UPDATE: Saturday, 0026 hrs. (scroll down to read the incident)
Tweeps, sorry could not update earlier but I was swamped with work. CCD Operations Head, Mr. Venu Madhav talked to me and has personally apologized and is looking in to the issue. He has also requested all the attendees contact details to make amends.
I have obtained all their twitter Ids and will forward the same to Mr. Madhav. Here at least the delay in updating the developments rests solely with me. One Mr. Venkat who heads Chennai operations will be talking to the Ispahani outlet people to get to the bottom of the issue.
Thanks for all the support. Further updates once Mr. Venkat calls.
What really happened:
WOW! That is the first reaction. Next is $hit! And then the rest of the reaction and emotions are totally unacceptable to be seen in print on a PG rated blog.
A little bit of background first :
We, bloggers and specifically, micro-bloggers of the site, Twitter decided to meet. Referred to as a Tweetup. About 23 of us. Location: Cafe coffee day, a mega coffee shop chain, Ishapani Center, Chennai, India.
About 12 had already arrived when I sauntered in with another friend and fellow blogger. There were familiar faces and some very new faces. And more were expected to arrive. The setting was perfect. People were warming up. Coffee and various other drinks were on the way. The promise of an epic evening was being set.
And oh boy, what an epic, albeit very short, evening it was! For the manager of the coffee shop, a very rude man, a Mr. Shiva, asked us to leave or pay a cover charge!!! That too after we had ordered to a bill amounting to Rs.1114 and more to be ordered. First reaction was disbelief. Second reaction was suppressed anger. We were not some teenage gang occupying space after ordering a cuppa joe.
We asked for the bill, we paid and we left. Quietly. We are all gentle people who were out for an evening of fun. In short, it was indeed a shock to realize that paying customers are treated in such an ignominious manner by Cafe Coffee Day.
None of us would ever step in to their cafes again. EVER.
Desi Bawarchi 
Make sure no barcamps, meetings or tweetup are every held in Cafe Coffee Day.
Why not try the local Chai Vendor, give him business and bring smiles.
cheers
A cover charge? What did think you guys were, a mob or something? Quite unacceptable this is …
The World shall see and the culprits would regret ! There is no greater wound than a bad word and a trending topic on twitter ! CCD should repent !
Hhahaha… I like that!
@aalaap
Which ccd?
not sure why manager reacted like that.. usually they won’t ask people to leave.. unfortunate for them
nvm stupid question
I dont get why he asked you to leave
just wondering, were you guys making too much noise or something? anyway, i think this whole trending stuff is crap. if you try to blow an incident out of proportion, you lose your credibility as a responsible media.
dumb folks.. lets boycott cafe coffee days for all tweetups henceforth.
Next time try and be an adult. Fight. Don’t just walk away when you know the other person is in the wrong.
Coming back to complain on blogs and Twitter is just childish.
Also all CCD outlets are independent franchisees, so we can’t generalize. what happens at one shop needn’t replicate at all other places
Agree on the above comment. Has anybody else had similar experience (asked for cover charges) earlier at any other coffee day? Probably not.
So this could be a one off incident resulting from an arrogant/unprofessional staff of that particular franchise (stress on the word franchise. Coffee day is the bran. outlets are managed by some guy, who are trained by coffee day).
The main person at fault here is the manager who asked for the cover charge. If this is bought to the notice of Coffee Day and they still do not take any action, then coffee day is at fault too.
I just returned from Coffee Day, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore and we billed for 600. After finishing our coffee and snacks, we lazed around for a long time and no one asked us to leave or no one asked for a cover charge.
So I think Coffee Day should have been allowed time to evaluate what went wrong and where, before all the negative comments on twitter.
My 65Rs. worth of mocha.
Well, the franchise’s bum is definitely kicked ……… ha ha
i believe no major brand can afford to mess up with the customer’s in this age.
In any case what did that manager think ………….. people actually come to CCD for that crappy overpriced coffee or stale snacks ??
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First, let me say I’m sorry that guy was an idiot and ruined the meet-up. What a jerk.
Second, I want to say that your blogging this incident is legitimate, and you voiced it in a measured fashion, so clearly, the people complaining about your post either work for Coffee Day or feel that rudeness to customers is justified; otherwise I can not account for their rudeness to you on this, YOUR blog. Clearly, they are only here for this post and do not visit your blog regularly, or they would know better. This is your space, and you write here about your experiences. It is none of their business to a) assume your reaction is unreasonable, and b) criticize you for it. I feel very strongly they are here solely to defend Coffee Day. Welcome to the new media, jerks. When a business is rude, it gets written about. If you don’t like it, don’t use the internet. Or better yet, start treating your customers with respect.
Hey Katie,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Sure, they can voice their opinions but that does not however change facts. I appreciate the vote of confidence. 🙂
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