Dublin café apologises for insulting customer on Twitter

12 Nov 2012

Image via Cinnamon's Facebook page

Yesterday, a patron of Cinnamon in Dublin complained via Twitter about the slow service in the busy café. The café’s unsavoury response has today prompted a formal apology to all customers – and one in particular.

The café in Ranelagh says it served double its usual number of customers over the past weekend and, feeling overwhelmed, one staff member seems to have taken his or her frustrations out on a dissatisfied customer.

While at first the @Cinnamon_D6 Twitter account tried to deal politely with the customer’s complaint that said he had been waiting 40 minutes to be served, the responses quickly turned from professional and courteous to snippy and then downright insulting.

The final nail in the coffin was an outright “You’re an arsehole” directed at the complaining customer.

Cinnamon tweets

The café has posted a statement on Facebook (citing “not enough space to tweet”), apologising to all customers for offence caused by these comments. To the customer who complained, it said, “We wish to formally apologise to the customer, who we accept had a legitimate complaint, in person. We appeal to his generosity to accept this apology.”

The person responsible for the tweet has incurred disciplinary action and Cinnamon customers are being offered cheap deals on coffee for the next week when quoting “Twittergate” on ordering.

Cinnamon's apology on Facebook

Elaine Burke is the host of For Tech’s Sake, a co-production from Silicon Republic and The HeadStuff Podcast Network. She was previously the editor of Silicon Republic.

editorial@siliconrepublic.com