You used to swim along in ignorance

Vine truther Jennifer Nugent refuses to keep her mouth shut, and delivers to you a tale of stunningly terrible customer service.

Recently, I have been hearing a lot of horror stories about Vine, Columbia’s most convenient sushi supplier. Just last week, I witnessed a customer in the process of getting reimbursed for a meal he had at Vine. He had asked the server if there were nuts in his meal and was assured that there were not. However, upon receiving his meal, he realized that there was peanut sauce on his dish. The argument that I witnessed occurred when he brought his receipt to the front desk and explained the situation. Although the Vine representative refunded his dish, she insisted that Vine “was not responsible for his life” and that he should be more careful next time. In fairness to Vine, they cannot be held accountable for every life choice people make. Food poisoning from old fish? You should’ve made better choices! Asked for no wasabi and they put it in anyway? Drink more water!

I was astounded by what I had heard and, like the product of my generation that I am, immediately came home to tell my friends. They responded that they had had similarly negative experiences. One had been to Vine with a group of friends, and was reprimanded by the waitress after leaving a normal tip. She reportedly told the group that they all had to pay more before allowing them to leave, even going so far as to mock their surprise.

It seems that Columbia students in particular are falling prey to Vine’s policies, but reviews on Yelp show that they’re not alone: one user describes the same tip-pressuring experience, saying that his party was getting together cash for the tip when a waitress came up and demanded rudely, “tip more.” Another Yelp user, this one a clear wordsmith, noted that “Vine gets the job done, but is far from spectacular.” Reviews cite everything from “bad customer service”, a “cattle car” atmosphere during crowded times, and flies in their soup (really!) as reasons to not patronize the restaurant.

However, Vine is open later than most restaurants and serves cheap, good (??) food, so what’s a Columbia student to do? You can avoid the restaurant altogether, and stick to John Jay, where you can have the signature John Jay roll, a combination of avocado and tasteless. Or, since it seems that these negative experiences are derived from in-person experiences, you can stick to Seamless or takeout, and can patronize Vine hassle-free.

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