Suva City - Anonymous Review

NANDOS FIJI DISASTER
What do you need after a hard day’s work? A decent meal and if you are paying for it then hell yeah need to get what you paid for. This is my worst experience of Nandos at LAUCALA BAY, SUVA so far. I have been to Nandos at numerous occasions as it is on my way home and i mostly go there because of the peri sauce. On one occasion the food was half cooked and we could see blood at the joints. When we told staff at Nando, we were told that most people like half cooked and it was our fault that we did not request when we were placing the order that the chicken be” well done”. So we thought it was our mistake, as if. How would we know if there is no such request on the menu and we have not been told about it when we place the order. A few times, we were given dirty glasses and we had to request the staff to rinse it again. 90% of the time, the food is cold and we have to request staff to reheat it in the microwave. Oh did I mention that the eatery is crawling with cameras. The cameras are focused at each table. I thought this may be a way of keeping away thief and no one is actually sitting in front of a camera and watching. However, I was mistaken. Once my younger sister started pouring the peri sauce on chicken when it was served directly on the food platter. Literally within two minutes, the floor supervisor came to our table and told us that we cannot add the peri sauce to the chicken on the food platter and that sauce can only be poured on our individual plates. We were surprised and when we asked how they found out, we were told that their boss is always watching the cameras and she (the supervisor) received a call from her boss instructing her to rely the message to us. And also did I mention that one needs to sit in the first half of the restaurant because if the air condition is switched off, then the second half of the restaurant stinks awfully bad. And I never go to their wash rooms as it is even worse. And the attitude of the staff is just pathetic towards locals. They act as if we locals are asking them for a favour. We are a big family so our bills range from $40.00 to $100. If you pay that much we are not asking for a favor. We want to sit and eat in a clean and friendly environment.
Finally, the worst experience was on 17/10/13 at around 5.30 pm when we went to Nandos at LAUCALA BAY, SUVA for dinner. When we entered there was only two tables occupied. It started off with the food arriving 25 minutes late and it was cold as always. It now seems like the peri-sauce is being rationed as we were given two bottles with an inch of sauce in each. How pathetic is that. So we had to request for another bottle and were finally given another bottle (again with 1 inch sauce) after a long stare and an explanation of why we needed it. Just imagine paying for it and given an explanation of why you need it. How ironical. Anyways, our worst part wasn’t over. When we had eaten 75% of our meal, we discovered a FRIED FLY AMONGST THE CHIPS. The appetite was just lost. We all stopped eating and I went to call the Supervisor who was in the kitchen. It seemed that the Supervisor was too busy to attend to my complaint(so rude) even after I explained that there is a FRIED FLY AMONGST THE CHIPS. The junior staff who has served us initially came to see what we were talking about. Noticing the lack of responsibility from the Supervisor and other staff, I took a video and pictures of the FRIED FLY. The junior staff took the food platter away and said that she will discuss with her Supervisor and let us know of the outcome. It wasn’t until ten minutes later that she came back and said that Nandos is willing to give whatever chips and chicken was left on our food platter minus the fly as it was not their fault that the fly was there. Exact word from the staff” before serving they had wiped the serving plates, so the fly must have fallen afterwards. Therefore this is not our fault and we cannot do anything about it. We can do you a favour by giving whatever chips and chicken was left on our food platter.” What favour, we had paid for the food which you messed up by having an unhygienic kitchen. Also how can a fly fall afterwards if the fly was fried and appeared amongst the chips. Nobody in their right mind would take up that offer, therefore we declined. The junior staff went away and we all thought that she would come back and applogise for spoiling our appetite. We waited for 10 minutes and when no one came we went over to the counter to find out what was the decision. All this while we had been calm. However much to our surprise, all staff had forgotten the fly issue and was carrying out their normal duties. When we asked the staff what was happening with our fly issue, we were told that since we had declined their favour, the issue was resolved on their part. At that time I was furious. We asked for the Supervisor as we couldn’t reason with other staff. And much to our surprise, the Supervisor had found it more important to put the rubbish outside at 6pm (note to readers, rubbish in Suva is collected during the day) rather than addressing the issue at hand. Afterwards when she finally came to the counter and when we asked her what had she done about the fly issue at which point she acted all surprised and said that she was putting rubbish outside. When I recapped for her the fly issue then all of a sudden she remember (what a short term memory loss for the supervisor and the nerve). What was worse was that the supervisor kept on saying that it was not their fault and when we asked her to at least apologize for spoiling our meal, she acted arrogantly and was persistent not to apologize saying that it was not her fault. At that point I told her that because Nandos is an international franchise, the arrogance and lack of hospitality shown by both her staff and especially her is not on. And I will be taking this matter further which point she said that I can go ahead and lodge a complaint with whoever I want to. I have been to a number of Nandos restaurants overseas and have never seen such behavior - arrogance and lack of hospitality.
Therefore, I personal feel that this needs to be known by everybody. I have communicated the pathetic customer service behavior (above story) of the Nandos LAUCALA BAY, SUVA staff to all my family, friends and business connections locally and internationally. These people have shown dismay and will be relying this to others.
The above is being forwarded to Nandos Fiji management and will await a response to this. Otherwise, should no action be taken, I will up this issue publically. Just a note, pictures and video has been uploaded to Nandos website.