Meanwhile, In Ranelagh

Oh.

UPDATE:


177 thoughts on “Meanwhile, In Ranelagh”

  1. Classy. Their service is terribly slow on a quiet Wednesday evening, god knows what a Sunday is like.

    • to the people slating him for using Twitter to communicate to them, the fact is Social Media has now become a tool and in some cases the ONLY tool for communicating to businesses. Get with the times, he was well within his rights, I did the same before with a well known nutrition brand in the UK and my response was a refund on my damaged product and a newer one sent out, now THAT is how to use Social Media platforms. Not like this

    • Yeah I was, total arsehole. If a place is busy, expect to wait. I guarantee that guy has never worked in a service job.

  3. Meh I can see their side tbh. They’re busy dealing with a long queue and this dweeb complains to them via twitter while he’s still in the queue rather than talk to/with them directly?. WTF did he expect?.

    • The STAFF are probably up to their eyeballs, and I’d imagine there’s little they could do.

      But the MANAGEMENT, that’s a different story. I’m sure that’s who the tweet was directed at. If they are “Dublin’s busiest restaurant”, then surely they could do with hiring an additional member of staff?…

  4. seems like a slight over reaction from cinammon? if youre a restaurant and you put yourself on twitter you have to expect some negative feedback from time to time.

    • just had a read of it…. he tweeted sayin he was 40 mins waiting and to “sort it out”..they tweeted back we are jammers, expect delays, he got snotty with them and it kicked off….he sounds like a hipster expecting everything to be quick and snappy

      • My feedback was in relation to the busy situation in there on the weekends in general, not my particular situation. I dont mind waiting for a decent bite to eat but I would expect to be treated with respect rather than a snappy egocentric tweets about how little they care a about the little guy.

        • I’d agree with Sean. I’ve been there once (midweek for lunch) and they weren’t busy but the serving staff were really arrogant. That along with the highly priced food that didn’t match the quality in my eyes meant I voted with my feet and have never been back.

        • I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take over 40 minutes to make and serve scrambled eggs on toast. Any restaurant that takes over 40 minutes to make scrambled eggs certainly has a problem. It’s therefore totally unjustified to call the customer an arsehole for getting agitated about such painfully slow service.

  6. “no worries, I was sick of eating in a pretentious crèche anyway.”

    He sounds like a Grade-A w**ker to me.

  7. Have been in there twice, possibly the worst service I’ve ever come across anywhere. Sat there for 20 mins, no one came over, went up to the counter and after 5 or 6 mins someone strolled over, said they’d send someone down to take my order. Cue 15 more mins or waiting, eventually got an order in and waited another 20 mins for a coffee. bloody shocking. The next trip in there was just as bad, their staff are not the best. Have heard numerous stories from friends that are all just as bad.

    Doesn’t particularly surprise me that their grasp of social media is about as high quality as their service.

    • If you don’t mind me asking, after receiving such woeful service first time around, what possessed you to go back?

      • Personally I wouldn’t have chosen to go back, a friend wanted to try it, I did my best to dissuade! Her mind was made up after we visited!

    • @Shane – It is mind boggling that you went back a 2nd time after waiting 55 minutes for a coffee.
      You are insane.

    • Also my experience of the place.

      Went there they day they opened, service was brutal, forgave them as it was their first day.

      Went back a couple of weeks later, took ages to get a menu despite asking for it a couple of times, when we did order the coffee turned up in 5 minutes and the food 45 mins later, complained, was told in an almost agressive manner that that’s they were busy and that’s the way it was. The guy serving the coffee overheard the response I got and apologised for it and didn’t charge for the coffees on the bill.

      Gave them one more try months later, same again even though wasn’t particularly busy. Again ages to get menus, service was so slow and they got half our order wrong. Didn’t complain that time, just said I wouldn’t go back.

      Headless chickens. It wasn’t eve

      • Same experience. Thing is they seem to have plenty of staff – they’re all just running around doing, well, I dunno *what* they’re doing but it’s NOT good, efficient nor involves serving/keeping customers happy anyway. Haven’t been back

    • +1…service is the worst Ive EVER come accross in Dublin..voted with my feet have not returned.

    • Agreed. No matter how busy you are and how many arseholes come in moaning to you about insignificant things (a lot of us have been there), you have to have a degree of professionalism and show some manners.

      • I also don’t understand places that seat customers that they cannot accommodate with the number of staff on duty. It does more harm than good. I’d rather be told I have to wait 30 mins for a table (so I can make my own decision about waiting) than be seated and wait 40 mins for my food. Basic management fail here.

    • Twitter as an instrument is highly unprofessional. It is a marketing tool used by tools to market. You may have gathered that I do not like twitter.

  9. That twitter account is not cinnamon in ranelagh, according to their own site their twitter account is @CinRanelagh….

  10. Brilliant, pretentious restaurant operator is rude. How delightfully stereotypical for this Monday. What kind of business thinks they can do stuff like this & not have to deal with a backlash

  11. Seriously, the service in this place is awful. I’ve been there three times trying to give it the benefit of the doubt and have been disappointed on all occasions. Most of their staff are there because they look pretty and lack any sort of customer skills. The tweet was highly unprofessional. 40 minutes is an awfully long time to wait for food to be fair.

  13. I’ve been to Cinnamon around ten times at this stage. If you don’t fancy meeting mates in a pub that’s packed and/or has a noisy telly on, it’s a good alternative. It’s like a cafe-restaurant-boozer with no obligation to order anything more than a coffee but if you fancy a meal or a glass of wine the option is there.

    However, each and every times I’ve darkened their door (usually midweek as I work weekends) there’s been bad service. On the whole the staff are lovely, but orders get muddled, things come late often with the wrong accompaniments and their decaf is rank. Well all decaf is rank to a degree, but this stuff….bleugh.

    Reading over this I’ve no idea why I’ve clocked up ten visits.

  15. He mentioned the 40 min wait, they replied with not the slightest bit of apology. They then claimed “we don’t have a problem”. Er, a 40 min wait _is_ a problem. Then they resorted to abuse.

    P.

    • You can understand him getting pissed off waiting for 40 minutes with no sign of anything. They were at fault for this wait and no decent restaurant would say that this is acceptable.

  16. Was their once and waited 20 minutes for a takeway coffee. And an americano at that! Havent been back.

    Their service and attitude stinks. Glad to see them get pulled up on it!

  17. You all seem very defensive for bad customer service, All they needed to say was so sorry, we are very busy right now, we will get to you. And ignore follow up tweets, as there is not much else they can say.. .No need to act like a spoilt child…

  20. Regardless of what the Tweeter was like, it is the heights of unprofessionalism to level abuse at a paying customer like that.

    Won’t be going there any time soon.

  21. If the guy *had* complained in person, and was then called an arsehole in person, everyone would consider that shabby service. Yeah, not the ideal way to complain, but I’m sure Sean Mongey didn’t ask Cinnemon to put up a feedback channel on twitter.

  22. Would never, ever go to Cinnamon again. What shit service. And I wasn’t there on a Sunday. The management clearly cant see properly as they are up their own asses.

  23. My mum, sister and I were waiting a long time to be served in there on a relatively unbusy Saturday morning. We were just about to head elsewhere when the waiter ambled over to us so we went ahead and ordered because luckily for them we were feeling lazy about moving. We were then waiting for some time for our food. We often meet for coffee/food in Ranelagh but we have never gone back to Cinnamon because of that experience. So now. Thank god for anonymity, I’d be watching my back otherwise.

  24. The whole thing could have been resolved with a simple apology instead of attitude .
    Yes he probably is an arsehole but they are supposed to be professional .
    Although its most likely a fake or hacked account

  26. Wow, sounds like an ideal place to bring the laptop and get a bit of work done; in very busy places they serve you fast and then hope you’ll buy more or get out when you’ve finished. This place sounds like you could get a good hour-and-a-half’s worth of work done on one cup of coffee.

  27. I both feel for and cringe for both parties here. Twitter has made these interactions unbearably public. The complainer has been convinced by the current zeitgeist that it’s more normal to publicly shame a restaurant’s twitter feed than to say something to one of the waitstaff passing your table. The restaurant’s been convinced by the current zeitgeist that they a) must maintain a publicly addressable twitter feed, and that they b) are free to adopt the same tone in reply to admonitions that their followers use to admonish them. It’s a giant mess of raw, public interaction on media where the social and professional norms have not yet been established.

  29. Been in here three times as it’s just around the corner.

    First time with five people, service was slow and poor with a lot of the floor staff strolling round full of an air of hipster self importance and not actually doing there job. Food was really good though and made up for it.

    Second time; as a couple on a bank holiday monday for lunch sat down and asked a really simple question as regards what menu was on and got a really snotty and unprofessional reply reply from the waitress about how we should have read the board on the way in.

    The menu we wanted was n’t being served so we decided against.

    Third and final time (I wanted to give the place a chance because the food is quite good)

    We had sat down no more then two minutes when yet again another one of their self important arsehole waitresses decided that instead of answering a simple question when she was politely asked, she would take this oppurtunity to basically be a smart arsed b*tch. We both politely handed back our menus, stood up and left.

    Long story short the service in this place is appalling and I ll never be back.

  33. I spent two minutes looking around the chaps Twitter account and can verify that he is an arsehole.

    Cinnamon congratulations on hitting the nail on the head.

    You may have lost that customer but you will soon have a fresh one.

    • There’s no excuse for their behaviour on twitter. It’s unprofessional and offensive and very telling of their real attitude to customers.

      The chances are they’ll be gone and closed up in a year or so. Nobody will remember them soon after that.

      Do they pay their suppliers on time?

  34. Cinnamong more like.

    Obviously they have no idea how social media works. Muppets!

    But yes, yer man is a twat also. Two mongs go head to head on the twitter machine! Thanks for the entertainment at least :)

    Muppets on both sides.

    • Thanks to social media both sides of the equation get exposed for what they are. Two tossers go to social media war and everyone else benefits.

      Wont be visting Cinnamon and wont be visiting Sean Mongey

      To rework an old phrase ” social media doesn’t build character it reveals it”

  35. I’m a big fan of Cinnamon. Yes, service can be pretty choppy at times, but they’ve always been plesant, even giving us free bloody mary’s because we had to wait twenty minutes for someone to go get tomato juice (We had been polite about it and our politeness was returned)

    Granted calling someone an arsehole online does…not great PR by any means, but editting out the part of the back and forth where they explain that things get a bit hectic on Sundays as well as the bits where you were being a bit of an arsehole makes you seem like a devious little shit whose trying to paint a worse picture than is really there

      • Ha ha, no one, I’d hardly have said service can be pretty choppy or that it wasn’t a great PR move if that was the case. At worst I’d say I could be accused of fanboy-ism. But in reality I think I just dislike the culture of “I’m so shocked!!!”,jump on twitter, sense of entitlement (entwittlement?), everything’s a big fucking drama. He said they’re turned a friend into an “enemy” for god’s sake. Enemy? He’s their enemy now? Come on dude, it’s only coffee and someone calling you an arsehole, relax

    • +1. I was in Cinnamon once with a friend, We had a lovely time there and the staff were so pleasant and helpful. It wasn’t very busy, but that’s probably because the All Ireland Hurling Final (1st match) was on and….wait a second! Are GAA supporters hipsters now????

  36. 11 tweets from Cinnamon and 1 of them is called a customer an Asshole.

    Nice.

    All they had to say is sorry for the wait.

  37. You can wait for expensive coffee…or there’s instant. I make mine in the microwave – it actually travels backwards through time.

  40. They do have shocking service there. Stopped going a while back because of it. Shame though. Nice food

  41. Some of the worst service I’ve ever experienced. The only reason people go there is because of the 3FE coffee!

  42. Perhaps if they we’re so busy staff should of focused on customer service in the actual cafe instead of abusing customers on twitter. Also they are totally blowing their own saying they are the busiest cafe in Dublin at the weekend. Both weekends I was there it was dead and the service was still extremely slow.

  44. Happens I know that Mongey fella (haven’t seen him in a while admittedly, but can’t imagine he’s changed all that much) and can confirm him to be a lovely chap altogether. Therefore Cinnamon are bold and I don’t like them.

  46. Cinnamon have just posted an apology on their Facebook page claiming it was a rogue employee that tweeted.

    STATEMENT OF APOLOGY FROM CINNAMON

    In Cinnamon the customer is our priority, we have a huge number of regular customers, many of whom have now become our friends. We sincerely apologise to all of our customers for the offence caused by our comments on twitter.

    We are a very busy restaurant and this past weekend had 50% more customers than a normal weekend and were overwhelmed by this.

    We would like to state that the person responsible has been dealt with and disciplinary action has been taken. Staff morale is very important to us and has been severely affected by this incident. We employ over 50 staff and would not wish to jeopardise their livelihood.

    We wish to formally apologise to the customer, who we accept had a legitimate complaint, in person. We appeal to his generosity to accept this apology.

    For the next seven days we would like to offer our customers a coffee of their choice for €1, when ordering quote” twittergate”….

    • Yes. It’s time to concentrate on the nearly 90% of their tweets that don’t call a customer an arsehole, and settle down to a 40-minute wait for some nose-picking waiter to ignore our order.

  49. I’ve been here twice, both times I left before I got serviced as I was waiting over without any staff contact. AVOID!!!!

  50. The girlfriend loves Elephant & Castle chicken wings (I seem to be the only person in Dublin that doesn’t), at least when they are busy when you walk in and ask for a table they tell you when the next available time is, be it 30 mins or 2 hours, they don’t leave you hanging around for an hour getting refills for your glass of water. If I was in that situation, I would have just walked out without a word.

    • +1. E&C wings – I never saw the appeal and the wait times are never good, hence not eating there in 5 years. Crackbird on the other hand looked after us well after a much shorter wait, so it’s now ‘chicken in Temple Bar’.

  53. twitter my arse…twitter is just another communications medium nothing more….it doesn’t matter whether this exchange took place over twitter or telex…

    what DOES matter is that these guys forgot the 1st thing taught to anyone learning the catering game up in Cathal Brugha St…..a simple and sacred rule #1 of the hospitality game which exists globally and whether you have an iphone or twitter or whatever the fck in your pocket: THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT

    someone at Cinnamon got this terribly wrong and needs to apologise without delay

    I know zero about this place but having read this I know that I will never darken its door as a patron (would reconsider if I saw an apology)

  57. The Food there was really tasty, but the service is the worst I’ve experienced, 2 things pissed me off about it. 1) we sat down at 8.45pm and got our main course at 10.55pm, they said it was because they were really busy that weekend (22nd Sept) and there was a “large group in” 2) the nice busy waiter recommeneded a lovely beer (IPA) and after I had 2 they informed that they had no more in stock, I was gutted, I was now thirty and hungry. However the lady/manager there gave us a free bottle of wine to try make up for the long wait. The food was seriously good, but not worth it at all for the bad service.

  59. Good to see they’ve got their ’50 employees’ on Broadsheet going on about the apology, like it makes any difference now. Get off the interwebs and go look after your customers – and maybe this wouldn’t have happened in the first place.

    The place is ‘amateur hour’ defined though, so why anyone would go there in the first place is beyond me – especially as there’s so much choice locally.

  61. I suppose at least they didn’t use the “it wuz a guy wot picked my phone up in the pub” excuse.

    P.

  62. For a brief time earlier this year I was an employee of Cinnamon. 90% of the staff had no experience and received no training that I saw. The result was that many of them weren’t very good at their jobs (working in a restaurant is harder than you might think!), most of them didn’t care. I found the management to be usually friendly but always uncoordinated, inefficient and ineffective.

    The combination of an under performing and apathetic staff and ineffective management meant customer complaints were constant. long waits and errors in orders being the most frequent problems. No one seemed to have any idea why this was happening or what to do about it.

    Management always treated me with respect and I left for other reasons but had working there been less needlessly difficult I might have thought harder about it.

    • I got that sense alright.

      I’ve only been in a few times, one being the opening weekend and forgave the issues as teething problems.

      The staff somehow get around the whole restaurant without lifting their heads. I’ve spent a good while trying to grab anyone’s attention with staff passing me by, heads directed to the floor.

      The place obviously does great business but they even need to sort their stock levels out. Half the menu is generally gone by the mid-afternoon on a Sat/Sun which is somewhat understandable but you’d imagine they would be better prepped because pretty much every weekend in there is fairly busy. They also tend not to know about what’s left until 15 mins after you order

  63. Despite the severe recession in this country, we still have restaurants and pubs behaving as if it was 2006. I hate that feeling when you know you are being ripped off in some pretentious, crappy restaurant and the staff think you are just another annoying customer who they have to clean up after. Exactly like the Cinnamon in Ranelagh.

  65. Anybody who says that this is the slowest service in Dublin has clearly never been to Brassiere 66.

  66. Met friends for lunch there about 6 months ago and had to wait an hour for our food. Was one of those hard to get together groups, some with kids to arrange sitters for & some over from London so time was tight and there didnt seem any point in upping to.go somewhere else ….wasn’t like it would feed us any quicker. Staff nice but dim & food was ok. No intentions of going there again.

  67. Im amazed by the amount of people on this thread saying they have been there a couple of times and complaining of the bad service, one bad experience is enough for me anywhere, why would you want to go back? like a car crash, cant stop your self having a peek? Give your hard earned cash to someone who deserves it/ serves better food and would like to have / keep customers…

  69. The “person responsible” line in the apology seems a bit weak to me.
    I’m sure the person managing the twitter feed is not just some lackey working there.

  70. the service there has always been famously comical (if you can put up with it) but in all my visits the staff have always been polite and friendly – never a hint of rudeness from anyone. I go back because the food is very good and sensibly priced.

    That said if I have an issue with service/food/price I’d mention it to the manager and not my mates of Twitter… and that said calling a customer an asshole is not an option.

  72. He’s on to something.

    While there are a few on the ball, cool people working there, there is also a gang of what have to be the owner’s kids’ friends.

    Dundrum style ditzes who are all dopey eyed, mammary glanded, sloth.

    Bizarre.

    Proof, if it is and if you need it, that nepotism ain’t the way to run a gig.

    Anyhow, that’s my sus from a couple of visits.