Terrible Experience at Lost Heaven on the Bund (Shanghai)
Dear Friends,
I don't often write venue reviews, as I realize it's important to keep good relationships with F&B venues here in Shanghai where we might hold future events!
Tonight however, I had a particularly revolting experience at Lost Heaven on the Bund, and am so perturbed that I just have to share this with our entire community. Here goes..
Some dear friends of mine are leaving Shanghai, and scheduled their going away dinner at Lost Heaven. I'm sure that most of you have been there at one point, the trendy Yunan restaurant that up until now had been one of my preferred spots in Sh.
I arrived a bit late, and missed dinner with the group. As they were heading upstairs for cocktails however, I asked the staff at the restaurant whether it would be alright to order from the menu and eat upstairs. "Sure, no problem." I was told. I proceeded to order two simple dishes. Protected content later, a waiter from downstairs arrived at the empty bar/lounge with my dishes in plastic take away containers. "We can't give you any plates." Not ideal, but It wasn't the end of the world, and not wanting to make a fuss I took out the container and began eating. Immediately one of the staff sputtered to me rudely that I couldn't eat any food there, the complete opposite of what had been approved by his colleague downstairs! Slightly annoyed but thinking it wasn't a big deal I explained that it had already been given the go ahead and that I wouldn't have ordered had they told me it wasn't ok earlier. He continued to argue with me so I asked him to bring his manager over.
Not long after, the "manager" arrived. She was a European woman with dirty blond hair and a nasty attitude who told me I couldn't bring any food in. "It looks bad to our customers."
What customers.. I asked...we were a group of ten people and there were exactly 2 other guests in the entire space (it's pretty massive). She proceeded to be increasingly rude over the course of 5 minutes and even suggested we go to a enclosed room upstairs away from our friends just to eat our meal FROM THE VERY SAME RESTAURANT in their cheap plastic tupperware. RIDICULOUS!!!!
Rather than solving what was a non-issue from the start by apologizing for her staff's rudeness and bringing us a few plates, she chose to argue with us, vehemently and with the most illogical reasoning all while being a complete wench!
OK SHANGHAI VENUES LISTEN UP. You should really be careful how you treat your guests..while I realize service has never been particularly important to most locals, you never know who you are speaking to, or how it will affect your business. You never know, it's possible they might run a social group with 4,000 members and word travels fast.
I'm interested to hear about your experiences at this and other venues. Things like this cannot be allowed to happen, and if we don't speak up change will never come.
Regards,
Lelio Shimizu
InterNaions Ambassador Shanghai
