A raging restaurant-goer was left feeling less than impressed with her service in the newly-opened St James Quarter, as the building was evacuated twice in the space of just two hours.
Laura Firth, 26, was dining in Scottish marketplace restaurant Bonnie & Wild with her friends Daniel and Nichole, when the fire alarm began to sound.
Laura, a television student, said: "We were inside Bonnie & Wild having a lovely meal, and had literally just put our forks down on our last bite of food, when the fire alarm went off.
"Everyone was very relaxed at first, nobody really moved, so we questioned on whether we should get up and leave or not.
"So, the manager of Bonnie & Wild came over and told us we had to leave, without any of our belongings.
"I did try to take my drink, and they wouldn't let me, so I had to drink the entire thing there as it was £8.50! I wasn't wasting the money, or have it turn to water by the time I was back inside."
Laura did state she understood the safety aspect of a fire alarm, but felt sorry for the people who had just had their meals served to them, as it would either be freezing cold or probably binned by the time the evacuation was over.
Another issue was the lack of direction the majority of the customers were shown when evacuating the building.
Laura added: "There was virtually no security, and not one official person guiding the way out of the building, as people were going down stairs and heading in opposite directions from each other, it was really unorganised.
"We spotted a door to the outside so we just headed in that direction, and once we were outside sitting around for about 20 minutes, it was actually the general manager from Bonnie & Wild who we had spoken to earlier that was explaining what he could to us, and trying to take control of the situation.
"There was no official representative from the St James Quarter to tell us anything, which we felt was extremely unprofessional. In fact, people were trying to head back inside once they realised it was a false alarm, and it was the Bonnie & Wild manager who refused them entry."
After another 20 minutes, the staff were allowed entry back into the building, and then the general public another 10 minutes later.
Laura's ordeal was far from over, however, as she returned to the table empty, with just their belongings sitting. Thankfully, they were finished their meal so paid the bill and headed to Joelato for their famous ice-cream.
They got to the Joelato stand only for the worker to tell them that the stand was shut as it was 9:30pm. This irked Laura and her friends, as due to the fire alarm, they couldn't have gotten to the stand any earlier and were expecting the place to stay open a couple minutes later to fulfil orders.
So, after yet another disappointment, the group of friends headed to Lane 7 to book a bowling alley lane, as the place was quiet for a Tuesday night.
However, upon reaching the games arcade and bar, the staff informed Laura and her friends that due to the fire alarm, all of their bookings were pushed back so there were no bowling lanes available.
The group decided to book in for a game of pool instead, and just as they were in the midst of a game, the fire alarm went off for the second time in two hours.
Laura said: "Once we realised the alarm was going off again, we decided to just abandon the game and head off home, as there was no point in standing outside for another 40 or so minutes just to play 10 more minutes of a game of pool.
"In terms of the fire alarms, once was an inconvenience, twice in one night was just plain annoying, and was a really disappointing evening for us all.
"I obviously don't have a clue as to what is causing these incessant fire alarms at the new shopping centre, but they need to really organise an evacuation plan, as it was messy and extremely dysfunctional in terms of trying to navigate our way out of the building without any guidance.
"We were all just a bit gutted as what was meant to be a nice, fun night out turned into a stressful, disorganised mess."
This is the third time the building has been evacuated due to a 'false fire alarm', and St James Quarter has reopened as normal since these events last night.
A spokesperson for St James Quarter said: "There was a false fire alarm and a temporary evacuation last night but we are open as normal today. The safety of our visitors and staff is our number one priority."
