hiltontarrant's posterous

Hi, 

A friend and I visited Monte Casino on Monday evening to watch a movie. Ahead of the movie, we decided to have dinner and after much toing and froing we decided to have dinner at Spur.

The service was unmemorable, in fact I would easily describe it as mediocre. It wasn’t particularly bad, it was just inconsistent and bland. There was no friendliness, no spark, nothing to make the dinner pleasant.

The Castle draught served to us was flat, stale and tasted of metal (probably because you’d been serving from the same keg for over a week).

We decided to order the 400g ribs special, and weren’t prepared for the (quite frankly) disgusting food we were served. The ribs were completely tasteless, and greyish, served with very little basting. Tasteless is the only word to describe them. The rack of ribs also didn’t seem that great value for money after they were served to us. We were immediately left wondering whether they were indeed 400g - they looked far closer to 300g.

The chips were also bland and they were limp (more than likely overcooked). In fact, the only tasty thing on the plate were the onion rings. Its fair to say that the plate of food we were served was easily the worst ribs I have ever, ever eaten.

We didn’t make a fuss about it (and demand a free meal/refunds/or anything like that). We simply let a staff member know, because we sincerely did not want other customers to experience such bad food. He assured us he would investigate and work with management to check on the quality of the food.

Thing is, I’ve experienced similarly disgusting (and cold) ribs served at the San Pablo Spur in Rivonia. That was a few months ago (we were served food in the dark outside – we couldn’t even see what we were eating), and I vowed to not eat ribs at Spur again.

Contrast this with what was probably the best breakfast I’ve eaten in a year or more at the Soaring Eagle Spur at Cape Town International just two weeks ago. I even preached the gospel to my (skeptical) friends about the great food and the fantastic value for money. It was that good.

After the first bad dinner experience, you had a chance to win me back as a customer. And somehow you did – probably because of my breakfast experience in Cape Town.

But after this time, its far simpler, I will not eat dinner at Spur again if I can help it.

I have grown up with Spur restaurants, in fact most middle-class South Africans have. I don’t eat at Spur because I have no other choice, I eat there because I believe that I will receive value for my money, and relatively good service. I eat out regularly, almost every night, and so do my friends. Instead of serving me something that I can enjoy, and you as an organisation can be proud of, you serve me something that very vaguely resembles the picture so proudly displayed, and is utterly tasteless.

I would like to believe that no matter what I look like or how much (or little) money I have, I can sit down in any of your restaurants and receive the same treatment every time. Sadly, bad service, horrible food, and a general disregard for me as a paying customer has lead me to believe that you don’t really need my money, or my friends’ money.

I don’t easily make decisions like this, and given that I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing your Group CEO Pierre van Tonder on a few occasions, I’ve taken time to reflect and think seriously about it.

I really like your business and what you’ve built in the past 40-odd years, but I simply cannot see myself wasting my effort and money on such bad food for dinner ever again.

Especially not on your ribs, which used to be the best in town.

I urge you to fix it, for the sake of your customers.

Hilton

(As e-mailed to customer-care@spur.co.za)

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Monday

00:00 – 03:00 – Nicole da Silva
03:00 – 06:00 – Poppy Ntshongwana
06:00 – 09:00 – Gareth Cliff on 5FM Mornings
09:00 – 12:00 – Sasha Martinengo
12:00 – 15:00 – Grant and Anele
15:00 – 19:00 – The Fresh Drive
19:00 – 22:00 – Rob Vember
22:00 – 00:00 – 5FM Power Nite of Hip Hop & R&B – C-Live

Tuesday

00:00 – 03:00 – Nicole da Silva
03:00 – 06:00 – Poppy Ntshongwana
06:00 – 09:00 – Gareth Cliff on 5FM Mornings
09:00 – 12:00 – Sasha Martinengo
12:00 – 15:00 – Grant and Anele
15:00 – 19:00 – The Fresh Drive
19:00 – 22:00 – Rob Vember
22:00 – 00:00 – 5FM Power Nite of Pop – Fikile “Fix” Moeti

Wednesday

00:00 – 03:00 – Nicole da Silva
03:00 – 06:00 – Poppy Ntshongwana
06:00 – 09:00 – Gareth Cliff on 5FM Mornings
09:00 – 12:00 – Sasha Martinengo
12:00 – 15:00 – Grant and Anele
15:00 – 19:00 – The Fresh Drive
19:00 – 22:00 – Rob Vember
22:00 – 00:00 – 5FM Power Nite of Dance & Kwaito – Fresh & Euphonik

Thursday

00:00 – 03:00 – Nicole da Silva
03:00 – 06:00 – Poppy Ntshongwana
06:00 – 09:00 – Gareth Cliff on 5FM Mornings
09:00 – 12:00 – Sasha Martinengo
12:00 – 15:00 – Grant and Anele
15:00 – 19:00 – The Fresh Drive
19:00 – 22:00 – Rob Vember
22:00 – 00:00 – 5FM Power Nite of Rock – Jon Savage

Friday

00:00 – 03:00 – Nicole da Silva
03:00 – 06:00 – Poppy Ntshongwana
06:00 – 09:00 – Gareth Cliff on 5FM Mornings
09:00 – 12:00 – Sasha Martinengo
12:00 – 15:00 – Grant and Anele
15:00 – 19:00 – The Fresh Drive
19:00 – 22:00 – Roger Goode
22:00 – 01:00 – The Friday Night Fix - Fikile “Fix” Moeti

Saturday

01:00 – 04:00 – Dineo Lusenga
04:00 – 07:00 – Elma Smit
07:00 – 10:00 – 5FM Weekend Breakfast with Thomas – Thomas Msengana
10:00 – 14:00 – 5FM Top 40 - Sureshnie Rider
14:00 – 17:00 – KB
17:00 – 19:00 – Catherine Grenfell (Live)5
19:00 – 22:00 – The Saturday Surgery- Roger Goode
22:00 – 01:00 – Studio 55 - Erica Elle

Sunday

01:00 – 04:00 – Dineo Lusenga
04:00 – 07:00 – Elma Smit
07:00 – 10:00 – Thomas Msengana
10:00 – 14:00 – Sunday stuff with Sureshnie Rider & Koula
14:00 – 17:00 – KB
17:00 – 19:00 – New Music Space - Bongi
19:00 – 22:00 – My House - Euphonik
22:00 – 01:00 – Fix

New DJs: Jon Savage (lead singer of Cassette); Elma Smit (MK presenter); Nicole da Silva (Radio 2000); Dineo Lusenga (YFM); C-Live (YFM) and Thomas Msengana (Bad Boy T) (ex-Metro FM)

No longer part of the line-up: Christina Knight, Mlu, Elana Afrika

5FM Top 40 moves to Saturdays. Global Express disappears. Sureshnie's 10-midnight show replaced.

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