FW: Rude Manager at 1849

Thank you for visiting the Eater Complaints Department, your unedited platform for voicing poor dining experiences, gross restaurant trends, and general underhandedness. Have grievances? Operators are standing by.

From: [an eater]
Date: Friday, October 10, 2008
To: eater complaints dept.
Subject: Rude Manager at 1849

——

My friends and I braved the NYU crowds a couple weeks ago to watch Sunday night football at 1849 on Bleecker and Macdougal. We'd all been regulars since 2003 and were pumped to watch our hometown team at our favorite sports bar. At kickoff we tried to flag down our waitress, Renata, to switch off the music so we could hear the game. After a touchdown with no sound, the bar started getting antsy and started chanting "turn it off," referring to the music. Eventually the music went off (to cheers), but came back on after about 5 minutes (to boos and groans).

Annoyed, we asked Renata to shut off the music since it was clear most of the bar was there for the football game, not late 90s hits by Hole. She said she couldn't; management's policy was to play only music after 7pm. Another table was flabbergasted by a policy that was clearly opposed by most of the patrons and asked to talk to the manager. They wanted to know why a sports bar would refuse to play sound on a game night. Four times they reminded the waitress they wanted to see a manager. Four times she walked away while the bar slowly emptied of pissed off patrons.

Running out of tables to serve, she found the time to flag down an older man and pointed in the direction of the complaining table. He looked at them, muttered something to her and walked away. The waitress returned to the table to tell them that the manager wasn't in. So they asked to speak with whomever was in charge, but according to her no one was in charge once the manager left and anyway, the manager would not change his mind on this. She spoke to the absent manager? Um, she had to call him, which he wasn't happy about. Well if he's out, why not just turn on the sound while he's none the wiser? Well, no, when she called him, he said not to turn off the music and he locked the sound system in his office when he left anyway so she was powerless to turn off the music. Frustrated by this exchange, the table left.

But offended by what was clearly lying, I asked the waitress if the man who had spoken to her earlier was the manager. She admitted he was. I explained to her that the customer service that night had been appalling and demanded to see the manager myself. She informed me of the manager's other policy: he doesn't talk to customers. For more stories from Eater, go to eater.com.

Copyright EATER
Contact Us