Maeve Dagnall was one of a party of three customers who made a difficult day at Speed Daal considerably worse.
Like many eateries, they were having problems due to the COVID-19 pandemic and were trying to survive the loss of business that they had encountered. A booking of twelve from Maeve to celebrate a golden wedding was deemed to help matters, even though it was made just the day before as another venue cancelled on the Dagnall family. Alya Nazir voiced her fears that it would be too full on and Elaine Jones, a sleeping partner in the business, offered her services to help the event go smoothly.
The restaurant got in a number of decorated helium balloons and eagerly awaited the party but only three people arrived: Maeve, her son Jimmy and her elderly mother. With few apologies, Maeve told them that her sister and her brood weren't coming as they were expecting the delivery of a parcel, and her own husband claimed that he was stuck in work. Moreover, there was no actual anniversary to celebrate as her father had died twenty years ago but they still liked to mark the occasion. Maeve asked for two bottles of Prosecco and wasn't impressed when she was told that the restaurant was alcohol free.
To add to the problems, the delivery driver was late with his supplies when they especially needed flour for naan bread and their other menu choices. This caused Maeve to pull her face and she wasn't mollified by the offer of free rice. Things got considerably worse as Jimmy had brought along his pet tarantula, Larry, which took advantage of his loosened Tupperware box lid to escape and make his way across the floor. It wasn't long before two customers screamed at the sight, but the Dagnalls were unconcerned: Maeve and her mother refused to help recapture the creature, and Jimmy was in the toilet while reading his comic. When he eventually returned and tried to find Larry, his mother and gran carried on nonchalantly eating their meal while Jimmy threatened legal action if his pet was lost. Maeve laughed at Elaine's attempts to make them pay for the lost custom caused by other fleeing customers and commented that this had happened before, especially in JD Sports.