‘It Was Lovely, Thanks’: An Irish Guide To Making A Food Complaint

THANKS to its sparse population with just two degrees of separation, the island of Ireland has always been a country afraid of carrying notions, with its people prepared to do anything but complain about poor service, commodities or indeed government run departments.

The hospitality sector here is no different and sometimes Irish people need a little guide on how to stand up for themselves and complain, so here’s some guidelines for making a food complaint in Ireland.

“It was lovely, thanks”

Said with zero commitment without looking the server in the eye, letting the waiting staff know you weren’t entirely happy with your meal can easily be decoded in this one very simple phrase. This, and the fact you haven’t even touched the meal itself, may prompt them to ask if you’re sure everything was okay, to which you must reply, “t’was grand’.

Take to social media

Without even waiting for the server to take your plate, log on to your social media app of choice and set your privacy settings to ‘public’ before wording a lengthy review about the food you just had and the ‘lack of service’. Stop the server and ask if you can take a picture of the meal they’re removing and upload that with your two-thousand-word post. Tag the business and post for the entire world to see.

Ignore all confrontation or questions from the business

Depending on how busy the restaurant is, it may take some time for them to respond to the complaint which you could have just sorted out there and then and has now instead garnered huge interactions online and doing untold damage to the reputation of the business. It’s important here to ignore all pleas of reconciliation from the restaurant and any offers of vouchers or compensation. Let your social media post do all the work and viola, you’ve successfully made an Irish style food complaint.