Pelicans Landing owner savages diner in email attack
A short-staffed Melbourne restaurateur did not react happily to one customer, who complained of poor service.
John Mousaferiadis, who owns the iconic Pelicans Landing in Williamstown, is short staffed due to COVID.
Following the customer complaint, Mousaferiadis labelled it as a “disgrace” and the customer as an “embarrassment” and a “scab”.
Kristina told news.com.au she was “completely shocked” at receiving the “abusive” email from
“I was completely shocked, I couldn’t sleep that night,” Kristina, whose surname has been withheld, told news.com.au after she received the “abusive” email.
The 41-year-old had booked a table for herself, her mother and mother-in-law for dinner on January 8. After 45 minutes without service, the party of three walked out.
Kristina had called the restaurant in advance to ensure the $19 menu was still available and to book a table with a view.
“To both of these questions I was advised yes,” she wrote in an email to the restaurant last Monday.
“I caught an Uber there costing $25 and then waited over 15 minutes just to be seated. The table with a view I had requested was not available. I waited another half an hour without being offered a menu or drink. I finally went up to get a drink from the bar and was going to order meals and was told there was only a limited menu … I understand it’s hard in Covid with staff shortages, but this level of customer service is very disappointing and unacceptable.”
Mousaferiadis responded by accusing Kristina of being cheap, saying that by spending an extra $10 she “would have been served” and that she should “stay home and eat baked beans on dry crusty bread next time”.
“Obviously you have no idea what we are going through and lucky to be just open and trying to serve everyone with no staff,” he wrote.
“Are you serious? I had a wedding upstairs with two staff on and 104 people booked in … and yes, we did have bar meals on but had to take them off as had no staff on virtually. With 37 staff down with Covid you just don’t understand and then to have a go at me in front of your mother … what an embarrassment for her.
“What a disgrace you are to not only yourself but to me and your mother and now my staff,” Mousaferiadis wrote.
“I don’t need your comments and you don’t understand. In my 23 years of owning Pelicans Landing, I have never met anyone as low as you and not even to respect what the whole of the world is going through. At least I was open trying to accommodate who I had on. And yes if you had to eat like everyone else you would have got served finally.”
Mousaferiadis said he had been working “non-stop 18 hours that day with no complaints apart from yourself”.
He said he had just recovered from COVID and has been personally thanked by everyone else in the restaurant.
Kristina told news.com.au that while she understood the circumstances, she had rung up and been given positive answers to her questions.
“Wouldn’t you not have taken the booking if you were that under the pump?” she said.
The industry has been hit hard by COVID with many struggling to stay afloat, which has prompted chief executive of the Independent Food Distributors of Australia’s Richard Forbes to call for close contact isolation rules to be scrapped for the hospitality sector.
“Maintaining the close contact isolation rules for the hospitality sector is having a major economic impact on the food supply chain with food distributors reporting an average loss of revenue of up to 40 per cent,” he said.
“Our members in Sydney are reporting losses of well over 50 per cent. Our members provide food to around 70,000 cafes, restaurants, pubs and clubs around Australia and with hospitality venues closing daily the impact is severe. We are left with perishable product in warehouses which, as it reaches its use by date, has to be dumped. There are staff shortages everywhere. Further to that we have truck drivers with Covid so transporting food is extremely difficult for us and our supplier manufacturers.”
Forbes compared the rules for hospitality with those for supermarkets.
“Is this one rule for one sector and another for hospitality? It is critical that the $30 billion hospitality sector is opened as quickly as possible so that all of us operating downstream in the supply chain can remain in business,” he said.
“Many of our members are saying the situation is worse now than during the period of snap lockdowns over the past two years.”
Irit Jackson, 19th January 2021
