A good evening turned sour.

Good food, good service, nice interior. That's the good part. The not so good part was that there were surprisingly, considering it was a Saturday night, only 4 other people in the restaurant the whole evening whilst we were there. This meant a total lack of atmosphere as we were rather expecting a buzzing and vibrant place. The absolutely terrible part was the unforgiveable, rude, aggressive and intimadatory attitude of the 'manager' at the end of the evening. I will not go into all the in-and-outs of the complaint we made to him. Suffice to say it was with reference to what we understood to be a £60 voucher we had been given as a Christmas present by our son and daughter-in-law and the fact that, if we had gone to the restaurant without a voucher, we would only have spent about £45. So we believed that our son and daughter-in-law were being 'ripped off' by the voucher scheme (issued by Groupon) that this restaurant was offering. We did not complain rudely but simply pointed out the facts as we saw them, believing we were still owed food or drink to the full value. Rather than explain politely and properly to us the terms and conditions of the voucher that had been bought for us, the 'manager' proceeded to turn very nasty. Boy, did he turn nasty! First of all he told us to leave his restaurant, saying that it is people like us who use these vouchers who come once and are never seen again, and if we did not leave immediately he would call the police. When I suggested that this is what he should do, he then threatened to 'get his mates' round to throw us out! He swore at us loudly and even used the 'f' word more than once. My wife wanted to leave, so we did. The following day I spoke to the actual owner of the Beirut Lounge and their sister restaurant, Retro in Charminster, and discussed our experience with him over the phone. At the end of our conversation, conducted cordially, I rather got the impression it was still all my fault. He did apologise after a fashion, "I suppose the customer is always right" attitude, and rather that I had wound up his nice and charming 'manager' and had therefore got what I deserved. He did say that he would speak to his 'manager', whatever that meant. I am 62 years of age, have been going to many restaurants for 40 years, find it difficult to complain, so do so rarely, have never ever had an experience like this one. So thanks a bunch, Beirut Lounge, there's a first time for everything.

R&S Morgan - 22/02/2011 | report this review