City Square Ya Kun Staff Allegedly Asks Customer To Give Up Seat, Manager Apologises

Ya Kun Staff Allegedly Shout At Customer & Insist She Give Up Seat

Different food establishments have their own ordering procedures, many of which are often easy to follow. But that was not the case at a Ya Kun Kaya Toast outlet at City Square Mall, which left one customer rather upset.

She took to the Complaint Singapore Facebook group to share her experience, where staff allegedly insisted she give up her seat and later shouted at her to leave.

Taken aback by the poor service, she also brought the matter up to the company’s management.

Customer wants to order after securing seat, told by staff to give it up

Speaking to MS News the OP, who goes by Miss S, shared that she had visited the Ya Kun Kaya Toast outlet at City Square Mall at around 1pm on 29 May.

All the tables were taken, so she waited by the side with her father, hoping someone would leave soon and free up a table.

She later noticed a woman finishing her drink and getting up from the table closest to the coffee-making station. Miss S thus wasted no time and headed there, and was about to sit when a male cashier allegedly told them to give up the table.

According to her, the cashier explained that the seats were for another customer who was already in the queue to order. Miss S noticed that the customer in question was with a companion who was seemingly still scanning for seats at the other side of the outlet.

Before approaching the table, Miss S told MS News that she assumed that all customers in line had already secured their seats.

Ya Kun staff says to queue first instead

Remembering a sign she had seen at the counter, she pointed out to the cashier that it instructed customers to “find a seat first” before queuing to order food.

Proving that she had followed the ‘rules’, Miss S was surprised when the cashier insisted that she queued first instead. She wrote in her post that he was “rude” in his speech.

Perhaps in a moment of frustration, she picked the sign up and showed it to him, highlighting that the same instructions were printed in English and Chinese.

Still, the cashier allegedly insisted she was wrong, “in a harsh tone”.

When she tried to argue further, another employee who was brewing coffee supposedly leaned forward and told her to leave if she wasn’t going to eat or drink.

Describing both staff members as seemingly “fierce”, Miss S said she felt intimidated.

Moreover, with hot water and drinks in the area, she decided it was “not a good place to argue…as anything can happen if the argument gets heated up.”

She eventually left without ordering anything.

Store manager apologises, says she’ll investigate incident

After the incident, Miss S tried to write a review about her experience via Ya Kun’s website several times. However, she claimed that she failed to get through.

She then called their customer service hotline and an officer allegedly promised to get back to her. Unfortunately, that did not happen even after a few days.

Miss S eventually called them again, and received a call back from the store’s manager the following day.

The manager apparently apologised and reasoned that the staff may have wanted to give the customer the seat as she was alone.

Miss S refuted this claim and explained that the customer had a companion.

The manager, who was not in the store during the incident, said she was unaware of the situation but would look into it.

She also offered Miss S a S$5 Ya Kun Kaya Toast voucher as compensation, which Miss S refused.

Even so, she said that she still received the voucher via WhatsApp.

Miss S has not heard from the establishment since then.

MS News has reached out to Ya Kun Kaya Toast regarding the incident. We will update the article if they respond.

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Featured image adapted from Facebook and Google Maps.