Afters Desert parlour (Ilford lane)
what once used to be a glamorous dessert experience has now spiralled down to be nothing more than a unpleasant and dangerous environment.
What used to previously be a pleasant and successful establishment specifically aimed at our Asian society has suffered several and significant setbacks,
with newly opened up stores such as afters original in green street and Leyton stone and existing branches in the Ilford area, it would have been thought that the level of standards would significantly rise also. During my visit this year in February the Ilford branch looked like a promising establishment and with upcoming green street branch afters looked like it was heading for a huge success as a prestigious company. On the day of my visit in February I awaited normal service ordering one of their popular sundaes a nutcase, I was highly satisfied with the product and the products presentation and the extremely polite service which was given to me and my colleague.
I was also was pleased with the shops level of hygiene which was immaculate, they had a fair table waiting service and the staff were polite and attended us in a pleasant manner.
My colleague who accompanied me on the day was also exceedingly pleased with their wide range of Punjabi specials, having purchased a falooda and being extremely satisfied with the quality and overall the taste of the actual product afters looked like a extremely promising concept, over my recent visits one of these being on the evening of October 29th 2009 I received poor service despite the fact that me and my same colleague had been waiting for a table for a considerable amount of time the staff in charge of seating sat down newly arrived customers ignoring the presence of me and my colleague, I tried to bring this to the attention on the manager in charge who ignored my petition and continued serving other customers in the store.
When I finally received the opportunity to sit down the member of staff attending tables had been attending the same table for a significant amount of time which is why I attempted to place my order at the counter with other staff, at this point it was more then evident that those employees behind the counter had very little knowledge of English which is shocking for such a expensive establishment, who have inclusively over the recent months drastically raised their prices but also allowed their standard to drastically drop.
which leads us to question why the decision to raise prices was taken if VAT has dropped and so has the standard of their product and so has their human resource level, it Is disappointing to say that there is absolutely nothing glamorous about afters anymore.
During my last visit after a few minutes I ordered the same thing as the previous time in February a nutcase and a falooda, the scoops on the sundae were significantly smaller and were not those mentioned in the menu the presentation was very poor and inclusively not very appealing, the milk based product in the falooda tasted bland and significantly watered down which was highly disappointing as they where charging £7.45 for the sundae and £3.95 for the falooda both more expensive then in most dessert parlours EG delights in seven kings and cakes and shakes.
Whilst I was in the store I was approached by European beggars making me very uncomfortable these who were ignored by the staff.
Another incident that occurred on the same evening was a flood of teenage boys entered the establishment pushing customers in the store out of the way and throwing glass bottles and other objects at one of the managers in charge at the time also dragging members of staff over the counter and displaying extremely violent and dangerous behaviour there was also no attempt to apologise to the customers for this occurrence.
Incidents like this have proved to be a threat to the family and safe environment that afters once promoted in the past; it is also disappointing to say that the level of hygiene has inclusively dropped as there were clear signs of insects around my table and the table I occupied was not cleaned prior to being sat at the table, there was also very little attempt to advertise the Halloween season it is very disappointing to see that this establishment has let it's standard completely drop.
I went on to do further research into why this may be occurring and discovered this type of behaviour was promoted by those in charge of the establishment as they have in recent weeks promoted violent conducts within themselves in the establishment with very violent performances of aggression towards each other in the presence of their customers, the owners who are of an Asian back ground have truly surprised the Muslim community.
Also speaking to employees in the establishments of both green street and Ilford, I discovered that their salaries range from £3.50 to £4.00 and hour which is way below the minimum wage unfortunately these individuals are read more
