So you know me, always on the lookout for some new tapas bar or restaurant to visit. And by “new” it could either be recently opened or just new to me. And so today I found myself checking out a new place that had actually opened in December (so no excuses). Excuses for what? Read on…

We walked in and saw a cluster of men seated at the bar and, behind the bar itself, three waiters huddled together. We were the first to arrive. Did anyone greet us? Did they fuck. Finally I waived at the waiters and said “okay if I take photos?” and after receiving permission I took a few interior shots. And then… nothing. Nobody asked us if we wanted to see the menu or sit at a table. Once again I waived at the waiters and said “okay if we sit here?” and got the go ahead.

Meanwhile the owner(s) – I recognised one of them from an article – kept on drinking and yakking with their friends. Not one of them even glanced at us. I mean… call me crazy but if I owned a tapas bar and saw two people walk in when nobody else was there, I would greet them and call over a waiter to make sure they were being taken care of. You know, make them feel welcome. This did not happen.

Instead, after finding a table for ourselves a very reserved waiter came over and took our drinks order. When I asked about a couple of items on the menu they didn’t seem to know anything about them, and our wine was poured without any kind of engagement. I commented to Peter that this person looked very uncomfortable, aside from not knowing much about the food. So then I got chatty. Asked a bit about the bar, etc and then our waiter confessed it was their first day. OMG.

I saw no support happening, the other two waiters were pretty much ignoring the newbie, as were THE OWNERS… I mean srsly wtf. In the end we ordered about 4 okay but nothing special tapas, left a big tip, and vowed not to go back. I honestly hope this waiter gets a new job soon at a place that actually cares about their staff, trains them properly, helps them to do the best job possible.