Sunday night was Nando's night and there I was with my cousin to get takeaway for the rest at home. There was a queue from the dining counter to the door when we reached there. Not because there were many people but some of the patrons could fit snugly between 2 goalposts. Ahem. Anyway, I excused myself politely from the Afro-Caribbean lady at the door and made my way to the take-away counter on the far right (There was an obvious Takeaway counter sign at the top). 4 counters with 1 serving takeaways. I spoke to the waitress, "Takeaway?" and she replied, "Yes". So having established that simple understanding, my cousin and I proceeded to place our orders.

The next moment, the lady at the door, jumps past the others in her queue and approaches the waitress serving me and admonishes her for serving me who had 'jumped' the queue. She shouldn't be serving us first instead of her, her excuse was that it wasn't our fault but the waitress'! Another waitress at the counter said that she did not see us jumping the queue and that was for takeaways. However, the Afro-carribean lady decides to get rude and calls the waitress a 'twat'. The waitress was very professional and said she would not serve the lady because of her attitude and apologised before walking away. As you can guess, it becomes a scene where the lady asks to see the manager before proceeding to give him an earful of the treatment that she has received. At this point I told her that this queue was for takeaway which she promptly replied "I think I should know as I come here more often than you". Which I had to agree judging from her size, she must eat everything in her path. Clearly there was no point to reason with her and she continued to lambast the manager with her friend.

I felt sorry for the waitress and gave her a smile and apologised to her as I knew how difficult some patrons can be. Later, I pulled the manager aside and told him my story and that it was neither my fault nor her staff and merely some fault of some one else who clearly could not read signboards and was too proud to admit her mistakes. I could have walked away saying it wasn't my problem but I didn't and was happy that the manager genuinely thanked me for praising his staff.