The Diner, Shoreditch, London–a prime example of UK customer service

What kind of service do you expect in a restaurant?

Located in a trendy and busy part of town, this restaurant is called The Diner. It strives to recreate an American burger joint feel in London. The menu? Burgers, all day breakfast, fries and pie, tacked on the wall. Vinyl booths and a visible kitchen. Three wait staff for less than twenty tables.

I know what kind of service I expect in a joint like this. I expect that, for six pounds a burger (fries not included), my basket of food should arrive promptly and taste good. Neither happened.

I've just come back from lunch at this Diner. After waiting 35 minutes for my fish burger to arrive (and watching people who arrived after me get served their food first) I bit into a well-undercooked burger. Fantastic.

Complain? That would require the waitress's attention. My lunch date had finished his lunch before she arrived back at the table (50 minutes after we were first seated) and I had to be back at work. Once she cleared the table, it took another seven minutes and two reminders before she brought the bill, which we then had to go up to the counter and get another waitress to ring through.

I'd excuse her if she was busy, but she was standing fifteen feet from us, polishing silverware. Were the cooks so busy that they could serve an undercooked burger? There were five men cooking, and half the tables were empty.

Customer service in most UK restaurants and pubs is a bit of a joke for the most part. The wait staff generally ignore you, it takes a long time to get food, orders are messed up, and most don't even attempt to be friendly or polite. I've grown used to it, but that doesn't mean I like it.

Today, I've had quite enough. I was hungry, I was spending money in their restaurant, and I wanted my damn food on time and cooked. Is that too much to ask? To get what I paid for? No.

As a comparison, we had a full dinner on Sunday evening at a new Indian restaurant near our house. There were only three wait staff, but we had our entire dinner ordered, served, and eaten (delicious dinner, I might add) in less time than it took to serve me a half-cooked piece of blackened fish in a plastic basket.

So if you are ever in Shoreditch and looking for a burger for lunch, don't go to The Diner on Curtain Road. Come to think of it, don't go to any of their other branches either. Their speciality is disappointment.