KETCHUP - Strongly Worded Letter

AkanmuAbuja@gmail.com

Rating: 6/10

January, 2013

"Ketchup" - Restaurant/Sports Bar

Omega Plaza, Aminu kano Crescent,

Wuse 2, Abuja, Nigeria.

Please see the bottom of this letter in the Questions for Management section, as well as the bold sentences for the brief version of this letter/review.

Letter to Ketchup Management

Dear Ketchup Management,

This is a strongly worded letter to express my opinions following my experience at your establishment. This letter has been written after multiple visits to Ketchup, which has allowed me to form strong opinions about the 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.

Defining what Ketchup is (despite what you as management were shooting for) would hopefully allow this letter and my strong words to make much more sense. Merely calling Ketchup a restaurant would fail to acknowledge its true nature. As such, for all intents and purposes, Ketchup is a restaurant/bar. This is mostly because from what I’ve observed, a large portion of your customers tend to use it for drinks and casual hanging out that includes indulging in sports games via the two large screen TVs, rather than primarily for food. However, I will note that Ketchup does in fact have a restaurant-size/scope menu. So, what this verbose introduction is getting at is that you have managed to put together a rich enough menu to qualify as a restaurant, while also being able to preserve the feel of a bar through your atmosphere and a decent drink menu. Congrats ….if that’s what you were aiming for.

Unfortunately, for you, the adventure to define what Ketchup truly is in the prior paragraph was primarily to point out that the restaurant/bar characteristic is working against Ketchup in this case. For this to all make sense, I will go ahead and throw some rhetorical questions at you (because taking the long trip to define ketchup was not unconventional enough, as neither was this sarcastic tangent) in the hopes that answering them will shed some light on why this establishment with a potentially genius and extremely unique set-up; fairly ambitious, yet well executed food menu; and perfect location in the city of Abuja manages to somehow scream mediocre through its inability to decide if it’s a lounge, sports bar, restaurant, or even garden-wannabe (downstairs portion of the restaurant). Basically, Ketchup lacks focus. This lack of focus is also reflected in the quality of service (or rather lack of).

Questions for Management:

-         Why would I want to go and sit down to a 3,500 Naira per person meal and be unable to have a decent conversation because there is loud bar-volume music, as well as loud bar-level voices from everyone else trying to speak over the UNNECESSARILY LOUD (like these caps) music?

Yes, I acknowledge that I forfeited my rights to an uninterrupted meal the moment I decided to go to this establishment who’s main unique feature is that the entire restaurant/bar is outdoors and the main section is a terrace that juts out of shopping plaza, which at 2 stories overlooks one of the major roads (Aminu Kano) of one of the major areas (Wuse 2) in the city. The terrace where people are seated and eating/drinking initially looks wobbly and sloppy to the eye (assuming the average human associates order and symmetry with beauty). However, something about people subjecting themselves to scrutiny by strangers as they wine and dine is actually very interesting and arguably even enticing to most. However, the sloppiness is immediately re-identified once you try to enter the restaurant/bar only to discover that you have to circumvent some three air conditioning units (or whatever those outside portions of ACs are called) and cars parked in the plaza lot to climb up a narrow path of stairs that lead to a mostly unattractive landing. However, I won’t hold the plaza’s architectural misgivings against you and instead point out that your sloppiness exists in many of the next few questions:

-         Why is this place either always packed with too many people or even when half full, has a feeling of being over-booked because the small wobbly metal tables are conspicuous and no waiter seems keen to help a customer find seating?

-         Why also is it that when all the tables are taken and the main area is indeed full (by all logical standards since I didn’t come to buy a meal and eat it at a small wobbly metal table with strangers), the waiters go ahead to ask people already seated if they mind sharing their table when one would have to be a jerk to say no since the newcomers who need a place to sit are beside the waiter asking you and are also waiting for your response?

-         Why is it that when the restaurant is full, the waiters don’t ask more people to go to the downstairs portion that, although lacks the uniqueness of the terrace, would allow Ketchup to maintain the first come first serve rule of life?

-          Why do the waiters take so long to give me a menu each time I walk in and sit myself at a random table after wondering if the number on each table means it was already reserved?

I know the bar feel is maintained by allowing people to sit themselves, yet, I somehow recall waiters suddenly taking an interest when the restaurant is full and they want me to share my diner with a stranger who just walked in.

-         Why is it that after the waiter finally takes my order, the food takes so long to come out?

-         Why did me and my friend order at the same time, and yet you brought mine out first claiming that you didn’t want it to go cold, and so, being the gentleman that I am, I had to make my lady friend feel guilty because I refused to start eating until her food came, thus, not only did your lack of coordination cause my food to go cold, but also cause her the awkwardness of watching my food go cold until she finally asked to join me in eating my French Fries, thus justifying me eating my food while hers was still being prepared?

-         Why is service here so bad that I had to write that prior run-on sentence/question, which I can’t even grammatically categorize because I’m so enthralled in pointing out defects I noted, I’m beginning to write these questions at the spur of the moment?

-         Do you think I’ve gone all Guy Fieri bad review attack on you? (Clever reference if you get it or Google it.)

-         Don’t you know that the terrible service and awfully loud music as well as poor management takes away from the fact that the menu is very evolved in its breadth and depth, with delicacies like peppered snail even making an appearance, while the main dishes give the guest an option of one out of 3 sides, making the meals large enough to justify their price?

-         Don’t you know that the rickety metal-barred tables and chairs, which add to the sloppy nature of the restaurant don’t allow me to appreciate that the Fish Fillet is pretty badass, Jamaican Chicken is worth trying, and French Fries are well-prepared.

-         Why are the waiters so grumpy and unhelpful, yet the one I had refused to bring back my 180 Naira change on time, forcing me to tip for bad service (something one should never do because bad service is just insulting) or wait longer than the 10 minutes I had already waited for while expecting my change?

-         Do you realize that the vast menu and quality of food alone were enough for this review to be an 8.5/10 but everything else was so bad that we landed on a 6/10?

All in all, I would recommend Ketchup as a place for people to try JUST ONCE (simply because it’s one of those main spots to eat in Abuja and get out of your system). Other than that, I would tell people to only go to Ketchup if they have a fair amount of money to spend on an experience that is barely worth the price when you could spend the same amount of money on better places in town. This place isn’t particularly pricy. It is just expensive enough that it should provide a much better overall experience than it does.

                                                                                                                             

Please feel free to contact AkanmuAbuja@gmail.com if you represent Ketchup and would like to respond. I will be willing to revisit Ketchup and update my review for this restaurant if you feel I have overlooked something worth mentioning.

With Warm Regards,

Akanmu