I'd like to share a little story from my Saturday night.
Twice a year 12-15 lads go for a night out in the ( as was Shreethi ), Mumbai Spice. This year we booked for 8:30 on Saturday night. I will add at this point that the group was fairly sober having only really just gone out, and I was definately so, and as I will explain, 2 and a half hours later was even more sober !!
We arrived about 8:35 to find that the table for 12 was split into an 8 and a 4 with a table being used between. Noting that the people on the table between were soon to finish we agreed to leave and come back at 9pm. Luckily a local establishment was able to provide us a quick beer.
We returned at 9pm, to find the 4 people had left, but the hapless waiter had sat another couple in the seats so there was still only a 4 and an 8, with a lovely looking couple having a romantic meal between.
To avoid an issue we took a 4 and an 8 until the couple had finished, and had our Pompadoms ( 16 for the record ).
By 9:50 we were all on the same table and ready to order, but noticed that we had no drinks, so asked ( surprisingly ) for 12 beers. These duly arrived, but they were trying to pass off Kaliber to us, not so much beer as squash ( being non-alcoholic and all ). One of the party explained, a little heatidly ( it's true ) that we wanted alcohol and would not accepts Kaliber. After much discussion it was agreed that wine was not a good substitute either and the waiter decided to get some beer. You'd perhaps like to know that their stock-room for beer actually is the Off-Licence, and the waiter duly left and returned with some freshly purchased 330 ( mini ) bottles of Cobra which he served out while we continued to order.
It wasn't until he was half-way through that it was noticed that they had only served 8 of us with Cobra. So we asked him to hurry along the other 4, only to be told that they had only bought 8 bottles of Cobra as the off-license only had 8 - and didn't think it was worth telling us! Of course, the off-license was now shut so there was no beer to be had.
After much mirth and disbelief we decided to go across the road to the Tabla, where they had a table, and it turns out large bottles in ready supply of Cobra.
So I asked for the bill, saying that we would pay for the 16 pompadoms and 8 beers ( seemed only fair as we had eaten them !).
A bill of over £30 was produced and after much laughter I managed to discover that for a bottle of beer the size of a Coke can, bought from the Offy next door they wanted to charge me £3.95 per bottle! I eventually agreed to pay the 65p per pompadom and told them that I would drop off 8 bottles of beer in the morning for them.
Alas, after the rest of the party had left they decided not to charge us at all.
2 and a half hours after our original booking we all enjoyed a really top meal in the Tabla. My apologies to all those in the Mumbai Spice that had their meals disturbed by the to-ing and fro-ing and mirth from our table - I just don't think I have ever seen such bad hospitality from a restaurant, especially as we probably doubled their numbers that night!
I would add that they were most apologetic at the end and begged us to come back, will we? Would you?