Restaurant complaints in Saudi Arabia: where they go and how owners should handle them

• Balady: hygiene, food safety at the premises, staff, smells and pests. A report is free on the Balady platform or app, or by calling 940, and the person reporting gets a report number by text message to follow it up
• Ministry of Commerce: prices that differ from what is displayed, invoices, offers and discounts. Reports go through the Balagh Tejari app with a Nafath login, or by calling 1900
• Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA): food poisoning or symptoms after eating, through the Tayaqqaz platform (ade.sfda.gov.sa)
• A Google Maps review: not an official report, but the first thing the next guest reads about your restaurant

Details and numbers change as the services are updated, so always rely on what the authority itself publishes. This guide is for information and is not legal advice.

Most guests do not start with a report. They file one when they feel no one at the restaurant listened: the dish came back with the same problem, a staff member argued, or there was no manager to talk to. A complaint solved on the spot rarely reaches the municipality or Google Maps.

• Give guests a clear way to complain inside the restaurant: the shift manager, or a contact number printed on the receipt
• Train staff on one opening line: "Sorry about that, let me fix it for you now"
• Decide who approves compensation, such as replacing a dish or removing it from the bill, so the guest does not wait

1. 1Listen to the end without interrupting, even if you think the guest is wrong
2. 2Apologize for the experience without justifying it, since a justification sounds like an argument
3. 3Fix it now: a new dish, a replacement drink, or removing the price, according to your policy
4. 4Record the complaint: date, dish, branch, staff member and what you did
5. 5Follow the cause: if different guests make the same complaint, it is an operations problem, not bad luck

If the complaint is about symptoms after eating, do not treat it as a taste or service complaint. Record the guest's details, what they ate and when, keep the dish or a sample if you can, and go to the next section.

In 2025, rules and protocols were issued for food businesses in cases of food poisoning or suspected food poisoning, with the Ministry of Municipalities and Housing and the SFDA as the relevant authorities. The main points for a restaurant:

• Name a person responsible for reporting to the authorities, and report through the official channels of the Ministry of Municipalities and Housing if the business is a restaurant
• Start withdrawing the suspected food at once, and recall it if it reached customers
• Prepare the records: suppliers and what they supplied, customers and what was delivered to them, details of the suspected food, and transport, storage and temperature conditions
• List the staff linked to the case, and do not let them or the owner travel outside the Kingdom until the investigation ends
• Do not transfer, cancel or renew the licence, or transfer any worker's sponsorship, until the procedures are complete
• Do not open or operate the business during a precautionary closure

This is a summary for information, not legal advice. Refer to the full text from the relevant authority, which is binding.

Google does not remove a review because it is negative or because it bothers you. You can report a review only if it breaks the content policies, such as abuse or content not based on a real experience. For an honest complaint, your reply is the tool: Read: negative reviews on Google Maps

• Reply calmly in the reviewer's language, Arabic or English
• Mention the actual problem they wrote about, not a copied generic reply
• Apologize and say what you changed, without blaming the guest or sharing their private details
• Invite them to contact you on the restaurant's number to finish solving it away from the comments

A reply does not change the stars, but the next guest reads how you handled the complaint before deciding. Read: how to reply to Google reviews

Repma does not delete reviews and does not handle official reports. Its job comes before and after: complaint analysis reads your Google Maps reviews from the last 30 days, sorts complaints into areas such as waiting time, staff, hygiene and price, and alerts you to serious incidents, so you see what repeats before it becomes a report. Badr writes a reply to every new review in Saudi dialect or English. From 119 SAR per location per month with a 7-day trial. Read: complaints in Google Maps reviews by area