to treat customers and what immense lack of communication, thus breeding dissatisfaction. I gazed with irony at the once proud title for this restaurant, 'The Place to Eat'.

I think not!

By this time an additional young lady from management had arrived and was, sadly for her, the recipient of a number of complaints related to the waiting times and problems affecting service but dealt with each with tact, diplomacy and was genuinely full of apologies. She did however add a comment which summed up our unfortunate chapter of events when she said there had been staff shortages and an oven which had been faulty during the morning service.

Whilst I applauded her undoubted public relations skills I would fire a broadside at the management for the lack of communication to customers, there may be delays in our service, bring a book, write your biography, writing your Christmas lists came to mind, but guidance and advice there were none.

As we were leaving the queue for breakfast had risen to fourteen, the restaurant manager stood looking around for inspiration. On this far from satisfying visit I fear she may have a very long wait.

I did report my observations to the duty manager by telephone later in the day; he had been informed of a minor complaint about sausages by the restaurant manager! With such lack of tact, vision and communication skills I respectfully refused the kind offer to refund the costs of my breakfast, suggesting it may be better used in training for restaurant managers.

Time will tell if such actions are followed, but on the evidence of diners in this Reading restaurant who voted with their feet John Lewis and their restaurant staff have some distance to travel.

They could start with a good breakfast!


Alan McColm

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