Roanne W

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on The White house on Nicol

The good the bad and the ugly review on THE WHITE HOUSE ON NICOL The good – the most beautiful venue, the bad – the service I received and broken promises, the Ugly – at its very core I call on all Women this month to read, share and react to this post, Our Women’s Month Empowering Event, took a turn for the worst, and we were bullied, threatened with violence and some staff were inappropriately ***ually harassed by the owner of The White House on Nicol. He claimed to be the owner and spoke on behalf of his investors. I would like to thank all the ladies who attend the event for handling the situation with such grace, and for the support, you gave me as I felt bullied and embarrassed that I had chosen the venue. To the lady event coordinator from The White House on Nicol, you were amazing, I am sorry they did not honour what you and I agreed and are sorry that you got disciplinary action for making those arrangements with us, or so he said. That was not our intention or the “compromise I agreed to” I believe in empowering women to do the job they have been given and honouring the commitments of your staff to customers as if they were your own. On Saturday, August the 13 of Women’s month, I was lucky enough to be involved in organizing an Empowering Women’s event, where we invited 50 ladies to enjoy lunch, motivate and support each other, learn how to succeed ask questions from leaders and just be beautiful in beautiful surroundings. The White House on Nicol, promised to support this event with the following, by providing us with the venue, providing the downstairs section of their restaurant to us, they were to set it up with 2 x long tables each seating 20 guests, we spoke about putting up banners and a photo wall, they offered 2 free ****tails per person and a discounted rate on our 3-course menu and 10 staff to wait on us hand and foot to make everyone feel special, I had never been so excited they had come to the party and the venue is possibly the most beautiful restaurant I have ever seen. What we received – I confirmed all was in order on Friday and to ensure that the table was coming, I was told they were been picked up as we speak. On Saturday we pitched up at 7h00 as agreed, to a closed venue, we go into the venue at 7h30 to be told that no tables were coming, as there were no managers on site and all contacts I had went straight to voice mail, we collected tables from their upstairs area to set up downstairs. And went about our way making plans to ensure the event's success. The owners then informed us that they were not happy as we were destroying their “brand” and would like us to compromise so that both the upstairs and downstairs could function to their specification, we agreed to take out 3 tables from downstairs so that the upstairs went from 8 tables to 11 (throughout the event they only ever had 3 seated guests upstairs). Then what happened was no compromise at all. I was questioned about the calibre of women attending and if they would be complementary in appearance to his brand, keeping in mind the “gentleman” I was speaking to, was wearing a very dirty shirt. We had to take down all banners, we had to stop in the middle of the event and take out all tables and put back the couches which are beautiful, but not practical to eat from or if we did not want to reset the venue the hire would be R45 000 which was never communicated to us before. I was threatened with action from bouncers, I was refused our ordered meals until all their demands were met, so our lunch was late and most people left without eating. My team and I had to serve and clear our plates, and the discounts and fees never came through as promised. They came back to me saying that because of our event they had lost reservations for brunch, upon investigation they never had any bookings and there were still places to sit upstairs and downstairs. I was told that my team was preventing people from coming into the restaurant, on the other hand, we were hostessing on their behalf and showing people where to go to get service as there were no staff at the entrance.