Great Food Options, No Safety protocols

Dear RocoMamas Management,

I would like to formally raise a complaint regarding an extremely upsetting experience my mother and I had at your Cornubia Mall branch on Wednesday evening.

We arrived at approximately 6:34pm and, before placing our order, specifically asked the waiter about the turnaround time as we had a movie scheduled for 7:30pm. The waiter assured us the food would take approximately 10 minutes, so we proceeded to order based on that assurance.

However, by around 7:10pm, we still had not received our order. I approached the waiter to ask for an update, and he simply stated that our order was “next” before walking away.

At that point, due to the time and the fact that we were going to miss our movie, my mother and I decided to leave. Another waiter then followed us out of the restaurant and continued following us all the way toward Sausage Saloon, repeatedly insisting that we wait. I explained multiple times that we no longer wished to wait and that we needed to get to our movie.

What made the situation especially disturbing was that despite me repeatedly saying that I felt unsafe and asking him to leave us alone, he continued following us. It only stopped when my mother eventually told him to just give us the order so that he would leave us alone.

As two women alone, this behaviour made us extremely uncomfortable and distressed. Given the realities in South Africa and the fact that GBV has been declared a National Disaster, being persistently followed by a male staff member after repeatedly asking him to stop was deeply unsettling and unacceptable.

To make matters worse, when we asked for his name during the incident, he refused to provide it.

Even after our movie ended, I still felt anxious walking past the restaurant on our way back to our car because of how uncomfortable the interaction had made us feel.

This experience was not only disappointing from a service perspective, but also alarming from a customer safety perspective. I believe your staff should be properly trained on respecting customer boundaries and understanding when their behaviour becomes intimidating.

I would appreciate acknowledgment of this complaint and an explanation of what steps will be taken to address this matter.