Restaurant owner asks if he’s wrong for saying he’d call the police because customer cancelled meal order after it was ready

SINGAPORE: A restaurant owner took to social media to ask for netizens’ opinions on an argument between him and a customer who cancelled an order after it had already been prepared.

u/Embarrassed_Row_280 wrote on r/AskSingapore late on Friday night (Apr 21) that a group of six diners entered his restaurant and ordered six separate dishes. Later, they ordered a side dish of fried potatoes, which would take 10 minutes to prepare.

“After 9 minutes, the customer wants to cancel the dish because ’it took too long to arrive at the table.’”

But shortly after that point, the potatoes were ready for serving, only to be rejected by the diners, who said they had cancelled it.

The manager then came to the table and told the diner, “Ma’am, we’ve already prepared the food; you’ve cancelled it too late.”

But the diner insists on rejecting the dish, at which point the servers put it into a takeaway container.

“During billing, she was forceful to not pay for the dish. I reasoned with her, saying it takes time to prepare a dish. She still insists to not pay for it,” the post author added. “At this moment, I said I’d call the police to settle the matter of payment.”

“You’re calling the police over $16?” the woman asked.

The restaurant owner replied, “I’m calling the police because you refuse to pay for a service that I provided.”

The woman ended up paying for the potatoes but told her family in French, “This is not how commercial businesses run” and “it doesn’t make commercial sense” and “this guy has no principles.”

The restaurant owner then asked if he was wrong in the situation.

Many commenters on his post told him he had been right and congratulated him for standing his ground.

One chimed in, “Personally, if I want to cancel a dish, I’ll ask if the food is already prepared & can be cancelled. If the restaurant is already preparing or cooking the dish, I’ll just wait & not cancel.”

“It makes perfect commercial (and legal) sense to me. You order something and did not cancel it in time before the order was being prepped, you pay for it,” added another.

/TISG

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