Diner kicked out for confronting shouty chef...

[cdh]

This article and its comments are sort of fun...

 

 

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/201...saturday-night/

[Rail Paul]

This article and its comments are sort of fun...

 

 

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/201...saturday-night/

 

 

283 comments so far. How dare a customer enter the "sacred space" and tell a chef he was disturbing the customers

 

When I called him on Monday to tell him I was writing this post about the evening, Mr. Forgione, in fact, said that I had scolded him like a child on Saturday night. “First and foremost, you came into my kitchen and spoke to me very disrespectfully in front of my cooks,” he said. “The kitchen is a sacred space.” He told me that my reply to his attempts to explain why he was yelling, while I was in the kitchen was, “We’re not interested.” That sounds about right, since we hadn’t come to the restaurant to listen to him yell repeatedly at his staff about whatever it was that he thought they were doing wrong.

 

That wasn’t what got us kicked out though, according to Mr. Forgione. He claimed that he didn’t decide to ask us to leave until he explained to us tableside that his yelling was all in the interest of making everything perfect. “Well you aren’t,” he remembers me saying. “And then,” he continued, “you waved a hand in my direction as if I was an annoying bug. Someone who acts like that in my restaurant, I would never serve.”

[Daniel]

Sad... Sounds like a spoiled brat.

[mongo_jones]

which one?

[Daniel]

The writer sounds like he has been given lots of wedgies in his day. The chef, a spoiled brat.

[9lives]

Closest I've come to this was in the early 80's.5/6 coworkers and I went out to a nicer (sit down/waiter service) burger.sandwich beer spot. We were near the pass through from the kitchen to the dining room. 1 of the chefs was speaking in a loud voice, F** thi, F***that in, hard to ignore. No clue as to whether he was scolding staff or just having a bad day. None of us had children or wives with us but it was getting to a point where it was irritating...and it's not a word that any of us hadn't used before. 1 of my coworkers called over the mgr, told him to tell the guy to shut his f**ing mouth or he'd go back and shut it for him.Mgr went to the kitchen spoke to the guy..meal continued uneventfully.

[marauder]

Marc is a douche. Always has been. He thinks he is his dad...and we'll he ain't. That being said, no reason for a "blogger" or whatever this journalist is, to publish a piece like that other than to create a buzz where there is none. In my view, they are both wrong.

[splinky]

sounds like noone was wearing their their grown up pants that day. no customer needs to be hearing a business owner/boss berating his staff and unless the business owner/boss is breaking the law or endangering lives a concerned party should be satisfied with bringing their concerns to that owner/boss' attention. tattling in print and trying to look like a mensch while doing so is pretty lame. the writer was not, as he seems to think, dropping a dime on the triangle shirt factory owners, before the fire.

[marauder]

sounds like noone was wearing their their grown up pants that day. no customer needs to be hearing a business owner/boss berating his staff and unless the business owner/boss is breaking the law or endangering lives a concerned party should be satisfied with bringing their concerns to that owner/boss' attention. tattling in print and trying to look like a mensch while doing so is pretty lame. the writer was not, as he seems to think, dropping a dime on the triangle shirt factory owners, before the fire.

 

Exactly. This is hardly the stuff that needs to be put to print for the greater good.

[Wilfrid]

Nobody comes out of that well.

[Suzanne F]

Note that Lieber is a financial reporter/editor. Not food, not culture, not science, not lifestyle, but financial. That suggests to me that there is something fishy about the whole blog post -- that he is making it not as a contribution to any dining news, but because he has enough pull to be allowed to shoot his mouth off.

 

Which is not to condone what Forgione did. But I do wonder why that post needed to be made.

[splinky]

no way to know for sure but it certainly seems like a misuse of the writer's power/access to settle a personal score and the weird thing is the writer's beef was mostly about having his dinner ruined not about rescuing the berated worker. you ruin my dinner, i leave your restaurant or don't come back. i don't try to ruin your reputation or business in "the paper of record" for the area

[KRamsey]

I have bitched out managers of restaurants for bitching out their restaurant staff in front of customers. It is never okay--do it in your back office or something, or in the bathroom, if that serves as your office. Don't want to hear it or witness you treating your employees like shit. I don't know why this issue would be so complex.

[oakapple]

Channeling his inner Joe Dobias.

[Ron Johnson]

two wrongs dont make a right . . .

it takes two to tango . . .

i know you are but what am I?