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Restaurant’s ‘shocking’ email to customer

A Melbourne restaurateur has labelled a customer a “disgrace” and a “scab” after she complained about poor service while he was short-staffed due to Covid-19.

A Melbourne restaurant owner has ripped into a customer as a “disgrace”, an “embarrassment” and a “scab” after she complained about poor service while he was short-staffed due to Covid-19.

Kristina told news.com.au she was “completely shocked” at receiving the “abusive” email from John Mousaferiadis, owner of the iconic Pelicans Landing in Williamstown.

“I was completely shocked, I couldn’t sleep that night,” she said.

The 41-year-old, who asked not to use her last name, had booked a table for herself, her mother and mother-in-law for dinner on January 8 – but they walked out after “at least 45 minutes” without being served.

She said she specifically asked when making the booking if they could have a table with a view, and if the $19 menu was available.

“To both of these questions I was advised yes,” she wrote in an email to the restaurant last Monday.

“I caught an Uber there costing $25 and then waited over 15 minutes just to be seated. The table with a view I had requested was not available. I waited another half an hour without being offered a menu or drink. I finally went up to get a drink from the bar and was going to order meals and was told there was only a limited menu … I understand it’s hard in Covid with staff shortages but this level of customer service is very disappointing and unacceptable.”

Later that afternoon, Mr Mousaferiadis responded with a lengthy diatribe about staffing issues.

He accused Kristina of being cheap, saying that if she had been willing to spend another $10 she “would have been served” and that she should “stay home and eat baked beans on dry crusty bread next time”.

“Obviously you have no idea what we are going through and lucky to be just open and trying to serve everyone with no staff,” he wrote.

“Are you serious? I had a wedding upstairs with two staff on and 104 people booked in … and yes we did have bar meals on but had to take them off as had no staff on virtually. With 37 staff down with Covid you just don’t understand and then to have a go at me in front of your mother … what an embarrassment for her.”

He slammed her for not being “prepared to spend another $10 on a meal”.

“What a disgrace you are to not only yourself but to me and your mother and now my staff,” he wrote.

“I don’t need your comments and you don’t understand. In my 23 years of owning Pelicans Landing I have never met anyone as low as you and not even to respect what the whole of the world is going through. At least I was open trying to accommodate who I had on. And yes if you had to eat like everyone else you would have got served finally.”

Mr Mousaferiadis said he worked “non-stop 18 hours that day with no complaints apart from yourself”, adding he had just recovered from Covid-19 and that “everyone that got served finally on leaving thanked me personally what a job I done”.

“I can’t hardly walk now after three days of washing polishing glasses and worked so hard,” he said.

“And yes so what we did not have the bar meals on what a scab you are and so what spend another ten dollars and you would have been served. You should be ashamed of yourself. Stay home and eat baked beans on dry crusty bread next time. Your an embarrassment. And now you also throw in you spent $25 on Uber. What do you expect me to return that money to you also now.”

Kristina told news.com.au she appreciated restaurants were facing staffing issues, “but I rang in the afternoon and asked all these questions”.

“Wouldn’t you not have taken the booking if you were that under the pump?” she said.

Mr Mousaferiadis has been contacted for comment.

Skyrocketing Covid-19 cases and close contact isolation rules are wreaking havoc on the Australian economy, with widespread staffing issues leading to empty shelves at supermarkets and businesses struggling to keep their doors open.

Richard Forbes, chief executive of the Independent Food Distributors of Australia peak body, has called for close contact isolation rules to be scrapped for the hospitality sector.

After crisis talks with national cabinet last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a large number of sectors – including transport, freight, logistics and service stations – would be exempted from quarantine requirements in a bid to ease pressure on crumbling supply chains.

Mr Forbes says the hospitality sector, which was excluded from the essential workers list, urgently needed to be added.

“Maintaining the close contact isolation rules for the hospitality sector is having a major economic impact on the food supply chain with food distributors reporting an average loss of revenue of up to 40 per cent,” he said.

“Our members in Sydney are reporting losses of well over 50 per cent. Our members provide food to around 70,000 cafes, restaurants, pubs and clubs around Australia and with hospitality venues closing daily the impact is severe. We are left with perishable product in warehouses which, as it reaches its use by date, has to be dumped. There are staff shortages everywhere. Further to that we have truck drivers with Covid so transporting food is extremely difficult for us and our supplier manufacturers.”

Mr Forbes said it made no sense that hospitality venues could be seen as having a “major role” in spreading Covid-19 “when there are thousands of people in the major supermarkets every day”.

“Is this one rule for one sector and another for hospitality? It is critical that the $30 billion hospitality sector is opened as quickly as possible so that all of us operating downstream in the supply chain can remain in business,” he said.

“Many of our members are saying the situation is worse now than during the period of snap lockdowns over the past two years.”

frank.chung@news.com.au

Originally published as ‘Stay home and eat baked beans’: Restaurant owner’s furious response to customer complaint

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