Waiter actually yelled at us. Most horrible restaurant experience ever, in 25 years of travelling.
The waiter, who claimed to be owner of the Lindenkeller, was ridiculously choleric, smoked in the non-smoking department, tried to actually force us to order food, and yelled at us.
Right. Where to begin?
Nov 7, 2010, around 7 p.m. The Lindenkeller was basically empty. This, in itself is a sign of its "quality" as it's located a mere 200 meters from the renowned Stephansdom, and the streets were humming with tourists. We asked for a table in the non-smoking room, and for a good while we were the only guests there.
Then we were handed the menues and served two small bread rolls (worth 30 cent each) with a tiny piece of butter, without the waiter EVER asking us if we wanted to order food at all. Note that you often get served bread in Vienna which is NOT free, but as long as you don't touch it, you won't be charged for it. More on this later ...
Because I knew from an earlier visit that the food was terrible and overpriced, we decided to just stick with a couple of wines and enjoy the historic building for a bit. (Pro-tip: If you do a little bit of research you'll find out that it's not even that historic at all ...)
Two waiters took turns trying to push us into ordering dinner. I stated very clearly that we didn't wish to eat, and if anything at all maybe a small dessert later on, after a few glasses of wine.
The waiter then sat down at a table in the (non-smoking!) room and looked at us grumpily. Then he lit up a cigarette and went into the kitchen. With the cigarette! Right.
I waved to him and asked him if he was sure this was the non-smoking department of the restaurant, and then he totally lost it, and rushed aggressively towards our table yelling at us and calling us comedians and demanding us to order food.
I asked for the bill, and surprise, surprise he charged us 4 Euros (!) for the bread rolls. I refused to pay for those, as we hadn't touched them. He yelled at us that we can take them home and threw one of the rolls into the butter!
I still refused to pay those 4 EUR and he pushed off and returned with the corrected bill.
I was happy to have enough cash on me so I could just throw it on the table.
He came after us, calling us names and yelling at us, all the way upstairs, and even in front of the entrance.
There.
We won't go there ever again.
There are amazing restaurants in Vienna with fantastic food, nice waiters and really good value for money. The Lindenkeller is not one of them. read more