My sister and I visited this restaurant last evening as we were in Watford visiting our ill brother and Blue Check was highly recommended.
The food, the atmosphere and the entertainment were amazing.
I had steak my sister had salmon both really enjoyable. The staff...were initially very attentive and friendly and looked after us very well.
Unfortunately on asking for our bill, came the down side of our evening.
The bill came to just over £84 for 2 of us.
A 10% service charge was automatically added which was just under £8, one of the items was wrong (seabass was on the bill but my sister had salmon, which was cheaper).
My sister pointed out to the waiter the seabass was incorrect and asked for the service charge to be removed.........then everything changed!
The pleasantries and friendliness was gone, replaced by aggressive questioning of why we wanted the service charge to be removed.
His facial expression was dark and intimidating, he demanded to know if there was a " problem with anything" and stated that the money goes to all the staff "it is for them". I calmly attempted to explain there was absolutely nothing wrong, but that we preferred to give our own "tip" based on our experience of the service provided.
I/we don't like the concept of automatically adding a service charge.......it is an individual choice of the customer.
He didn't accept my explanation and continued with his aggressive attitude to reinforce the reason for the added service charge.
As customers we were not listened to and our opinion was discarded and invalid, which in turn results in a poor customer experience.
In the end he left the table saying....."it's up to you".
He came back with an amended bill, the seabass had been changed to salmon, but the service charge hadn't been removed.
So my sister and I paid the bill without pursuing it any further and politely left the restaurant.
What was a lovely evening in nice surroundings, with great food and a fabulous singer was totally ruined by our experience over the bill.
My sister and I were upset at being spoken to in such a manner, felt intimidated and saddened that our evening had ended in such a way.
A service charge should be removed from the bill at the customers request without any fuss or intimidating behaviour.
In previous experiences this has always been the case, never had an issue.
This is very unfortunate as Blue Check is truly a lovely restaurant.More