Last December, I posted about a rather intemperate Boston restaurateur (Pigalle-ing Out) who went flaming after a diner who claimed that the Thanksgiving pumpkin pie tasted like vomit. The story had an awwwwww ending: chef and diner ended up FB friending each other. Still, it was an object lesson about the perils of using social media. Let’s face it, if you’re going into the restaurant these days, the only thin skin you can afford to have is on the duck confit. You need to be able to tough out the negative comments, swallowing hard and reaching out to the wronged diners to say how sorry you are about the bad experience, and how you’re just dying to make it up to them. Sure, you may end up adding a bittle of spittle to their soup when they come back, but, that’s the cost of being in this sort of business in the era of everyone-who-walks-in-the-door might be a Mimi Sheraton or Craig Claiborne wannabe. Without having to worry about losing their amateur job as a food critic.
Anyway, the Boston vomit-pie incident was nothing compared to what’s been going on with one Arizona restaurant.
Apparently the owner of Amy’s Baking Company in Scottsdale got fed up with yelps on Yelp, and other online reviews.
As far back as 2010, Amy was going after Yelp reviewers who gave her place negative reviews:
In August 2010, Joel Latondress, an IT worker who writes a recipe blog, wrote a negative review of the restaurant on Yelp. Amy Bouzaglo responded by likening Latondress to a "tramp and a loser" writing, “Do us a favor and keep your ugly face and your ugly opinions to yourself." Bouzaglo explained her response, saying, "If someone comes here and tries to attack me or harass us I’m going to stand up and fight for what I believe in 100% in my company." Source: Wikipedia.)
This got picked up by local media and ended up in some sort of ongoing flambé war that took a while to die down.
The tension over the social media takedowns of the business reached a new level after the restaurant’s star turn on Kitchen Nightmares, which unfortunately for them did not turn into the show’s usual misty-eyed redemption. If you’ve ever watched it – and I’ve seen it a few time - the episodes usually end with the restaurant owners, with their new menus (no more frozen chicken!), the cleaned up kitchen (the scummy fry-o-lator cleaned at last!), the spiffed up dining room (out with that mildewed carpet!), fall weepily into Gordon Ramsay’s arms, forgiving every harsh word he uttered in the heat of the battle to Save Their Restaurant. (After watching a show, I always give a google, and quite of few of the eateries that Ramsay rescues end up closing despite his 48 hour effort.)
No, Gordon Ramsay wasn’t able to work his mojo, even temporarily, on Amy’s.
Instead of redemption, owners Amy and Samy Bouzaglos got damnation.
After one bite, he quickly deemed Amy’s Baking Co. a disaster and chided the Bouzaglos for growing increasingly irate over his constructive feedback. Among his many critiques: The store-bought ravioli smelled ‘‘weird,’’ a salmon burger was overcooked and a fig pizza was too sweet and arrived on raw dough.
‘‘You need thick skin in this business,’’ Ramsay said before walking out. It was the first time he wasn’t able to reform a business, according to the show. (Source: Boston.com)
In the show, the owners lash out at customers who have complaints:
"We stand up to them," Amy Bouzaglo tells the camera at one point. "They come and they try to attack us and say horrible things that are not true."
Nothing says come on back like having the restaurant owner attack you when you let them know the soup is cold!
Years ago, my husband and I ate La (late and lamented) Cote Basque in NYC. We had the smoked salmon appetizer, which we had had a number of times before. Not really complaining, just asking, Jim asked the waiter if the salmon was different and mentioned that he’d preferred the earlier version. Indeed, the salmon was different. The chef-owner came over, white toque, apron and all, and explained that they had switched suppliers, and the salmon was now Norwegian rather than from Scotland, and that they had perhaps not tested it well enough, etc. For dessert, he came over to the table and personally whipped up an orange crème chantilly to go with the fabulous chocolate ganache the restaurant was known for.
Now that’s how to respond to a customer complaint. (Not that we were complaining, mind you.)
Anyway, after Kitchen Nightmares aired a few weeks back, Amy boogalooed over to Facebook and let ‘er rip.
‘‘I AM NOT STUPID ALL OF YOU ARE,’’ read the posting on the Facebook wall of Amy’s Baking Co. in suburban Phoenix. ‘‘YOU JUST DO NOT KNOW GOOD FOOD.’’
And Amy, unfortunately, hadn’t snagged the URL for her name, leading to some of her enemies – I suspect from the tenor of it, we may be talking ex-employees here – to set up an incredibly nasty site in her name. (I won’t link it here. However vile the Bouzaglos may be, I’m not a big fan of the c-word or anti-Semitism.)
Personally, I take online reviews of anything – especially the vitriolic ones typically posted by anonymous commenters who use the invisibility cloak of anonymity to be more savage than they’d be in “real life” – with a grain of salt. I’ve seen plenty of reviews of places that I like that are full of complaints – complaints that may well be legitimate in the moment: any diner can have an off-night food- and service-wise. We went to one of our go-tos the other evening and had a new waiter, one we hadn’t had before, who was just god-awful. I suspect he won’t still be working there next time we stop in, but if he is, we would prefer not to sit in his station. But unless I see review, after review, after review dumping on a place, I won’t necessarily shy away from it (okay, if someone mentioned rats…), especially if the restaurant had some sort of response.
But I would be exceedingly reluctant to step toe and lift fork in a restaurant in which the owners went on the attack like Amy Bouzaglo has done.
In the wake of the Kitchen Nightmares airing, the restaurant closed temporarily, but may or may not be back in business.
If it is, it may not be for long.
Change.org now has a petition going asking the Department of Labor to investigate whether the owners pocketed tips meant for their servers. (This was shown on the Kitchen Nightmares episode.)
The restaurant’s PR firm quit on them, since the Bouzaglos had ignored their wise advice not to flame out online.
Information on Amy Bouzaglo’s felonious past has surfaced.
And it seems that Samy Bouzaglo is in danger of being deported. (He also has a criminal record.) Nothing to do with the show, but it sure won’t be helping build their business back up. (Source: AZ Central.)
Anyway, for Amy’s Baking Company, there’s sure been a kitchen nightmare that they haven’t been able to wake up from. And it’s mostly off their own making.
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