A longtime OMAAT reader asked for my take on a situation he recently dealt with. I’ll share my perspective, and then I’m curious how others feel.
Continue reading: Sharp Metal Found In Hotel Breakfast Food, Manager Goes Silent
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Obviously a disappointing customer service reaction. Just piping in to guess that the metal is likely part of a stainless steel scrubbing pad that the dishwasher uses. As a former restaurant GM, I've seen maybe 4-5 times over the years where a little piece would break off when scrubbing pans/baking sheets and somehow get in the food. Not ideal obviously, and whenever it happened, obviously we were apologizing, buying the whole meal, etc. to recover for the guest.
1. Look after yourself, which means chew gently and slowly all the time.
2. No dental harm done. No compensation (money or points) but there should be expression of regret and some follow-up as to the manufacturer of the product.
It’s fortunate he wasn’t injured and yet so easy to have been resolved. Express empathy and say it would be investigated, and then offer a gesture. Not doing anything makes a bad situation worse.
If the metal was truly embedded in the baked good and not just stuck to one side or something, it probably came from a manufacturing plant. Mass-produced food usually goes through a metal detector before leaving the facility, but things slip by. It doesn’t sound likely to me that this middle of the road hotel is baking fresh pastries or bread each day, so the hotel’s overall liability may be rather low, but their response was totally unprofessional. The foodservice staff should have immediately removed all of the relevant item and contacted the manufacturer.
Correct order of response: Immediate apology, remove the food, a promise to contact the manufacturer, some token gesture of points/F&B credit/ANYTHING other than silence. If the hotel isn’t cooking these, they still have a responsibility to own that they served it.
I don’t necessarily think IHG is in the wrong for putting this on the GM unless IHG is specifically mandating what exactly is served at breakfast. It’s likely at the GM(ish) or franchise operator level that food choices are made.
Again, most of this is predicated on the hotel serving a pre-baked product. If they’re baking in-house that makes their lack of response orders of magnitude worse.
Remember most hotel properties are owned by a franchisee. IHG, the Hilton Brands, Marriott Brands etc. are in the business of selling hotel franchisees not running hotels. Similar to airlines derive their profits from credit cards not flying. Status means even less for hotels.
Selling those hotel franchises is only viable while those brands have a value and are trusted by consumers. When that stops being the case, and customers will no longer wish to stay with those brands, what will they have left to sell to hotels?
If you slap your name on a product, you need to own the quality of the product. Especially when slapping your name on products is your entire business.
Contacting the local health department the hotel is located in is also an avenue to take. It is a health issue, no matter how rare it probably is (hopefully), but it's still something worthy to report. Using that as nudge to the GM to do something before reporting might also work.
The whole hotel industry is a service dumpster fire. Don’t expect anything like the good service and professional communication you got 5+ years ago.
Oh gosh, what a topic. I mean, I enjoy when you share customer experience issues and how the airline/hotel (didnt) solve it. It helps me get oriented among brands and decide which of them to avoid, or at least stay on alert. But come on, this is another league. Someone in a restaurant got bad food and no one apologized and solved the problem. It is not a system error/ bad process/ company mindset to be aware of. This happens thousands of times every day. Yesterday my food delivery was delayed, the food was cold and actually it was something else than I ordered. No one apologized and compensated me. Is it a topic for article?
1. Ridiculous, you've never been in a rush or eaten anything harder than oatmeal? By all means, let's chew food like an invalid.
2. Are you the general manager of this crowne plaza or something?
As another commenter mentioned, this sort of thing happens with food. Not very often, but that's no consolation when it happens to you. The hotel (or restaurant) should have some procedure of taking action - and any decent restaurant already has something in place or on file that legal approved (just the *right* amount of accepting it happened and they apologize, yet somehow simultaneously suggestion plausible deniability of fault) and some sort of service recovery.
I have found Hilton as a brand to be the best at getting compliance from hotels. My hassles have been things like what good are the Diamond F&B credits when there's nowhere to use them (like the Doubletree EWR last week that has eliminated beverages to go for sale anywhere but a vending machine, and had nowhere to get a cup of coffee to go... told you had to sit down and buy the buffet breakfast... I complained at the front desk and a manager overheard, and went and found me a to-go cup and walked me to the coffee on the buffet and told me take what I want). Or airport shuttles that have inaccurate hours listed on the app or no longer run yet were promised when I made a reservation. Or a full flag Hilton that had a restaurant that ran out of food for 2 days and had nothing in the "pantry" shop except some energy drinks and gummy worms.
I write a complaint to Hilton with photos/screen shots/receipts, tell them I want reimbursement for specific amount, and I'm at a high success rate for getting properties to reply. Sometimes within hours. Because I get another survey or email asking me to rate the property's follow up. Maybe it's "I can't get you $30 for your Uber, but I can give you 15k points. And can you walk me through where we have wrong info posted..." Okay, sold.
I had a similar incident back in my airline employee days when I took a bite of my omelette and found a small rivet. I immediately told the purser (we still had those in the 90’s and 2000’s) and to her credit she was duly concerned and apologetic. Then she paused and tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Thank God you’re a non-rev!”
He's a troll. Disregard any and all he has to say on anything.
I worked in food service when I was younger and s**t happens. Surprisingly, the few times contamination incidents occurred, customers were super understanding. This includes a rather large piece of plastic in a Papa Johns pizza I delivered (expediter should have caught that) and a disturbing long piece of plastic in some Mac and cheese at a restaurant that gave away we bought bulk catering and nuked it for service.
Sharp metal is a big deal and not common. This should have been handled to the max and with complete discretion.
On a earning report call a few years back the CEO of Marriott made it very clear that Marriott's "customers" were the hotel franchisee holder, not the the hotel guest.
I think it best to remember that outfits like IHG, Hilton, Marriott are little more than booking agents. Don't expect your travel agent to solve the bad pasta dinner on the cruise you booked through them. I expect/hope that Marriott titanium service will be able to contact someone at the hotel and get an answer, but I don't expect them to go to bat for me.
Lucky for the airline as non-revs are 'expendable' and have relinquished any/all rights !
The property & general manager should be named & shamed on any/all websites as well as a complaint to the local health department. Of course that would imply no further contact with the establishment. Such management negligence should not go unpunished as she was given more than ample opportunity to at the very least acknowledge the complaint. This is a health & safety issue for future guests as well, not just limited to an arbitrary/petty issue.
Definitely call the local health department.
I would suspect that the bakery item is from a local industrial bakery, and food production lines typically have metal detectors to detect this kind of thing. Sounds like something went wrong.
Here's a short guide: https://www.tdipacksys.com/blog/basics-of-food-metal-detectors/
Agree that there is nothing IHG corporate could do as the incident happened at the hotel level. I think most people in this situation make a mistake by expecting the hotel to come up with a reasonable compensation rather than telling them what happened and suggesting or negotiating for what they want as a result. If it is reasonable, then most often the hotel will go along with it. The tough part in many of these kinds of situations is determining what reasonable compensation should be.
All I can ask is "mental anguish?" Come on! This is almost as striking as the guy who claimed, as the story on here ran, that his baby crawled on the floor and ate 2 dislodged tiles that were a result of design flaws, but his pic of the two tiles showed they were completely intact. What a fantasy world we are currently living in.
Other than Choice or Wyndham, IHG is probably the worst major chain for accountability. While Marriott is predominantly franchised, there are still corporate-managed properties. In fact, some Marriott brands are 100% Marriott-managed. By contrast, IHG across all brands is nearly 100% franchised.
Yes had a recent case at Kamaha Zurich, an Autograph hotel. They have severe hygiene problems. We received alot of insect bites all around the room, in day light as well. We sent our photos. Not bed bugs, just insects. There was no A/C in any of the 3 rooms we tried. We had fans only to keep the air moving, but not good.
The breakfast, your shoes stick to the floor. Its as if there is no soap used.
We raised the issue with Marriott. The management would not reply to Marriott. 10 days, 15 days nothing.
Call into Marriott, supervisor was not keen on the complaint, but I explained it thoroughly.
Finally she said we'll send it to Consumer Affairs. Be aware you may not hear back, they will just go to the property.
Well 2 hours later, received an email from CA. Was very proactive.
There are 2 Co-GM's at the Kamaha. So I don't know who or both was very uncooperative. And they did the same with CA. Guess thats not good for a career.
They wouldn't budge. Marriott compensated us with points. I don't think they will fare very well with that property. Certainly I would never visit.
I hope that fellow pushes IHG or makes contact with some govt depts. That is really poor of IHG, no matter franchise or not, its their name brand on the sign !
This the sane with Marriott and IHG.
They don't have any enforcement of any of their franchisees on any matter from lack of room quality to even customer wanting to cancel reservation when accommodations are not to brand standards.
There needs to be a class action lawsuits for Marriott and IHG to enforce compliance of franchisees to meet the standards of the brand ( yes, that includes on-site inspections) so that customers who book through Marriott and IHG we sites get a consistent minimum experience.
One of the biggest forces is advertising a Club Lounge but it ens being a hole in the wall with bottled water or the "lounge is closed" and no alternative amenity provided.
Crowne Plaza located in Union City, California.
The review of this incident is also posted on trip advisor.