Nasty in Normandy
I wish I could say that I enjoyed my stay at La Ferme de la Rançonnière, which was supposed to be the highlight of our family trip to France. However, an encounter with a nasty restaurant manager (Mr. Manager) at dinner forced us to pack our bags and leave in a hurry the next day. I first encountered Mr. Manager when he was shouting at another hotel guest and his child, who dared to ask whether any tables were available at the restaurant that night. Mr. Manager berated the guest for not making a reservation ahead of time and blamed him for not thinking ahead. My experience with Mr. Manager was no better and, in fact, much worse as it ended with him in my face and menacingly touching my arm. It would be bad enough if he were only terrible at serving tables (which he was) since inexplicably as the restaurant manager he didn’t know anything about the menu nor could he accurately convey our drink order to the bar. After ordering a whiskey sour cocktail, I was surprised to find a shot of whiskey slung at me as if I were a cowboy in a Western saloon and being told that a whiskey sour is just whiskey. After the bartender kindly brought the correct drink to the table herself, Mr. Manager continue his combative argument with me about the composition of the drink to the bewilderment of my family and other diners. We then waited for a long time to get our meals ordered only for Mr. Manager to bizarrely take away my husband’s butter knife as he was still buttering his bread roll with it (which another server had delivered to our table since our guy was busy scowling in the corner instead of actually doing his job). Why the butter knife was confiscated from my husband half way through bread service regrettably still remains a mystery. After Mr. Manager disappeared in the middle of dinner, we sought help from another server, who could not have been more pleasant. Mr. Manager’s rude and confrontational behavior caused us to leave the restaurant early after scarfing down our meals in a hurry since we felt our presence there was a personal affront to him. After dinner, I informed the hotel receptionist that I wanted to speak to the hotel owner about this alarming behavior by a senior member of the hotel staff. The receptionist was sympathetic to my story and said I would not be charged for dinner (I got the impression that this wasn’t the first time there was an issue with this particular employee), but he also made things worse by walking back to the restaurant to inform Mr. Manager of my report. I was trying to calm my nerves at the bar with a cocktail that the skillful and kind bartender made me - she witnessed the unacceptable behavior at dinner service and had taken pity on me. After my first sip, however, Mr. Manager emerged from the shadows and got in my face while menacingly touching my arm and spewing words at me in an incomprehensible language (likely only spoken by French bullies). I told him that I was not going to rehash what happened and that he should leave me alone. He continued to hang around the bar and give me sinister looks until I finally departed for our room, which I triple locked to make sure that he did not follow me up the narrow and dark stairs. After the encounter in the bar, I no longer felt safe staying at the hotel and decided to leave the next day. After we left early, the hotel reached out via email and asked for me to pay for one night’s stay since they didn’t charge me when I checked out. I said I’m fine with paying and asked for a bill or a link to be sent to me, so I could pay online and not through email. However, the hotel has no way to send a link or an invoice, so they said they I have to call them and provide my credit card number over the phone. Since I’m no longer in France, I’m now supposed to call long distance to pay the hotel that forced me to leave early due to the atrocious behavior of their manager. Overall, I would avoid this establishment at all costs.