Was I right to walk out of restaurant ?

[The Running Man]

£20 for 4 meals, where were you eating? That's less than mcdonalds prices.

40 minutes is a good while its true but yes think it is unreasonable to walk out at that point, especially if it's freshly cooked.

 

[Richdog]

My wife, two children and I went to a restaurant in Birmingham. The place was about 3/4 full. We ordered a meal that was going to cost about £20. It was a simple meal, which should take little time to prepare.
After 25 minutes we were still waiting. But what frustrated me was couple of people who arrived after us were served first.I could see their orders were more expensive.
My wife asked them how much longer we would need to wait. Response was 5 minutes.
After 40 minutes I decided to walk out.
As we were leaving the premises the owner asked where we were going. He said the meal was ready and that we would need to pay. I told him to f off and departed. He said he was going to call the police.
We went instead to a fast food restaurant.

Should I have paid up?

Anyone who got served before you likely had meals that are quicker to cook, as in a reasonable sized kitchen many meals are cooked at once. Taking into account that it likely took 10 mins to get around to starting your ticket, something in your order likely took longer to prepare and cook and that will likely be why you waited an additional amount of time. 40 minutes is quite long to wait, but not intolerable for freshly cooked food that you even say is usually of good quality. Of course you didn't have to pay if you hadn't eaten, but you did greatly inconvenience the restaurant by leaving just as your food was ready. The staff should however not have told you it would be ready in "5 minutes" as this created an unrealistic expectation.

Yeah I walk out of places if I'm not getting served quickly enough all the time. Gotta make it cost them or they'll never change.

Went through a phase of abandoning the trolley/basket at supermarkets if the checkout queue was ridic, bet they loved having to sort that out.

This is just so... British. As a nation we have become petty and entitled as ****.

 

[Vulcan]

but you did greatly inconvenience the restaurant by leaving just as your food was ready.

You're assuming it was ready, they lied before, they could have been lying again.

 

[Richdog]

You're assuming it was ready, they lied before, they could have been lying again.

After 40 minutes it is far more likely that they were telling the truth.

 

[The_Arbiter]

I’d agree with you in principle, but, and don’t get me wrong, was it wise to anticipate a discount on the coconut milk?
If you wanted it guaranteed “not iffy”, might it not have been better to get one from the refrigerated section, rather than get £1 knocked off, then finding it ‘on the turn’?

My bad for not explaining correctly. In Sainsburys they have long life non dairy milk, and the refrigerated milk. The difference as far as i can tell is the seal on the cap, same brand, same ingredients. The store had the long life stuff on sale, so the refrigrated stuff was more expensive. I picked up what i thought was long life, but only looked closely at the carton when it scanned as not discounted.

So what happened i can only presume is someone picked up one from the refrigerated section and then noticed the long life was cheaper so dumped the refrigerated one there.

But no point crying over not so spilt milk

Just a mere inconvenience for others (holding up que, staff member having to go get me a new one despite me offering, and a wasted carton probably), due to someone else's laziness.

 

[Jean-F]

My bad for not explaining correctly. In Sainsburys they have long life non dairy milk, and the refrigerated milk. The difference as far as i can tell is the seal on the cap, same brand, same ingredients. The store had the long life stuff on sale, so the refrigrated stuff was more expensive. I picked up what i thought was long life, but only looked closely at the carton when it scanned as not discounted.

So what happened i can only presume is someone picked up one from the refrigerated section and then noticed the long life was cheaper so dumped the refrigerated one there.

But no point crying over not so spilt milk

Just a mere inconvenience for others (holding up que, staff member having to go get me a new one despite me offering, and a wasted carton probably), due to someone else's laziness.

Thanks, now I feel bad for even appearing to be pointing out your error, when you hadn’t really made one

 

[cheesefest]

My bad for not explaining correctly. In Sainsburys they have long life non dairy milk, and the refrigerated milk. The difference as far as i can tell is the seal on the cap, same brand, same ingredients. The store had the long life stuff on sale, so the refrigrated stuff was more expensive. I picked up what i thought was long life, but only looked closely at the carton when it scanned as not discounted.

So what happened i can only presume is someone picked up one from the refrigerated section and then noticed the long life was cheaper so dumped the refrigerated one there.

But no point crying over not so spilt milk

Just a mere inconvenience for others (holding up que, staff member having to go get me a new one despite me offering, and a wasted carton probably), due to someone else's laziness.

Another way to see if it’s long life or fresh is looking at the date. Fresh has about a month whereas LL has 6-9 months

 

[dave28]

Yes many people at 40 minutes would say it is unreasonable, if they do that all the time they must have a lot of people simply walk off on them

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

Gotta love an AIBU thread on GD!

My wife asked them how much longer we would need to wait. Response was 5 minutes.
After 40 minutes I decided to walk out.

YANBU on this part. 25 minutes, and being made to wait another 40 minutes (and counting). I would have been peeved off if too I was lied to about the timings.

You read me like a book.
We did not order drinks because they cost too much. We may often get a coke for the kids to share.
Besides, I had a couple of cans in the fridge in my car!

I think YABU here. £20 between 4 people isn't that much. Plus, about splitting a drink between 2 kids - it's ok if you were taking the food back to your car and then having your chilled cans from the car 'fridge'. However, if you were eating in, then splitting that drink was a bit mean to the kids imo.

Dumb thread is dumb, OP is a grade 9 troll. 1/10 don't care wouldn't read again.

I did write a serious reply to the OP's bit about him being cheap and splitting the drink (a few lines up here), but I'm starting to think this thread is a troll too.

You have a fridge in your car ?

Small one you can plug into the car. Argos sell for about £50

Last time I checked on Argos, they were called cool boxes, not fridges. The sort that gets power from the cigarette lighter / charging adapter.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

My wife, two children and I went to a restaurant in Birmingham. The place was about 3/4 full. We ordered a meal that was going to cost about £20. It was a simple meal, which should take little time to prepare.
After 25 minutes we were still waiting. But what frustrated me was couple of people who arrived after us were served first.I could see their orders were more expensive.
My wife asked them how much longer we would need to wait. Response was 5 minutes.
After 40 minutes I decided to walk out.
As we were leaving the premises the owner asked where we were going. He said the meal was ready and that we would need to pay. I told him to f off and departed. He said he was going to call the police.
We went instead to a fast food restaurant.

Should I have paid up?

Personally, I would have informed them 5 minutes before I left that I was intending to do so and if they couldn't sort in the 5 minutes then they'd had their chance.

In saying that, £20 for 4 meals.... They were probably hoping you'd leave so they could get some actual profit generating custom in - they probably hadn't even stuck them in the micro yet.

 

[mumihp]

If I had waited 40 minutes for my food when they said it was a short time wait and other customers got thier food after I ordered, I would have walked out. However, I would have also called the staff and told them, we would be walking out if our food didn't arrive in 5 minutes so they had thier warning.

 

[The Running Man]

If I had waited 40 minutes for my food when they said it was a short time wait and other customers got thier food after I ordered, I would have walked out. However, I would have also called the staff and told them, we would be walking out if our food didn't arrive in 5 minutes so they had thier warning.

You do understand that to cook 4 meals can take longer than 2?

 

[Surveyor]

You do understand that to cook 4 meals can take longer than 2?

It can but the OP only ordered two.

It was only two sheesh kebab and a nan bread at £3.50

 

[Mellowfellow]

I sometimes think that a restaurant where you're only going to spend £20-30 don't really care. They know they have an endless supply of customers as people who can afford to pay more don't go there anyway so they have more or less got the low budget people covered.
I've waited 40 minutes or so before ,it's frustrating when you're hungry but livable

 

[mmj_uk]

I think you're safe OP unless they co-ordinate with all of the local businesses to ban you from their premises/services because you walked out against their terms of service, it works for social media anyway so I assume that will be the next logical step if people keep spouting the "it's a private company it can do what it wants" line. For now, you are safe I think. I don't think companies have started using facial recognition technology to identify "undesirable customers" and making blacklists, yet...

 

[alchal]

We were in la spezia at a well reviewed restaurant and asked for the bill...I swear over an hour and half we waited, was late and we had an early flight next morning , asked countless times , I wanted to walk away it was getting that ridiculous but our lass was adamant we pay so I put 50% down and we walked away.
They obviously didn't need our money.

Was funny but there is only soo much incompetence you can take.

 

[robfosters]

They was probably suffering from the pingdemic

 

[Richdog]

We were in la spezia at a well reviewed restaurant and asked for the bill...I swear over an hour and half we waited, was late and we had an early flight next morning , asked countless times , I wanted to walk away it was getting that ridiculous but our lass was adamant we pay so I put 50% down and we walked away.
They obviously didn't need our money.

Was funny but there is only soo much incompetence you can take.

If you waited an hour and a half for a bill then you need your head checking and they played you like a fiddle. What you do is tell them you are walking out in 5-10 mins if they do't bring the bill, then if that time passes you then walk out and they will stop you and you pay the bill. I have sadly had to do it many times worldwide and it works without fail.

 

[robfosters]

We were in la spezia at a well reviewed restaurant and asked for the bill...I swear over an hour and half we waited, was late and we had an early flight next morning , asked countless times , I wanted to walk away it was getting that ridiculous but our lass was adamant we pay so I put 50% down and we walked away.
They obviously didn't need our money.

Was funny but there is only soo much incompetence you can take.

If you didn’t have a bill, how do you know you put 50% down

 

[Richdog]

If you didn’t have a bill, how do you know you put 50% down

It's not rocket science to look at or keep track of the price of what you order in a restaurant, unless of course you have problems with memory and basic arithmetic.