Page 55 of Summer at Rachel’s Pudding Pantry

Next, she took a look at Instagram. There were comments below the lemon meringue pie image of ‘Looks scrumptious!’ and ‘Lemonlicious’, which made Rachel smile, and then another of ‘I’m coming right away. Save me a slice.’ A further comment read, ‘Been to your Pudding Pantry last month and it was a delight. Looking forward to visiting again soon’. She sent a little ‘thank you’ reply, saying that they looked forward to welcoming them back. Aw, this was heart-warming, and the best kind of publicity when customers had a lovely time and shared their experiences.

And then came the worst kind of publicity in another comment: ‘Never to return! Food very average. Stodgy scone. Poor staff, no acknowledgement or friendliness, almost verging on rudeness.’

Reading it made Rachel go cold. Rachel was ready to champion Jill’s melt-in-the-mouth scones, though it was just possible someone hadn’t enjoyed theirs, but they always made a point of welcoming every guest with a smile and a hello, often a quick chat too. Even in the busiest of times, if someone came in, they would at the very least acknowledge them. Rachel knew that you couldn’t be perfect all the time and that expectations might be different for different customers. One person had commented a few weeks ago that they had been put off by the dreadful farmyard smells in the yard – well, the Pantry was on a farm, after all. But this latest comment seemed different – malicious, almost …

Next she turned to TripAdvisor. Rachel opened the page whilst holding her breath. And yes, below a couple of lovely four- and five-star reviews, there was a one-star, their very first. She read on with a feeling of dread. All their hard work, their achievements so far, felt as if they were being obliterated: ‘Absolutely shocking! Awful all round. The woman serving was rude and uninterested. Sticky toffee pudding vile – dry, tasteless and like a brick. Overpriced. One of the worst tearooms I have ever been in. Never to return. WOULD NOT RECOMMEND.’

Underneath that were some additional comments in reply, saying, ‘Thanks for the heads-up.’ And, ‘Sounds like another café that doesn’t live up to the hype.’

Rachel sat at the steering wheel feeling gutted. Had someone really felt they had had such a bad time? And why had nobody drawn it to their attention on the day? Her head was spinning.

With trembling fingers, she rang Eve. She needed a second opinion. An outsider’s view. Maybe she was just taking it too much to heart with it being their business – the venture they’d put all their savings and soul into. ‘Hi … Eve, can you do me a quick favour? Take a look at our Pudding Pantry Instagram and TripAdvisor reviews, can you? And ring me back, hun.’

‘Ah, okay. Why?’

‘Just see what you think.’ She didn’t want to influence her friend either way.

Within a minute her mobile was ringing.

‘Oh, my God. That’s awful, Rach. That’s trolling, that is.’

‘Do you think it’s real? That those customers have had such bad experiences? But we haven’t had any complaints made in the Pantry at all.’

‘Well, maybe one person had a rare off experience, or it could just be one of those professional moaners,’ Eve conceded, ‘though I can’t see you or Jill being rude to anyone. Might there have been a stodgy scone lurking in the batch? Who knows!’

‘Hey, you, don’t be so cheeky! But yeah, I could cope with one poor comment coming in in the last couple of days, but suddenly these three or four together on Facebook and Instagram, and then that TripAdvisor one was particularly dreadful …’

‘I know, and Jill’s sticky toffee is famous around here.’

‘Oh Eve. What if people believe this? It’ll put them off coming. After all the hard work we’ve put in this last year, setting the Pantry up, getting our name established.’ She went quiet for a moment or two, with Eve sighing in support down the line. ‘Maybe I can delete the bad comments off our Facebook page? I suppose I could look into that, but who’s seen them already? I can’t take anything off TripAdvisor, though, that’s out of my control.’

‘You could maybe report it?’

‘Maybe … But how do they know it wasn’t justified? Like, no wonder I’m saying we’re great, ’cos I run the place.’

‘Well, why don’t you see if anything else goes on tomorrow, and I’ll help you look into what we can do to counter it in the meanwhile? See if we can block the comments or something.’

‘Okay … Thank you, my friend.’

‘No worries, I’ll defend Jill’s sticky toffee till the death!’

It was on her mind all night. Rachel found herself restless and unsettled, trying to think who might possibly be behind it. Could there be another Pudding Pantry somewhere and they were mistakenly getting their reviews?

She felt very much like joining Tom in his bear cave. By three a.m., she was up and standing in the kitchen, hugging a mug of tea by the light of a half-moon. She looked out over her moon-bathed fields, mellow in their night-time grey filter. It was so peaceful, a beautiful, calm summer’s night – in contrast to her troubled mind. Opening the porch door as quietly as she could, she stepped outside, her feet bare. It was cool but not cold. It grounded her in fact. She gazed across her land, and then back to the barn across the yard, the Pudding Pantry. She loved this place, her farm, and the fabulous tearooms they had created. No one should be able to say these awful things, not if they weren’t true. Whatever happened next, she vowed to do her utmost to stand up for the Pudding Pantry, and all that it meant to them.

29

Sure enough, the next day, there were yet more negative comments spilling in, some on TripAdvisor, some on their Instagram page, one on Facebook. This time Rachel checked out the profiles of those who were posting. They were all different. Some with pictures of pets, or places in the North of England. But, suspiciously, none had a face in the profile picture and nearly all of them had been created within the last week or so. Very curious.

She read: ‘Looked like the place has never seen a mop or cloth’, and, ‘Staff rude, never bothered to say hello’, ‘Unfriendly and uninspiring’. And again: ‘I would not recommend.’

There was an air of ingenuity about them all. In fact, an air of maliciousness.

Rachel took a deep breath. There was no way she was going to take this lying down. Let battle commence.

She answered the comments one by one, saying that they took huge pride and care in the quality and friendliness of their tearooms, and pointing out that these matters should have been drawn to their attention at the time so they could have been discussed and rectified straight away. She also started compiling a log of comments, profiles and timings of these negative responses. Then, if needs be, she was ready to report them.

In the whole of their last year of trading there had been just one ‘two-star’ review on TripAdvisor. And there had been six ‘one-stars’ in the past three days – something was definitely up.