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The burger review that never happened

I was recommended by a couple of readers to try out the burger at the English Tea Lounge at Avenues phase II. It’s an ostrich burger and supposedly very good so I passed by today for lunch around 3pm to try it out. The place was empty with not a single person there so we had our pick of where to sit. We got the menu and I quickly flipped to the page with the burger on it. My sister was going to have a salad but Nat just wanted to drink tea.

Then Nat noticed the fine print at the bottom of every page which said that the minimum order per person had to be KD6. I told her that’s probably when its packed but not when it’s empty. I called the waitress over and asked her if this KD6 minimum charge was enforced? She said yes. I was like wait, so if me and my sister want to order lunch but Nat just tea we can’t do that? She said no it’s minimum KD6 per person. WTF? The place was empty with no one there!? It’s a TEA lounge! I told her fine and got up and left.

What a very disappointing experience. Didn’t even know restaurants with minimum charges still existed in Kuwait yet alone having it enforced in an empty place.

62 replies on “The burger review that never happened”

i’m first 😛

anyway u’re right Mark.. I hope the people at Sheraton will notice your comment and cancel that silly wage! I guess that’s why the place was empty right?

There are quite a few resturants who still ‘order’ the customers to crank up the bill or leave. Its almost in every mall, at least one place is up tight about the minimum value bill including applebees during weekends in Abu Halifa.

When 360mall was just opening, I was very thirsty and went to the nearest cafe and ordered water to drink, I got a 250ml evian for 950fills and they wanted me to order more…I picked the water and left and I could see they were not very pleased to have a thirsty customer who they ripped off with 10times the regular water price and still wanted me to spend more…

Lol! That’s funny. How can it be a tea place and have a min. charge of 6kd.

I swear to God these restaurants in the mall have their noses so far up their own asses. They think they’re top notch or whatever… Uh.. HELLO! YOUR RESTAURANT IS IN A MALL!!!! LMFAO!!!

@ Akbar

Customer service is bass ackwards here in Kuwait.

I guess minimum charge thing is illegal, as i was told so by a friend of mine

anyways to get a confirmation about that i think you should call the ministry of commerce hotline as i did once and the employee agreed to that .

the thing is who wants to make a scene so better leave , right ? 🙂

@esa: its illegal if they havent told u beforehand, but if it is stated in the menu, its totally legal.

some places like ( paul ) , take a cover charge for the bread and butter they bring when u first sit.

alot of kuwaities feel embarrassed to leave in situations like this and rather be ripped-off !
its rude and these practices are growing in q8

Free Sheraton invitations on their way to your desk office Monday morning 🙂

But seriously , id rather see it empty with this ridiculous 6KD MG ! better seeing those creepy ppl staring at Me & my wife for 10 seconds at caribou and Starbucks cafe !

Customer service is non existent combined with greed and foreign labor add a mix of overpriced premises lousy chefs and uptight owners combined with superficial customers and sprinkled with the absence of consumer right you get a minimum charge per person! I have seen this before in other country but usually in heavily frequented tourist destination… not a sand box!

I don’t think you missed on anything special, it’s just frozen ostrich meat. Frozen meat tends to be tasteless.

Avian burger reviews! Now that’s a spin off that I can enjoy. Can’t wait for Fat Burger’s turkey burger review.

Mark…the same thing happened to me when I took my mum and a friend there to the Avenues location! Two of us wanted a full ‘tea’ menu and my friend just wanted a cup of tea! Sorry, not allowed and like you the place was empty! It really was quite ridiculous! We also left, disappointed since we had been looking forward to it for a while and my mum was on holiday! I have been a regular customer at the actual Sheraton location, the service is much better but they still maintain a minimum charge (you kind of expect that in a hotel but not in a Mall!) I hope the Sheraton will reconsider and at least give the staff the power to use their discretion. I totally accept it if the place is crowded! The more people who complain and make a stand, the better! Customer service in Kuwait is not what it used to be.

If I was in your shoes, I wud order the tea for myself and then offer it to the accompanying person, i hope they wud not mind it that way… and if they wud in first place that wud be illegal and secondly i wud show them my arse.

ofcourse they cant have any command on my purchased food… i eat it myself, share it with someone or just waste it…

Which world are we living into ?

Had the same bad experience yesterday with my husband we wanted 2 have Sweet & coffe but why pay 12 kd in empty place ! We had it in Lenotre although it was nearly same price but not by force atleast :p

i have been there before one year ago .. i agree that the min. charge thing was insane but there is no reason to get mad .. they did not cheat you or fraud u , it is clearly listed on their menu and the waitor assures u of it before u ordered .. they are a respectful private business who did not cross any laws or rules

liberty4kuwait: I didn’t say they cheated me and I didn’t say they didn’t have to have this min charge. My issue is that they were enforcing this rule in an empty restaurant when 2 out of 3 people would be paying their KD6 min charge. The min charge is there I am guessing so that they don’t get people coming and ordering one tea and sitting 6 hours drinking it. But they should be flexible and not turn away customers who are actually there to have lunch and spend money. I mean I was there willing to spend KD6 on a burger, that’s more than the cost of the burger at Sheraton. https://248am.com/mark/kuwait/burger-review-sheraton-hotel/

i agree that this will make them lose customers , its their business .. let them suffer ;p but i just wanted to remind u that they did not cheat/fraud u .. make a review on black&white located in qortuba coop and free trade zone

Its insulting to walk into to restaurant to find out that there a minimum charge. Never seem to have this issue in London or Paris or Copenhagen. Now there are two ways of resolving such a situation, call the manager and explain to him that you will not pay the cover charge, as you are here for a coffee and that turning you away will create a bad publicity (as if the owner care. The other is to order ignore whats written and pick up and argument when the bill comes in (it works did it before).

Mark for the record I think, the English Tea Lounge at Avenues will have enough trouble after this post, to attract any new customer.

@ liberty4kuwait Bars and nightclubs, or restaurants with live entertainment, will have a cover charge is a flat fee for entry to defray the cost of entertainment such as live musicians, singers or a DJ. In some countries, restaurants without entertainment may have a cover charge or (“couvert”) for bread, butter, olives, and other accompaniments. In the case of the the English Tea Lounge at Avenues,this is considered highway robbery.

Its a freakin tea lounge ! not a fancy restaurant ! wtf with the minimum charge !?

I would pay the 6 kD if I am setting in a real place and not on a HOMELESS sofas in the middle of the road!

I googled it, English Tea Lounge at The Avenues, well nothing about minimum charge and still a fringing tea lounge!!!!

Indulge in the grand selection of teas, coffees and authentic British scones in the comfort of stately, old world charm. Our English Tea Lounge in The Avenues Mall is set in a traditional English setting, combined with our famous selection of traditional teatime delicacies and a wide selection of Teas from around the world, is sure to be enjoyable.

· Dress Code: Formal

· Hours: Saturday – Thursday 10:30 AM – 1:00 PM, 4:00 PM – 12:00 AM; Friday 4:00 PM – 12:00 AM

· Atmosphere: Authentic British Scones

· Setting : A la Carte (Selection of traditional choice from set menus)

· Location : Avenues Mall, The new mall extension, left wing, ground floor, tel : 22597914

liberty4kuwait: it’s a customer opinion. people should be allowed to have their opinions just like you have yours. 6 KD minimum charge is beyond outrageous. It means people will be denied service unless they agree to those terms. How silly.

I think this is a good policy, so they can avoid the riff raff, young men ordering coffee or tea only, taking up space and oogling girls.

This place is not meant to be Costa.

The policy is stated on the menu.

Given the kind of people that roam around in the avenues, the best policy to enforce is a minimum charge or else you would have a mall filled with rubbish. It’s almost there anyways.

@realist: well, since the place was totally empty, I guess that means everyone who goes to the Avenue is “rubbish” ;p

Whats the big deal? Cant we have choices here ? Do we have to have a fixed price range for every restaurant? If money is the issue here, then there are a lot of other cheaper places two steps away. Seriously Mark haven’t you been to chic restaurants in New York London or even the cafes in Solidare Beirut with such rule? Well, I have been to many and they all have different rates of min charge. And they do it for many reasonable reasons. I am not saying its cheap but I have to agree that whole concept of this tea lounge will loose its fundamental value and touch of elegance. How can you stop those wearied creatures who come and sit around to stair with 20 kids screaming around and …etc. some patisserie chiefs cost 3000 kd a month plus waiters plus ridiculous high rent rates . So lets be realistic here. I am what the 3 of you ordered did not even add up to 18 kd thats why your wife had to order more than just tea. PLZ lets not discourage our few intelligent merchants in investing in our beloved PAUSED country .

Minimum charge is a good thing – to keep out certain types… but it’s ridiculous when the place is empty, and indeed that they enforce it per person in a party of 3.

Oh well. They’ll learn (or we will).

well
i wouldn’t eat there even if they paid me !
three times i have been talking to the tea lounge staff in the toilets they never wash their hands !! never ever
so its a dirty place after all

The inflexibility of some staff/managers in Kuwait is astounding. Your experience is similar to a recent one of mine. I took my family to the newish Italian place in the 360. Our son has a lot of health concerns and a limited diet; although they lacked a kid’s menu we saw many chicken dishes on the menu and figured we could get him a chicken breast. When we tried to order him simply a sauteed chicken breast and steamed vegetables (btw, both were menu items, you could add a chicken breast to a cesar salad for 600 fils) the waiter was baffled and had to get the manager. The manager said it was not possible and recommended a 7KD chicken and mushroom dish for our young son. 7KD on a 6 year old! No. Fine, it is their restaurant, and they can do as they like, but how much future business did their shortsightedness cost them. We will certainly never go there as a family again.

I think the issue here is that the waitress / waiter didn’t use their head and try to rectify this. What’s sad is these workers are demanded to go by the book and nothing else – of course no creativity or innovation or even a solution to the problem. Simplest thing they could have done was to tell you to hold tight for a sec while they speak to a manager / owner /office and explain the situation, maybe it wouldn’t have resolved it but at least give it a shot, at least you would have left the place knowing that someone tried to correct this.

How many times have you gone back to a restaurant because the service was great? Or gone back to a place not because of the food but because a single waiter has made an impression? Probably zero.

Its ok to have a minimum charge is that’s what they want, im not against that – but if you think you are smart enough to have minimum charge at least be smart enough to know when to enforce it.

I bet if the waiter there had told you to hold on let’s see what we can do about this and at least try, just try to find a solution to work it out, it wouldn’t have been as bad. That bit of extra effort makes a whole lot of difference. And I bet you if they would have tried and explained to someone who takes the decision in that place, we would have had that burger review.

Can I just add – to everyone saying the rule is in place to keep certain types away / “taking up space and oogling girls” – give me a break, you’re not making alot of sense here. This was a man, his wife and his sister and an empty restaurant. The only “oogling” and dribbling that would have happened would have been between Mark and his burger.

Ok yall, this is the INSIDER IDEA:
First: this cafe is for Alshaya (Sheraton Hotel). they don’t need to sell anything and don’t expect them to close.
Second: The idea of this cafe is a part of the hotel lobby in the Phase 3 and they r still working on the approvals.
and Last: If this is your mall, and inviting your friend, you would like to have some nice place to set, Right?!
THE CASE IS CLOSED……

Is the 6 KD policy posted at the ENTRANCE?

You can’t just have people walk in, sit down and then surprise them.

Just:
“How many times have you gone back to a restaurant because the service was great? Or gone back to a place not because of the food but because a single waiter has made an impression? Probably zero. ”

Zero? That sentence just defeated your whole point!

Mash, actually, that sentence emphasizes my point. You must have misinterpreted my comment – or I might have not minced my words right. What do you think my point was?

It’s illegal to have a minimum charge; I once checked with the consumer protection dept myself on that and the person can go and complain. The question though is, will they do anything with this place considering the owner’s power?

I think the situation is a bit different, if the manager/waiter of the said tea lounge knows that Mark of the famous 248am and his family are in the house, I bet they will reconsider that min. 6kd charges and preferably give Mark and his family a free meal for review… 🙂

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