Amanda Johnson 
Who doesn’t love to hang out at a nice place where the atmosphere is great, the food is delicious and everyone is enjoying themselves? We all probably know there hardly is any place where everything is top notch and you literally have nothing to complain about. However, there is the opposite scenario – when a client decides to complain without much of a reason to do so, and there are a lot of stories about people just whining about this and that just for the sport of it and without a single argument to back themselves up the least bit.
If you go out regularly you probably have a fairly good idea about the price of a decent meal in a nice place. If you can get your tummy full for less than fifteen dollars and you enjoyed the meal, you can consider that a good deal. But if you ask Debbie Davis, she thinks that the £8 she paid for her dish was too much, and just for that she left a lousy 2-star review on the Facebook page of Oxton Bar and Kitchen. She started by saying that she liked the place and that the staff members were amazing, but that the prices were quite high and according to her the pricing of the place could not be justified.
Normally when shots are fired in such a way, most restaurants would simply just let it be and would not stand their ground. In this case, things turned out to be different. The restaurant management seemed to be a little pissed about the review, but they managed to keep a good tone when they posted their position with a lot of sarcasm sprinkled on top. They managed to not only justify the prices in the menu, but they completely shut her down with the sarcastic and very well put comment.
The beginning of the post suggested that there was a lot of explaining following, and the first thing that they wanted to inform Debbie about was the fact that 20% out of the £8 she paid goes for taxes that the government charges, thus shrinking the sum that goes into the cash counter to £6.66. Then the need to buy products in order for the meal to be prepared. The ingredients needed in this case were a haddock fillet, beer batter, tartar sauce made on the spot, peas and chips, and the average cost of all those ingredients per serving costs roughly £2.70, and that means that there are £3.94 left. Out of that money the chef has to get his remuneration. But wait, there’s even more. When the chef prepares the food, the need to be served arises and that is where the staff comes into play. They not only serve the food, but also clean up after every customer.
After the staff and the chef receive their fair share out of the £3.94 that is left, we need to pay for the utilities that are used, such as gas for cooking, electricity and much more. We must not forget about all the business rates, too, and if you roughly calculate what is really left, you would surely justify the prices in the diner, and you may consider them to be relatively low, too.
In the end of the post, the restaurant management suggests that if Debbie finds it hard to justify the price after the explanation, she can still enjoy a more reasonable deal if she stays home and cooks whatever she likes to eat.
The restaurant management’s response was simply brilliant and it needs applause, because everyone must stand tall for their work and defend the quality of the product or service they offer. If the complaint had some sort of back up and really had a point, the restaurant manager would have responded differently, but this is not the case here.
The evaluation that Debbie posted did not seem to have any notable effect on the restaurant’s reputation. The place is in Birkenhead and is a complete hit among locals and visitors, and the Facebook rating is always more than four stars out of a five-star rating scale, which is a pretty nice result. If you visit TripAdvisor and browse for Oxton Bar and Kitchen, you will find the same result and keep in mind that it has been formed from the sum of close to three hundred people’s reviews, so the good reputation seems to be a fact. When we go back to look at Debbie’s review, we just have to mention all the comments that followed, and every single person is firmly on the restaurant’s side. Our personal opinion is that if you can find a nice place and get your tummy full for that kind of money, it is quite a bargain.
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