A Nottingham bar has hit back at a customer, accusing her group of acting like "belligerent, entitled little toddlers", after she slated them in an online review.
The Cowshed at Hucknall has now barred the woman after her angry post claiming some of the staff had an awful attitude when one of the party, celebrating a 50th birthday, was sick.
She claimed they had spent nearly £700 on drinks and pizzas but had been asked to leave because a member of the party was too drunk.
The complaint was posted on her personal Facebook page with the Cowshed tagged in because the business doesn't allow reviews on its own page.
"We were told we were barred. Didn't mind taking the £700 though. I have never been spoken to in such a way. Maybe they should open reviews and yes our family member was sick and YES WE CLEANED IT up - so no member of staff were affected by this.
"Maybe a course for your staff in customer service wouldn't go amiss. Rude staff huffing and puffing because they had a large round to bring out," she wrote.
The bar cut and pasted the rant on its own Facebook page with a lengthy clapback, starting off with: "Hi, thanks for reaching out! We love feedback, whether it be positive or negative, we especially love feedback like this so others can see the type of people we have to deal with sometimes."
Firstly they addressed the £700 spent, disputing that the bill came nowhere close.
"We both know this isn't true don't we... it's not even remotely accurate as to what you spent, but I'll crunch the numbers for you.
"Our most expensive pizza on the menu is £9, this means that if you ordered only pizzas, you'd have to order 77 of them to be even close to spending £700. You didn't order 77 pizzas. But let's talk drinks... the most expensive drink we sell is a double gin and mixer at £6.10, this means you'd have to order 115 of these to be even close to spending £700.
"You didn't order 115 double gin and mixers. So let's split the difference, seeing as you had spent the '£700' on both pizzas and drinks... you and your party would have to have ordered 39 of our most expensive pizzas and 57 of our most expensive drinks to have spent £700 at our bar. You ordered nowhere near this... not even close.
"So seeing as you are having trouble with your memory and maths, I went over our point of sale system this afternoon for you, along with viewing our footage of your party on CCTV and our copy of your receipts. What you and your party spent, was a far more realistic and believable £280 (£225 on 5 rounds of drinks and £55 on 8 pizzas). If you are going to lie, embellish, or try to fabricate a ridiculous narrative about your time at our bar... at least make it a believable one."
Then they moved onto the party's behaviour at the bar, off High Street, which opened earlier this year.
"With the ironic exception of the young adults that were with your group and one or two others, you all acted like belligerent, entitled little toddlers from the moment you walked through our gates.
"At 4.30pm you showed up with the tables you wanted already taken, but not to worry, we shuffled other customers about at your request in order to accommodate you. Then you proceeded to pull our light fittings loose off our boundary fence in order to hang your birthday decor up along with the several bags of party bunting you brought with you.
"We allowed members of your party to bring in food from other venues to circumvent their food allergies. We cleaned up all the smashed pint glasses you broke and birthday cake you dropped and smeared all over our tables and benches and tolerated the many loud family rows you were having with each other.
"You decided to treat them (staff) like your own personal servants, clicking your fingers, shouting, swearing and barking your orders at them, to the point one was almost in tears and refused to deal with you any more. You were constantly being warned by our door staff about staying seated and observing social distancing, of which you refused to do either.
"You were the loudest, most obnoxious group in the whole bar, just being a nuisance in general and other customers were starting to complain about you at this point.
"Then, for your party's grand finale, the gentleman in the blue shirt headed into our bar from outside and decided to vomit everywhere but the toilet.
"Our staff stepped into to help, but you demanded to 'deal with the situation' and rather than clean up the mess, proceeded to smear it over an even wider area with our mop, whilst... once again, being loud, rude, sticking your hand in our staff's faces and shouting over anybody who was trying to communicate with you or help. (Don't worry, the staff member that you nearly had in tears earlier on cleaned it up for you)."
They said the group hadn't been barred on the night but they are now.
"Nobody... not staff, door supervisors or myself had barred you that night, after all, nobody was hurt, and we've all drank too much and regretted it the next day. We don't bar paying customers on a whim.
"You could have come back, apologised, been given the 'don't let it happen again' speech we've all had at one point or another and we'd have all moved on, but no... instead you ran straight to the internet, played victim, and told a pack of lies. So now consider this your official barring... don't you or your group ever set foot through our doors again."
They ended by saying the group's details had been forward to the town's Pubwatch scheme "so you can expect some pushback from all the other bar owners, landlords and venues throughout Hucknall on your next visit."
The stinging response concluded: "My only regret was not kicking you all out sooner.
"To anybody else reading this who would like to view exactly how not to behave in a bar during a global pandemic with heavy social and footfall restrictions in place, (or how not to behave in public in general) pop along to the bar and I'll gladly show you the highlights of our CCTV footage we have of this group.
"Sorry for the long post, folks, but this needed addressing. Lots of love as always... Team Cowshed."
Regulars applauded the comeback.
"Well done for sticking up for yourselves and your staff. You don’t often see that these days with ‘the customer is always right’ - excellent," said one.
And more than one, who has ever been there before, said they now want to go.
A man commented: "Wow. We’ve never been to the Cowshed but we certainly intend doing so. More so after reading your honest response to [the woman] who I hope to never meet her or her party. Ever."
And a woman in Scotland posted: "I have just seen this on a bar/restaurant rant page! I will be coming to the Cowshed if ever in the area! All this woman has done is give you more promotion due to how you have dealt with it, during the evening and today! Well done."
Nottinghamshire Live has tried to contact the woman for her response.
