Kolkata: It seems that the Kolkata – popularly known as 'The City of Joy' can sometimes be rude to its visitors too.
'Mocambo' – an iconic restaurant in the city – has suddenly hogged the limelight for unpleasant reasons. According to reports, this Kolkata restaurant started trending on social media platforms after a lady expressed her anguish over how she and her driver were denied permission to have a dinner because of the latter's ''improper dress.''
The lady Dilashi Hemnani was on Friday evening denied permission by the Mocambo management to have dinner with her driver since he was not neatly dressed.
Despite an argument with the waiters and personnel of the restaurant, Dilashi Hemnani failed to obtain permission to enter with her driver.
The offensive treatment by the management shattered her desire to give a dinner treat to her driver ''Manish bhaiya'' before she left the city as a reward of his service.
Upset, the lady she posted her plight on Facebook that has gone viral with many regular customers of the iconic eatery demanding an apology from the management for their offensive behaviour.
They even threatened to boycott one of the oldest multi cuisine restaurants on signature Park Street.
“How shallow and inhuman have we become,” lamented Hemnani on Facebook.
She is a senior marketing executive with an automobile major.
She was supposed to leave Kolkata on Saturday and wanted to treat “Manish bhaiya” who served her family for years.
Despite the storm on social media, Mocambo owner Nitin Kothari appeared defiant on Monday.
“We consider Mocambo to be a ‘small’ restaurant that welcomes everybody irrespective of caste, creed, race or profession. We only want our guests to be neat, clean and dressed decent. But in this case the driver accompanying the woman was not wearing a neat and clean dress that would have made other guests uncomfortable,” Kothari was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.
Hemnani wrote the pretext of the restaurant personnel was that he was not in a proper dress that would fit a “fine dining” restaurant. But when Hemnani asked the restaurant staff whether they have a dress code, they could not come up with one.
Moments later the manager came to her and alleged that the driver was drunk. Hemnani claimed he was on duty since 8 am on Friday and did not consume alcohol.
Mocambo that opened its doors in 1956 and was known for its jazz music has a number of loyal followers in the city.
