Waitresses are busily engaged...in smoking and chatting

Recently we received a leaflet in our post box inviting us to visit a hitherto unheard of restaurant in our area. The leaflet promised all kinds of good things to eat, a pleasant shady garden, and lots of choice to drink. So we set out one evening to pay it a visit. It took us a while to find it, as it was in a split street and no map or directions were provided. When we eventually found it, it looked quite pleasant: shady garden, nice flowers, clean tables and chairs. Not many customers, we noticed, but we were greeted by the waitress, who had somehow spotted our arrival.

She left us with some menus and disappeared. After about 10 minutes I thought I had better go and find her in case she’d had an accident, collapsed or something – no, she was sitting at the bar smoking and chatting to her friends. After being summoned she came to take our order and about 10 minutes later appeared with the drinks. The food followed in the fullness of time, typically not all together, but in dribs and drabs, which always makes me nervous wondering whether she had heard the full order or not. The food was distinctly second class – poor salad, tough meat, cold chips. Well, being hungry, we ate what we could and looked around for the waitress to order another beer.

She was nowhere to be seen, and guess what, she was sitting at the bar smoking and chatting to her friends. Three times I had to fetch her for our various needs, and eventually again to get the bill. Someone had spent a lot of money on nice surroundings, furnishings and an expensive leaflet to get us there, all ruined by an incompetent chef and a lazy waitress. Will we go there again? No, thank you! I recount this story because it’s all too common. The average owner doesn’t seem to understand the importance of good service and properly trained staff. Most waitresses have perfected the art of ignoring the customer and can pass within a few feet of your table without even a glance in your direction.

Then if you can attract their attention, you may get a nod of the head to indicate they have seen you, but that doesn’t mean they are going to serve you. Recently on television a hotel owner was asked why he didn’t reduce his prices to attract more customers in this time of crisis. "No, no," he said, "if we do that we will have to reduce the service!" The immediate comment by the interviewer to this, should have been, "What service? "

Of course, no article about Sofia would be complete without a mention of ‘parking’. The spiders still continue their money making game, with no discernible effect on the traffic or unruly parking. They must have been robbed of some of their revenue by the truly excellent arrangement, whereby you can text your car number to 1302 for an hour’s parking in the blue zone. Recently my son had a meeting in the centre of Sofia, so duly parked his car, and texted his number to 1302.

He was extremely surprised to find on his return that his car had disappeared, and phoned me in a panic "I think my car has been stolen", "Did you pay for your parking?", "Yes I sent a text, I think I had better ring the police and report the car stolen". "No, don’t do that unless you are absolutely sure, it will cause you huge problems if you are wrong. Go and find the parking attendant, who sells tickets, or call the number on the signs and ask if the spider has taken it."

Ten minutes later he called me back. "It’s been taken to the pound. Evidently I parked in a reserved zone – the signs are very indistinct and misleading. When I found the parking attendant he laughed and said, yes they get about 10 cars a day from there, it’s an easy and certain way of getting money off the motorist." Well, that’s life – in Sofia!