16 May 2014

Tusmo Cafe in Forde

| edandcass
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I booked a table at Tusmo in Forde for Mother’s Day; I’d been looking forward to going there since learning they serve all free range meat and local produce.

Most tables were full, but it wasn’t incredibly busy. Nevertheless, we waited 20 mins before asking the owner to take our drinks order, then waited another long period before someone bothered to come back for our lunch order. Then we waited over an hour for our meals, except one which inexplicably came 30 mins before the rest.

When I asked the owner how much longer the meals would be, knowing my small children would only cope so long, he tried telling me our order got caught behold the one large table’s order. They were ordering when we arrived, so that was not the problem.

Finally, two hours after we arrived, the meals arrived, only for a waitress to drop my husband’s meal on the ground. Having waited so long already, he and I decided to share. I’d ordered a chicken schnitzel burger, which arrived seasoned but not schnitzeled, slapped in loaf bread not a bun, with a small smear of mayo for moisture. My father-in-law’s parmagiana had obviously been under a heat lamp for a long time and was inedible. The rest was okay, but hardly exciting or doing justice to the free range meat.

I paid the bill in full (less the dropped meal) so we could leave quickly, having decided not risk dessert and coffee, but told the waiter I would be in contact about the many problems. He just said repeatedly “I’m sorry about that,” so I would leave, although I was perfectly polite and obviously upset. With the details I was giving, he should have been either empowered to resolve problems himself, or finding the owner for me.

Not satisfied, my husband went to speak with the owner, who was apologetic and acknowledged we’d had a disastrous experience. My husband gave him our email address for him to contact us during the week and discuss.

Of course we have not heard from him. The overwhelming take-away for us is that they do not care about their customers (so long as they pay the bill) and do not care to try and salvage a situation.

Such a disappointing experience, when Gungahlin is finally getting a few interesting, different and good restaurants.

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Am sorry to hear of your experience – it is not the usual for Tusmo. I couldn’t praise Chris and the Team @ Tusmo highly enough. And Chris’ passion for his food is fantastic.

We have been there on more than 10 occasions (Breakfast/Lunches/Dinners and ‘just drinks’). We have even used them to cater for a 30+ person family event just down the road in Amaroo. Trust me, I have fussy in-laws and the high quality & presentation of Tusmo’s food was comment on…

Give them another chance – tell them you are coming back would like to give them another opportunity. Am sure you will be impressed.

I have never gotten a good experience on Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day eating out… So these days I don’t bother.. nice home cooked meal, and a night out on a non-event day.

Having never eaten at Tusmo I can’t really comment, but I’m always having people chew my ear off about how amazing it is.

Perhaps they were having a bad day ?? Reviews are hard to judge what a business is like, people who write reviews either have had a horrible experience, or an amazing experience.

Queen_of_the_Bun11:28 pm 19 May 14

Pitchka said :

I loved this part.. My husband gave him our email address for him to contact us during the week and discuss.”..

Apart from the apologies you received, what more did your husband want to discuss.? Or were you wanting to offer the owner some professional “how to run a small business” advice?

Don’t eat there again, go elsewhere.

Particularly as this was after the OP was “perfectly polite but obviously upset” to the waiter who was no doubt run off his feet trying to ensure that the other paying customers got some service while listening to a long list of complaints, then hubby feels the need to take it up with the owner….
What do people expect?
OP, you shouldn’t accuse people of being rude simply for querying you when your post is designed to damage a business. Toughen up princess.

I took my family to Tusmo for Sunday lunch about a year ago. The food was ordinary to say the least, I ordered the roll with grilled vegetables- hardly any vegetables and those that were on the roll were cut so thin. All I got were mouthfuls of mostly bread. I recall being disappointed with the food. They don’t really cater for children which is a shame given its location.
I’m going there next week for dinner, hopefully its improved.

Their reviews on TripAdvisor are pretty horrible… I thank those who provide reviews good and bad.

If you want to support this business, the best you can do is let them know and get them to acknowledge and fix these issues.

This will allow them to turn a PR disaster into a helpful one.

Affirmative Action Man5:12 pm 19 May 14

Go to an Asian restaurant next time – You never seem to have slow, slack or inattentive service there.
Maybe I’m generalising but Asian restaurants are invariably much quicker, efficient & better organised than other food outlets.

Maybe its because they train their staff better or they have extended family working there or some other cultural thing but I know it works.

I loved this part.. My husband gave him our email address for him to contact us during the week and discuss.”..

Apart from the apologies you received, what more did your husband want to discuss.? Or were you wanting to offer the owner some professional “how to run a small business” advice?

Don’t eat there again, go elsewhere.

tuco said :

edandcass said :

I never said the restaurant was packed – it was relatively busy but it was not “one of the busiest days of the year”, and there were plenty of staff.
The owner offered to contact us, so my husband gave him our email address. This was the last of many opportunities to turn our experience around, which they missed.
If I wanted a free meal I would have refused to pay the bill, or just threatened to post on riot-act, instead of actually doing it.
I was just sharing the experience – there’s no need to be rude.

From here it looked like bd84 was sharing his/her experiences of reading your whinge. So you are right – no need to be rude.

+1 Nothing worse than a critic who doesn’t cope with criticism. If you’re going to slag off a small business online anonymously, you’re fair game.

There’s a few reasons the cafe might struggle on mothers dat…

It’s absolutely the busiest day of the year.
The staff might not be experienced with such a busy workload
There’s a flu going around so the good staff might have been out – dropping a meal is the sign of an utter newbie you’d never roster on a sunday or someone feeling sick and weak
The kitchen doesn’t grow just because the cafe fills up

I’d agree that your wait times were unreasonable and meal not as described which was all a bit much even for mothers day but that just tells us they may struggle to meet your expectations on a busy day, which is still useful I suppose, but it’s also good to hear whether they had previously done a good job on a quiet day that motivated you to go there in the first place.

Masquara said :

Yep. Totally unfair to pick Mother’s Day!

Why?? Seems plenty of people seem to think that Mothers Day is busier than the average Sunday for restaurants, so why couldn’t a restaurant (any restaurant, not just this one) figure out the same? If you’re expecting a busy day, you put on the staff to cater for a busy restaurant. How is it unfair to expect decent service on a special day?

gazket said :

bd84 said :

While I understand it must have been a disappointing experience, writing a place off on a once off visit when they were obviously under the pump is a bit silly.

obviously Tusmo have too many tables to service to an acceptable level. If a restaurant has 30 tables they should be able to service them in a respectable time frame. Myself I wouldn’t have waited 1/2 and hour to get served let alone 2 hours. If you have to wait that long to be served the restaurant is poor to begin with and the food most likely the same.

Yep. Totally unfair to pick Mother’s Day!

bd84 said :

While I understand it must have been a disappointing experience, writing a place off on a once off visit when they were obviously under the pump is a bit silly.

obviously Tusmo have too many tables to service to an acceptable level. If a restaurant has 30 tables they should be able to service them in a respectable time frame. Myself I wouldn’t have waited 1/2 and hour to get served let alone 2 hours. If you have to wait that long to be served the restaurant is poor to begin with and the food most likely the same.

We contemplated trying this restaurant a few weeks ago, however, after reading the reviews we decided to give it a miss…..

http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Restaurant_Review-g3329319-d3313871-Reviews-Tusmo_Cafe_Bar-Forde_Gungahlin_Greater_Canberra_Australian_Capital_Territory.html#REVIEWS

edandcass said :

I never said the restaurant was packed – it was relatively busy but it was not “one of the busiest days of the year”, and there were plenty of staff.
The owner offered to contact us, so my husband gave him our email address. This was the last of many opportunities to turn our experience around, which they missed.
If I wanted a free meal I would have refused to pay the bill, or just threatened to post on riot-act, instead of actually doing it.
I was just sharing the experience – there’s no need to be rude.

From here it looked like bd84 was sharing his/her experiences of reading your whinge. So you are right – no need to be rude.

I was pointing out that most reasonable people wouldn’t write 8 paragraphs on their one off experience on a busy day in a restaurant. After apologising to you already, what more do you want from the owner? A free meal is about all that’s left, so it’s a logical conclusion. Leaving without paying no matter how poor the service, is called theft and a visit to the police station, so for any law abiding citizen wouldn’t be a justification in their mind.

Oh and for the record, I also went to a restaurant on Mother’s Day just on the other side of the border, almost all tables were occupied and which made it busy and the service was pretty crummy. I didn’t even feel the need the slightest urge to write a 200+ word review anywhere.

edandcass said :

I never said the restaurant was packed – it was relatively busy but it was not “one of the busiest days of the year”, and there were plenty of staff.
The owner offered to contact us, so my husband gave him our email address. This was the last of many opportunities to turn our experience around, which they missed.
If I wanted a free meal I would have refused to pay the bill, or just threatened to post on riot-act, instead of actually doing it.
I was just sharing the experience – there’s no need to be rude.

Someone running a busy restaurant is probably falling into bed well after midnight and having to get back up at 7. They probably don’t have a spare moment. They apologised for Pete’s sake. Why didn’t you call them up rather than try and wreck their business here on Riotact? Talk about vengeful!

I never said the restaurant was packed – it was relatively busy but it was not “one of the busiest days of the year”, and there were plenty of staff.
The owner offered to contact us, so my husband gave him our email address. This was the last of many opportunities to turn our experience around, which they missed.
If I wanted a free meal I would have refused to pay the bill, or just threatened to post on riot-act, instead of actually doing it.
I was just sharing the experience – there’s no need to be rude.

While I understand it must have been a disappointing experience, writing a place off on a once off visit when they were obviously under the pump is a bit silly. I’m certain if you visit any business on their busiest days of the year, the service is going to be far than perfect. Do you also go and judge woolies solely on their customer service on Christmas Eve when every idiot in Canberra is shopping because they left it to the last minute and the shop is closed the next day?

The owner apologised, but you want him to call you and apologise again? Or is it you just want a free meal for it? Not sure what you’re trying to achieve here, but good luck.

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