Eat First, a Cantonese-style restaurant in Geylang has seen a sharp fall in its Google rating after it charged a family $2 for bringing water from outside.
The rating has plunged from 4.2 stars to 2.4 stars as of Tuesday (April 14) morning, AsiaOne’s checks showed.
This was likely the result of multiple one-star reviews being left by members of the public, some of whom criticised the surcharge as “selfish” and “greedy”.
One recent reviewer wrote: “Charging $2 for a kid drinking [from] their own water bottle is just inexcusable.”
“I hate dining at restaurants that charge for plain water. Plain water should be given free at all F&Bs,” another reviewer said.
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The majority of new reviews did not include a reason for the low ratings, or simply said “you know why”.
Restaurant owner Steve Chia told The Straits Times that he believes the restaurant is being unfairly targeted by online vigilantes over something that is a “matter of principle rather than money”.
Noting that the incident happened on Feb 7, he also asked why the diner only surfaced the matter two months later.
While Steve does not object when customers bring their own water bottles from home, he draws the line at diners consuming bottled drinks that they had bought elsewhere.
“We are selling bottled water too. Just as we respect and appreciate our customers, we would also like customers to understand that we have our own policy with regard to outside food and drinks,” he said.
Customers have brought fast food and economy rice into the eatery to consume over the past two years, Steve added.
With the recent negative Google reviews, the restaurant owner expressed worry over how they would impact his business, as up to a third of his customers are foreign tourists who may rely on the service.
Following ST’s report, some netizens showed support for the eatery’s outside food policy, with one commenting that he found it fair, while others said that they enjoy the food there and will continue to patronise Eat First.
On the other hand, a few members of the public urged the business owner to be more flexible with the policy.
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Differing accounts
Although the incident took place in February, it only garnered online attention recently due to an article published by Mothership on April 12.
It involved a party of five: A man surnamed Ng and his wife, their two children — aged five and 10 — and their domestic helper.
According to Ng, the group had been charged an outside drinks fee of $1 per person because his children drank water out of their own bottles.
Ng, who described his family as longtime patrons, added that there was no visible signage of the restaurant’s policy on outside drinks, and that he was also not informed of the charges in advance.
However, the restaurant had a different recount of the incident.
A comment by the restaurant under its Facebook post showed a screengrab from CCTV footage of the family dining.
The image showed they brought in a 1.5 litre mineral water bottle into the restaurant.
The family’s helper had been pouring water from this large bottle into the eatery’s bowls for the children to drink from, Steve’s wife Julia Hsieh told The Straits Times.
They had been told by staff that this would incur a $1 charge per person, equivalent to the restaurant’s outside drinks charge, said Julia.
She also pointed out that a sign at Eat First’s entrance informs diners of the restaurant’s outside drinks policy, adding that employees are trained to give polite reminders of this as well.
When contacted by AsiaOne, Eat First declined to comment on the matter.
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bhavya.rawat@asiaone.com
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