Am a member and very regular customer at this (filmically) superb arts cinema. The food and service in the cafe/restaurant, unfortunately, can vary considerably - from tasty and good-value to still-frozen in the case of the former, to friendly/attentive and breezily indifferent/missing in action in...the latter. I don't know if the issue is the management, or one or two of the likeable but clearly mentally preoccupied waiting staff, or something else I'm missing. Consistently professional, though, I'm sorry to say it ain't!
Tonight, I came into the cafe, and despite there being a whole raft of empty tables (as I say, I'm, a very regular customer), I was directed upstairs by the waitress 'as we might get busy later', who nevertheless assured me she'd be up to take my order shortly. I complied, a bit unhappily, and waited. And waited. And waited. After 20 minutes of this Beckettian waiting, I descended to talk to the manger, to find there was apparently no manager about (which might tell one something), but only a 'supervisor' who could only say sorry (which was something) but seemed nonplussed by the whole scenario.
This is, as I say, a great cinema/cafe space, with mostly decent/friendly food and service, so it is a shame the latter goes to pot on a regular basis for reasons that seem immune to feedback or correction. A zonal table system for waiting staff would be a rather simple solution. Also, the odd approach to tables to ask if things were OK, if one wanted to order anything else etc., which rarely/never seems to happen, would be a brilliant innovation that many restaurants have been doing for, ooh, decades.
There are more important things in life, but a bit of consistent professional pride is really needed on the shop floor - management take heed unless you really want to irritate/alienate your regular patrons!More
