AkanmuAbuja@gmail.com
Rating: 5/10
January, 2013
"Grills In & Out" – Restaurant
No. 3 Bangui Street (Off Adetokunbo Ademola Way)
Wuse 2, Abuja, Nigeria.
Please see the bottom of this letter in the Highlights/Review section, as well as the bold sentences for the
brief version of this letter/review.
Letter to Grills In & Out Management
Dear Grills In & Out Management,
This is a strongly worded letter to express my opinions following
my experience at your establishment. I should inform you that this letter is
being made available to the public through the internet, primarily for the
purpose of empowering or entertaining other consumers curious about your
establishment.
Your restaurant has
appalling service and the wait time for food is too long.
I had to lead with how bad the service and wait time for food are
because those two things alone take this from being a potential 7/10 to a 5/10
experience. I mean, your menu is very
impressive and the food was not bad but the entire dining experience as a whole
is something of a mess.
To clarify some things:
(In case you don’t already know)
Waiters should ask what a customer wants and then listen
attentively to the order, if not even write it down because if they make a
mistake (which was the case when I visited) it would reflect very poorly on the
restaurant, especially given how long it takes the food to arrive.
Also for the sake of clarity, I should mention that if ‘honey springrolls’ take 30 minutes to
arrive, they should at least taste like little drops of honey heaven, which in
this case they didn’t. They were below-average springrolls that had honey
dabbled on them. Not worth the curiosity that drove me and my friend to order
them.
Furthermore, when our second appetizer, the “Mediterranean platter”
arrived 49 minutes after we ordered it, it should at least have included not
just 2, but rather all 4 of the seafood items the menu promised it would have.
If some seafood items were lacking, as they were in this case, the waiter
should have told us before putting the order in.
Moreover, when two people are dining and one person says “we will
have the (insert name of 2 appetizers here)”, you shouldn’t bring the first
appetizer and place it in front of one of the guests, only giving that one
guest silver wear and not explaning why the second appetizer hasn’t arrived
yet. In that instance, it is clear that the appetizers are for the entire table
of 2 and so in order to avoid the awkwardness of one of your appetizers taking
more than the embarrassing 30 minutes the first one took, place it in front of
both people and provide both guests with silver wear.
Even worse regarding appetizers (yea, I’m still on appetizers and
haven’t even gotten to the main courses yet) is that the waiter did NOT ask us
what our main orders were when taking our appetizers order. This was escalated
by the fact that the waiter literally did not check on us until after the 30
minutes it took for our first appetizer to arrive (which someone else and not
the waiter who initially served us delivered). This meant that after our
appetizers finally arrived and we asked how long it would take for our food to
arrive were we to order from the “Nigerian Grill”, which is an assortment of
different Nigerian dishes with sides of dundun, booli, or rice as options, we
were very disappointed to hear it would take at least another 30 minutes. This
made us believe we would be stuck in your restaurant for at least another hour
and a half. No bueno.
Thus, not only did the appetizers (don’t worry, I’m getting off
apps now) take forever, but you also haven’t trained your waiters about how to
prompt customers to place orders in a way that allows their meals to transition
smoothly and have them out within 2 hours. Oh, and by the way, 2 out of 4 of your appetizers suck as has
been confirmed with the poorly made springrolls (who messes up springrolls?) and the fact that the Mediterranean seafood
platter was composed of some breaded but very dry seafood that had no (but
certainly needed one) dipping sauce.
Going off the mess that is your service and the amount of time it
takes food to arrive, I’d once again
like to commend you on the depth of the menu. There is a Mediterranean
Grill and a Nigerian Grill portion of the menu. The Mediterranean portion of
the menu includes an assembly-line style stir-fry where the customer can select
3-4 types of protein, some vegetables, a sauce, and pasta or rice, which are
then stir-fried and thrown in a bowl. I suffered great disappointment from
realizing that of the 7 proteins you claim to have, only 5 were actually
available (seafood like squid that I was excited to have was missing).
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Grill has options of different meats accompanied by one
of three sides. Assuming a lot of the other items on the menu were actually
present, the menu is (in theory) a great one.
My recommendation is that you train your waiters, take some time
to assess how long it should take a customer to get in and out (over 2.5 hours doesn't cut it), and that you review the execution of the items on your
ambitious menu.
I had a terrible dining experience at your restaurant and the
quality of food did not make up for it. This has made me feel ashamed for
previously defending the silliness in your name, having initially argued that
it was appealing (I mean, come on, what exactly do you grill?...really, even
the menu is lacking in grilled items. More like Asian, Seafood, and Nigerian Food
In & Out) I now think instead of appealing, the name Grills In & Out is
mostly deceiving.
Please feel free to contact AkanmuAbuja@gmail.com if you represent Grills In &
Out and would like to respond.
Warm Regards,
Akanmu
Highlights/Review
1. This restaurant puts the exclamation mark
in ‘great intentions, poor execution’.
2. Despite the shortcomings of the service
and overall set-up, the depth of the menu here still makes it worth trying at
least once if you have 3,500 Naira to spend per meal.
3. Be ready to sacrifice (at least) 2 hours
here in order to have a full meal.
4. The service is terrible.
5. Not everything on the menu is truly
available.
6. The menu (should) has a decent range of
seafood, which is great if you love seafood.
7. I love that they had chopsticks available.
I really enjoy eating stir-fry bowls with chopsticks.
8. There is outdoors seating, which is
actually quite adorable.
9. This is a unique enough place to take
someone in order to give them a special experience in Abuja. Just tell them
it’s unique and not necessarily amazing.
10. The food is good, not great. Is the food
good enough to make up for the terrible service? No.
I share your thoughts Akanmu. The first time The restaurant was open, the service was top-notch. Likewise the quality of the food. On my next visit, everything changed. They were miserly with the protein options. Wait time for food is unbearable.
ReplyDeleteI actually stopped going there but for some reason went there recently and was even more flared.. Still the wait time.
2. I found ants in my food. Its hard to spot this because you really cant spot much with all the spices and ingredients in the food. I actually found sponge thread, hair and a tiny beetle in my food. there was no manager to see and the waiter was simply apologetic.
3. the waiters are forgetful. you tell them one thing, they do the other. I went with a vegetarian friend and we asked for to-go's with our left overs. you won't believe the waiter put our food together. Does that make SENCE? NEVER!!
4. I'm unsure if there have proper ventilation or air purifier there. The smoke from the grill is unbearable. I was choked the last time. I wouldnt eat where I see people coughing.
These were my major issues and I can go on to spot more flaws with their services. Customer Service is at its low in Nigeria. Clearly, this is not a lack of competition matter. However if it costs me 3500+ to have a meal, you owe me a good quality meal matched with over-the-bar service.