Last saturday night, Yunna and I went to La Piazza (formerly Viva Italia) to have dinner. I have no idea why I decided to give this venue another go. After previously having possibly the worst experience ever at a restaurant there, under the banner Viva Italia, what was I thinking? I was hungry and it was local. We didn’t finish our meal, we complained and didn’t pay for a half eaten chicken caesar salad.

I spoke to the manager, complained and expressed my concerns. She then decided not to take any responsibility for it and called for the chef to come out and have me explain it to him.

He then proceeded to tell us that he’s never had any problem with it previously and that the chicken was only 30mins old! ONLY! we’ve only been there for 15mins and he’s telling me that the chicken wasn’t even cooked on demand, there’s a problem admitted there!

He then refuse to take our opinion and basically wrote it off by saying “well thats just how we make it, we’ve never had a complaint previously”. Saying it as if they’ve been around for years and years… regardles- none of that makes any difference to our experience, he implied it was OUR fault for their crap meal.

It was ready in less than 10mins. How can anyone make anything fresh other than a sandwich in less than 10mins let alone a chicken meal. It was obvious none of the ingredients besides the lettuce was fresh or cooked upon order.

Croutons were not fresh (is it that hard to paste olive oil on bread, cut it up into pieces and put it in an oven?)

The chicken as the Chef described as being only cooked 30mins earlier wasn’t even grilled nor warmed. This is not a fast food restaurant, grill the chicken and serve it warm!

Our drinks came 5mins after our meals even though we had ordered the drinks 5mins before actually ordering the meal.

It didn’t have the anchovies as described on the menu.

We really should have picked up on the venue’s lack of simple and basic customer service. When we arrived, there were all these tables with table cloths etc, and the waitress led us to some tables without them as if “here use this table, don’t dirty the good ones for our VIP’s later”.. we were there quite early at 5:30pm. Not a good impression. I asked about why the tables in the good section had table cloths etc, “oh we have a few bookings tonight”…

Anyways, i’m usually a fairly forgiving person, but even after 3 years of not eating there for dinner, and change of name and managment.. they still haven’t improved on what is fundamental restaurant service. We still paid for our drinks, and the apology was given en passing whilst the manager shuffled around odds and ends walking around the desk.

If i owned a restaurant, if someone complains to the manager, the manager and only the manager will deal with it. If they can’t even handle a simple complaint, how can they manage the real tasks like getting the drinks within 15mins. It took them longer to make 2 drinks than to make 2 chicken caesar salads.

If I owned a restaurant and if there was any complaint, I would turn it all around and reward them for the opportunity for business but also making the effort to give feedback. A lot of people are too scared or can’t be bothered. I hate being punished for being a patron at an establishment. If I were in charge, i would give the customer the option for another meal “on the house” otherwise give them a voucher to come back.

I don’t see the point in punishment and not welcoming them back to give them another go. just bad business.

The term fresh as described by the chef at La Piazza at Mt gravatt reminds me of the Fawlty Towers episode with the Waldorf salad. “I ordered fresh orange juice!” “It is fresh, the chef just opened the bottle!” haha

This is one post that i can actually say “the end.”

If anyone has a story to tell about a bad restaurant they’ve been too, let me know!

Some links to other peoples bad experience at Viva Italia Mt Gravatt:

“I’ve just gotten home from my parents ‘thing’ that they had for me. Let me tell you that Viva Italia at Mt Gravatt is the worst restaraunt.

First the fucked up our booking, and we had to share with the unwashed masses. Then they fucked up all the food, forgot to bring cutlery, took forever and lost a bottle of my alcohol. Then they tried to charge us for more people tahn actually showed up. Stupid.”

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:226Ls-pNKzMJ:journal.justdigi.com/2002/11/22/+viva+italia+bad+mt+gravatt&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=3
http://www.boostcruising.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13449