HotelChatter

You sited a number of staff that makes matters worse as to their overall moral and/or training.  That said, it makes sense for a hotel developer to lease, as the case here, out his/her F&B to a presumed known operator   BUT the hotel and restaurant can become 2 separate spheres operating standards under a single roof.  Do they share the same vision of the hotel or do each have their own? Is the developer hands off on that end; is the GM scared to interfere or lack the experience to do so. Are you a guest within the hotel or a customer of the restaurant? Doubt there is a shared concern here and one side washes its hands of the other.  To your question, the hotel operation could be far better or possibly worse but you entered one space that may have little to do with other. Stay in the hotel to find out.  

By no means are the F&B staff's actions defensible, but i have to say, unless you are at a 5 star or maybe 4 star hotel, you better expect the F&B staff to not be pleased that you are ordering tea.

Hot tea is the single most annoying "normal" request here's why:

The setup (find a lemon, tea selection, honey and possibly cream. sometimes finding a tea pot is hard bc often sloppy f&b management forgets to replace these items when they break or disappear)

Hot tea drinkers are notoriously picky people and often tip poorly (maybe bc they always have poor service, I'll  concede that) and they often sit and linger far longer than other guests

Also asking for them to bring it to you in the lobby, you might as well have asked them to serve you on the moon (idk why but f&b people hate going out of their narrow areas for anything)

lastly you asked the tea be transferred to your brunch check, ensuring that the person who made the tea won't  get a tip (not that thry deserve one after this por service but the cycle was just reinforced again - "Tea equals extra work, extra walk to deliver and clean up and in the end equals no tip")

i was a waiter for a long time, now I'm a manager and when guests ask for tea i still cringe (unless of course I'm at a 4 or 5 diamond where the setup is more intact)

Sorry, not agreeing with you getting poor service, just explaining why perhaps

Yes, service does ruin a hotel stay, a meal or any interaction. As for tea being an annoyance...really? As an englishman I find that almost bordering offensive. I think the "why" comes down to the server - which is obviously the wrong word because they didnt actually serve anything - being either ignorant or deliberately impertinent (we Brits take our tea bloody seriously). Personally...I'm voting for deliberately impertinent.

Yes, service does ruin a hotel stay, a meal or any interaction. As for tea being an annoyance...really? As an englishman I find that almost bordering offensive. I think the "why" comes down to the server - which is obviously the wrong word because they didnt actually serve anything - being either ignorant or deliberately impertinent (we Brits take our tea bloody seriously). Personally...I'm voting for deliberately impertinent.

not trying to offend anyone agian you should you be able to order tea without someone being mad at you :-)

i'm juwt saying what I've expirenced in 14 years in f&b service.

a couple of months ago i saw a career breakfast server haul a bin of misc tea stuff to the bar, asking him what he was doing he replied "i have most of the stuff here for tea so that way when someone orders tea i don't hate it as much."

please order your tea, enjoy it :-) I'm not saying you shouldn't feel bad, just sharing my experience.

Sorry, but the diatribe on tea is completely insane.  The difficulty of preparing an item is not something a guest should ever consider.  Unless that item is not on the menu, of course.

I've worked in several hotels, so I've dealt with numerous "challening" guests.  Nothing presented in this posting comes close to being a problem.

Frankly, xj22jaguar, you might need to so a little soul-searching if you think it's okay for one of your employees to scowl at a guest just because she or he ordered tea.

I stayed in a downtown NYC design hotel and the girl serving breakfast was so unbelievably rude and unhelpful, there was actually a queue at front desk to complain about her.  The rest of the staff at the hotel were excellent and very friendly, so I didn't think badly of them as a result. It was a shame that she brought down the standards of the hotel, as the breakfast was great.

I'm looking forward to ordering lots of tea on my NYC trip next month. I have faith that staff can cope with the imposition of a teapot!

i had thought that i had made it utterly clear that it was not appropriate for staff to be mad at guest for requesting tea. And again you are right, a guest shouldn't have to consider the difficulty involved with a guest request just as the entire store this was written about shouldn't have happened.

i had thought that the things i had written would make it clear that employees shouldn't act like this wheni included the following:

thank you thackffil

"by no means are the F&B staff's actions defensible"

 "not that thry deserve one after this por service"

 "not agreeing with you getting poor service"

"agian you should you be able to order tea without someone being mad at you :-)"

"please order your tea, enjoy it :-) I'm not saying you shouldn't feel bad, just sharing my experience"

 Please forgive me for being ambiguous in my response. The genuine care and comfort of our guests is our highest mission.

We pledge to provide the finest personal service and facilities for our guests who will always enjoy a warm, relaxed, yet refined ambience.

We thank you for this valuable feedback you have provided and will be reviewing it with our Food and Beverage management team to ensure we do everything in the future to exceed the expectations of all of our guests.
:-)

i had thought that i had made it utterly clear that it was not appropriate for staff to be mad at guest for requesting tea. And again you are right, a guest shouldn't have to consider the difficulty involved with a guest request just as the entire store this was written about shouldn't have happened.

i had thought that the things i had written would make it clear that employees shouldn't act like this wheni included the following:

thank you thackffil

"by no means are the F&B staff's actions defensible"

 "not that thry deserve one after this por service"

 "not agreeing with you getting poor service"

"agian you should you be able to order tea without someone being mad at you :-)"

"please order your tea, enjoy it :-) I'm not saying you shouldn't feel bad, just sharing my experience"

 Please forgive me for being ambiguous in my response. The genuine care and comfort of our guests is our highest mission.

We pledge to provide the finest personal service and facilities for our guests who will always enjoy a warm, relaxed, yet refined ambience.

We thank you for this valuable feedback you have provided and will be reviewing it with our Food and Beverage management team to ensure we do everything in the future to exceed the expectations of all of our guests.
:-)

An unfriendly staff member in any department of a Hotel can ruin your stay and unfortunatly are becomming more and more common.
I was a Manager of a 750 bedroomed 5 star Hotel and was in constant battles with senior Management to improve customer service. I then became Manager of a 5 star Hotel in the 'Leading Hotels of the World Group' where people were paying a small fortune for top class service and were sadly not getting it most of the time.
I have since taken matters into my own hands and opened <a href="http://www.almarabb.com">http://www.almarabb.com</a> so that the book stops with me!

Your stay at a hotel regardless of who runs the restaurant, bar, or cafe should be a package deal.  

That is, why should anyone dismiss the bad service in the restaurant just because it isnt run by the hotel? Your staying at that hotel, and if they cant ensure your service is equally top-notch , then you are right to look elsewhere.

That being said, you "tea" drinkers can stay up in NY.  If you want "tea" in Texas, you can help yourselves to the hot water and tea bags in the lobby :)

Attention to staff's responsiveness to personal attention is paramount to the success of any business. The evident examples presented in your article only point to a poor management structure that does not empower or challenge it's employes to think and act. It suggests just the opposite and a poor working environment. Until the ownership hires and empowers a GM to make changes that particular property will mutter-by in mediocrity.        

There was a time that I was on a family vacation and we were staying at a hotel in Virginia. I went down with my cousin to get dinner at their restaurant, and we were being served by a waiter who did not look like he wanted to be there.  He looked so despaired that i was even afraid to ask for ketchup.  I shouldn't have to feel like that at a hotel while on family vacation.  And he even had the sniffles as if he was sick.  I do not like the idea of a waiter of mine serving food while fighting a cold!  i completely agree after reading this article, bad servers can ruin an experience.