Perth - Atrium Seafood Buffet Diner - Shocking experience

tio on 30/06/2011 - 12:32

Hi,

I am still upset about what happened, and was thinking about taking the case to consumer protection should the restaurant fail to a provide satisfactory outcome. I'm not sure if I was just went over my head so I'm posting my experience here for general comments

Basically, I and 10 other friends of mine went for a buffet dinner at Atrium Restaurant after seeing this

http://www.burswood.com.au/What's-On/Promo/?id=13461&name=Se…

We booked the table, were told to come 8:30. We came at 8:30, and weren't notified of anything unusual. A staff took us to our table, and it wasn't ready. Brief wait and we were moved to another table. We went for the food, and found out the sashimi was out, at 8:30pm. Quickly grab some pieces of lobsters, came back to our table. It was given to another group. Another brief wait, this time with food dishes on our hand, we shuffled to another table which managed to stayed ours for the rest of night. 30min later, the big blow came, the lobster's gone, at 9:00pm.

So in short, the restaurant booked us in for an 2hr buffet dining service, and all the high demand food ran out 30min in our service. Response, "we are really sorry. There are just too many of you. There are just not enough food. We can't do anything", and $20 worth of drinks (excluded from the buffet) done away on our $700+ bill.

What I saw:
1 - The restaurant failed to provide the service that it expressly advertised and accepted to provide.
2 - The restaurant failed to notify its customers of its situation even though it was well aware of it. Essentially it tried to book as many people in as it can, knowing it didn't have enough food to cater for all, without notifying anyone beforehand.
3 - The restaurant failed to provide a compensation for its fault. I tried very hard to string these together: a premium restaurant, ran out of food in the middle of service, offered $20 off as a remedy.

Just wondering if anyone else from Perth went there last night like me?

General Discussion

Comments

  • finance on 30/06/2011 - 12:47

    that is pretty crappy considering the price. should've had enough food to cater for bookings.

    u can get seafood buffet in melbourne for $40 at crown and u can be sure they wont run out of seafood.

    can u complain to the ACCC

    • tio on 30/06/2011 - 12:53

      that's what I'm gonna do if the restaurant keeps using the "we are sorry" song and keeps doing nothing about it.

  • Seafood_extender on 30/06/2011 - 13:43
    +4

    Hi Tio, I have to say sorry because I think I did eat a fair bit of the seafood last night. I ate 5 lobsters, 52 prawns, 2kg of sashimi and two trays of oysters.. YEAH!

    • llama on 30/06/2011 - 14:04

      LOLs at the username :-D

      • tio on 30/06/2011 - 14:07
        +3

        thanks for rubbing in, but just for your effort of sign-up just to reply, I commend you :)

  • voteoften on 30/06/2011 - 14:09

    Pretty crap experience.

    You need to complain to the WA consumer protection agency, part of the dept of commerce.

    You should also email thise thread to them.

    Hmmmmmmmm……… Packer bought into Scoopon. Maybe he is learning some new tricks on how to short change people. Too bad, so sad should be their anthem.

    • Succulent Synth on 30/06/2011 - 14:13

      Packer also owns Burswood & The Atrium restaurant

      • voteoften on 30/06/2011 - 14:21

        Ergo my comment about learning from his new acquisition.

  • tio on 30/06/2011 - 14:19
    +1

    Cool, Consumer Protection it is then. I've sent a complaint email this morning to the restaurant. Will give them till next week, hope that they will get their act together by then and do the right thing (in Russels accent)

    • Amanda856 on 04/07/2011 - 10:44

      +1 Russell Peters

  • voteoften on 30/06/2011 - 14:24

    Maybe Packer was in Perth, celebrating the WA govenment's decision to build a new $1 Billion stadium next door, without asking for anything from him.

    He looks like he could put away a bit of food.

  • tio on 30/06/2011 - 14:32

    now come to think of it, while I was having a chat with the a lad looked like the floor manager, he told he could arrange extra sashimi for us. So yeah, maybe somebody was a bit peckish last night

  • SmokeandMirrors on 30/06/2011 - 15:19

    I was there last Friday and I didn't see any lobster. all i saw were crabs, oysters and prawns. Is lobster available only on Wednesday? The service wasn't too bad when I went. the only complaint was that they didn't clear the plates quick enough.

    • tio on 30/06/2011 - 15:32

      yep, it's for Wednesday diner only. But last night the last of it, hence the lack of food supply I guess. But still running out of food 2hr before closing is just plain dodgy

      • SmokeandMirrors on 30/06/2011 - 15:43
        +1

        If it happened to me I would write to them and explain what happened. They would probably give you some vouchers to use next time :)

        • pauly on 30/06/2011 - 20:36
          +1

          I would write to them and explain what happened

          Yeah this is what I would do too. They're normally pretty good at resolving the issue to your satisfaction if you write to them.

  • tio on 01/07/2011 - 11:54

    Sent an email early yesterday morning, but still no reply so far. Would physical mail letter help?

  • bargaino on 01/07/2011 - 18:16

    A bit late for you now maybe, but if a restaurant does not deliver, you can dispute the bill.
    If negotiation fails, pay a reasonable amount, give your name and address, and leave.

    Its then up to them to make the next move.

    Th quicker we get pokies in WA,

    Are you serious?? Pure evil. They should never have let Burswood have them.

    • tio on 01/07/2011 - 18:34
      +1

      At the time, I was so fed up, and with 11 people in my group, I didn't want to make a scene so I settled the bill. I talked to the host, then the supervisor, and eventually a lad that acted like the manager, but nothing positive. So i just gave up, and hoped that their post service customer care can actually do something right.

    • voteoften on 02/07/2011 - 00:24

      Pokies in "clubs" will provide comptetion to Burswood and will bring down the cost of dining out.

      Why should Packer get a monopoly?

      • bargaino on 02/07/2011 - 11:43
        -1

        Pokies in "clubs" will provide comptetion to Burswood and will bring down the cost of dining out.

        Thanks, but I'd rather not have my meals subsidised by pensioners and families' grocery money.
        Pokies kill live music in pubs, as well as families.
        I don't mind gambling in general, but pokies seem to attract those who can least afford it. And they always look so miserable, hanging out for that big win. Obviously they are many times more profitable than a blackjack or poker table, and money wins. Players lose.

        • voteoften on 02/07/2011 - 12:16

          And I would rather people have th opportunity to spend their money as they choose. It beats granting a monopoly to a fat dude.

          Here's a great youtube video featuring rapping economic professors.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc

        • nubzy on 02/07/2011 - 18:00

          I enjoy pokies when I go out for dinner. I only put in $20 and if I lose well too bad, atleast it wasn't too much. They are fun to play and $20 can give you quite a bit of playtime and a chance for a nice win that takes care of the cost of your meal/drinks. Most times I play I get more than what I put in returned to me.

  • tio on 01/07/2011 - 18:36

    update: sent a final warning email today, saying if they don't reply by COB Monday, I'll go to Consumer Protection. Still no reply so far, but I've got a read receipt notice in my mailbox, as I turn read tracking on for all of my mails. Now they won't be able to deny that they've received my complaint.

  • ultraskool on 02/07/2011 - 00:34

    Another crappy restaurant is Outback Jack's.

    • voteoften on 02/07/2011 - 00:38

      At least most of them have a kids room where you can banish the little cheflings.

  • alebox on 03/07/2011 - 00:29

    remember, it is a BUFFET. what this means it most of the 'new' food being brought out is usually during peak periods, which for dinner service is around the 6-9 pm range. many buffets choose to not continuously restock after this time as there becomes way too much food wasted as there are less diners to eat them.

    i understand your frustration, but that is also the way how most buffets work. but it is obvious from OP that they deliberately shuffle you into off-peak dining periods which is what i think is the main problem.

    • tio on 03/07/2011 - 15:33

      though that may be true for buffet of lesser values, but i dont think that was the case for atrium. I've been to their normal buffet several times before, and most of the food were on the stalls till closing time. As a matter of fact, the wednesday before, i and some friends in the same group went to see how good the seafood was and by the closing time, the only thing ran out was salmon. There were still bucket loads of losbsters & tuna. i came home a happy man. That was why we came back a week later, with bigger crowd. But this time, they ran out of all the BIG THREE, at 9 pm, and they said they really got no more any of BIG THREE to refill. Anger was the word of the night

      • voteoften on 03/07/2011 - 16:08

        I agree. Buffets may not actively refill all items towards the end, but if you specifically request an item that was the feature, they will go make it for you, plus a bit more for others.

        Tio, please send in your consumer complaint form. I don;t want to see you accept some crappy compensation. Not good enough.

  • tio on 05/07/2011 - 17:51

    final update: finally, the manager managed to give me a call. And after some discussion (spell b-a-r-g-a-i-n-i-n-g), she agreed to give us a complementary table of 6 at their next Seafood buffet promotion later this year. Not exactly what i asked for, but I can live with that, plus the manager were fairly reasonable and sincere talking to. To be honest, the buffet itself was good, I enjoyed it the first time. Just that people stuffed up, and tried to walk away from it.

    • voteoften on 05/07/2011 - 18:00

      Only a week turn around time.

      Did she justify a smaller table being comped?

      • tio on 05/07/2011 - 18:14

        yeah, to be fair, we did stayed for the rest of the night, and munched on other normal crap they had. and the smaller table worked out to be 50% off for 2 buffet dinner, which is alright. We also reckon, for the next buffet, we would be able to book for an earlier session, which will give us time to make all our $$$ back by attacking the lobsters :) Just hope that they won't stuff it up again

        • voteoften on 05/07/2011 - 18:30

          I doubt you paid in advance. Tey'd be wanted to flog you drinks. Maybe if that sort of things happens to any of us Ozbargainers, we should just refuse to pay for the food.

          It looks like you got an outcome you are happy with, but it caused a lot of angst.

          Thanks for going through with it. The harder we make it for dodgy companies, the better for all of us. It'll be easier for them to just do the right thing in the first place.

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