The angry voices:

The angry voices startled me out of my reverie as I read my newspaper. It was the two ‘mzungu’ ladies that I had passed by, sticking out like sore thumbs in the gloom of the restaurant if for nothing else the bottles of Smirnoff Black Ice in front of them. They could have been students, tourists or missionaries in town for whatever reason but Smirnoff Black Ice at 1.30 pm just didn’t look right.

The reason for my piqued interest was simple. They were arguing with a waiter that it had taken two hours since ordering their lunch and there was still no sign of it. The waiter was imploring them to stay a few minutes longer and that the pizza oven was broken hence the reason for the delay. Their logical argument which I assume holds water in whatever country they come from was that if they were to wait any longer they were not going to pay full price for a meal that had taken two hours! They went on to argue that had someone taken the trouble to inform them beforehand that the pizza oven was broken they would have weighed their options and made an informed decision.

Now my interest was really piqued. They had mentioned pizza and I had ordered mine 20 minutes earlier and by my calculation it should have been ready by now. The waiter having seemingly exhausted his English vocabulary silently slunk away from the scene to be replaced a few minutes later by a chef in all his glory – top hat, rolled up sleeves and a towel tucked into his waist and all - who began a conversation with the ladies intent on convincing them to stay for lunch.

By now I was worried. How long would my pizza take I wondered silently and miserably. Was I going to be treated to one of those lousy services offered in many established restaurants in Nyeri town yet again? This after all was not just any restaurant but one of the better ones in town but with an unfortunate reputation for having very poor waiter service whether you are alone or in a group. It was also buy one get on free day on pizza but the crush of people you would expect on such an auspicious occasion was lacking thanks mightily and no doubt to the deplorable service levels at this hotel.

One thing I never understand is how a hotel can invest so much money in the CAPEX required to construct a hotel then fail spectacularly to offer services to the patrons of the hotel who meet the costs of managing and running the establishment. What loss of value to shareholders does such shoddy service do and importantly what does it say about the owners and managers of such a hotel?

How much does it cost to simply tell a customer that you expect some delay due to circumstances beyond your control and if they’d mind waiting? As a customer I believe that I am a rational and sane guy who just wants to be served professionally and with some decorum and basic decency. While I am not the yard stick by which tolerance can be measured as I tend to get quite antsy when forced to wait for a decent meal, it costs the establishment nothing by informing the client about any possible delays.

This reminds me of an episode a few years back where one of the leading Pizza eateries in Nairobi promised a free pizza if the delivery time from ordering your food to it being placed on the table took longer than 15 minutes. There was definitely something wrong on this particular day because my order took almost 20 minutes to be delivered. When I demanded a refund of my money based on the service promises, excuses became the order of the day that their pizza oven had broken down and hence the reason for the delay in service. I looked at the fine print in their info graphic and nowhere did it say “unless the pizza oven is broken” or any such disclaimer to deny me my rights. They even went to the extent of telling me that one of them would have to meet the cost of the pizza if I chose not to pay whereupon I retorted that it was not me choosing whether to pay or not but I was simply holding them to account for the delivery promise that THEY had made. I eventually got a refund but after all kinds of smiley faces came to my table to implore me to do the right thing and just pay for my pizza!

This time around there was no word on the delivery time for my pizza but it took almost 45 minutes to deliver to me by which time I had even stood up and was demanding to pay for the soft drink that I had consumed and forgetting about the food which had been preceded by my waiter approaching me to change my pizza order to one that was already ready – that the ‘mzungus’ had abandoned no doubt – which I flatly refused to accept. Mine had to be meaty and hot and the ‘mzungus’ pizza did not have any such meaty ingredients!!

My final plea to hoteliers is that a hungry man is an angry man particularly around lunch time so don’t keep them waiting longer than necessary!!