Occasionally I go on some unhealthy rants. Some things stick in my craw longer than others. I carry grudges and love to have the last word. I walk around with this vengeful attitude that if you disrespect me I have to come back at you to make sure you didn’t get the best of me.

Frankly it’s exhausting

Got me in a lot of fights growing up. I quit the fighting years ago once I became I father. Don’t want to give off that vibe to my daughter and her birth also softnened my ass by about 900%. I got chip on my shoulder honest. A part of it was my generation I suppose, when you got disrespected you had a conversation after school in the parking lot. There was no mouth running without consequences in my youth. One of the two of you were about to have a reckoning. I was always fine with running my mouth. My anger issues kept me warm and ready even if my 120lb soak and wet ass had to fight harder for it.

Over time and age I’ve slowly turned the other cheek my legacy means something to me now so it’s not an automatic reflex to smack someone upside the head when they get out of hand. A lot of you need it but I’m no longer accepting applications.

I’m old. I’m tired.

Imagine having this type of person as a front of the house representative in a restaurant handing table calls and responding to angry emails. My facial expression enters the chat as confrontation without even trying. I’m not frowning. My smiles are mostly upside down.

When customers would complain at the steakhouse and good god almighty there were quite a few. Those type of concepts herd in all sorts of clientele, some there just to eat a decent meal with family and leave. Others were complaining lifers that would leave angrily every week and come back over and over to find something to bitch about. I always had to deal with these people if they got out of hand. I was the pit boss. If the assistants or keys were getting their faces ripped off my unruly customers I was the final boss between a free handout or a cautious but sturdy conversation. To most of everyone’s surprise I handled most of these curtly and professionally. I won most of the confrontations most of the time it’s just a misunderstanding. People get hangry. I get it. I’m there to feed you and give you a reason to see me again and again. If the complaint was genuine I made it my point to fix it with sincerity and transparency. I’d tell you exactly what had happening.

“Kitchen is overwhelmed”

“Fryer went out”

“Server is frazzled I’ll send out a let and SA to attend your table for the rest of the night”

Usually a quick update on bread service or soup calmed them down. Sometimes there was no making them happy and we’d agree to disagree knowing I may never see them again but at least I know when they left we both did the best we could. If I saw these people out somewhere I’d buy a round of drinks for them and shake their hands when I left. They always came back and they’d bring friends with them. Those were my favorite. I turned them and brought them back. That’s a huge win. Some have come to the deli because of it.

Some however you wash your hands of their patronage because they don’t behave themselves in public.

The steakhouse had some fine regulars during my 16 years of employment there. Jesus it still amazes me I worked there that long. I worked there long enough to watch people who went there on dates to starting a families together and then their party of two became party of three, four and then some. I remember one family fondly that came in all the time. I watched their son go from toddler to kicking field goals for the Arizona Cardinals. He went to Clemson it’s not that hard to figure out his name if you google it but I served these folk from AZ to SC and they became regulars there too. I love an easy going loyal customer. You will get the best of me and my effort every time.

On the other side of the spectrum we had Big Bird, an unpleasant woman who resembled the Sesame Street character, always ordered a medium well marinated sirloin with black beans and rice no onions. She would raise hell if we put chopped onion garnish on her beans. “I’m allergic to onion!” She would scream. The black beans recipe, a rich molé with dark chocolate (I loved those beans) also had about a half gallon of sauted onions in the sauce.

Allergic indeed.

She would send her steak back every time for being undercooked or under marinated. She was a vile unhappy specimen of a human being. Every week she said she’d never come back and every Saturday night she would come back and sit her Sesame Street ass on the same side of the booth with her man (yes they were same seater booty people *cringe). My last month working there I sat a barstool next to thier booth and said “fuck it” and shot the shit with them. Every time I saw them after that they were pleasant and smiling.

She still sent her shit back though.

Two specs the steakhouse always honored that would cause me to do table calls every weekend were 1. If you ordered a well done filet and man we had our share of them, we automatically butterflied them. So instead of getting these fat plump filets they would get a shoe sole with grill marks on it. Hard to remove that little red line of goodness in the middle of a steak that’s 2 inches thick without flattening it. So that’s what we did. Some customers would get mad because “Quincy’s never did that” and I’d have to go out and have a chat with them. One customer argued it was not a filet but a sirloin. We went back and forth and he said he was going to call the owner. I pulled my Nokia cellphone out of my pocket. Hit “Big Daddy” on speed dial and handed the customer my cellphone. Neither the customer nor my boss were happy with me.

The second steakhouse spec was well done prime rib orders were scored on the grill to expedite the cooking process. All you weekend grill warriors refer to this as reverse searing. We just did it to brown the shit out of the pink. If we had an end cut we’d soak it in the jus for a few minutes to kill the last bit of flavor out of it for you but if it were center we’d score it. To the basic customer and that was 99% of our clientele it looked like a ribeye because well it sort of is. Its the same part of the pastured bovine but a different cooking process. This was extremely difficult to explain to people. We lost quite a few customers due to the miss communication and overall ignorance of specs. I had one guy walk into the kitchen and slam his scorched ribeye down on expo. My abrasive KM and I walked him to his car.

I know customer service and the importance of hospitality. Anyone that works for me knows my philosophy is feed them with love and good food and they’ll come back.

But

When they start screaming, cursing or show their ass my hospitality goes out the door. My employees also know this. If you are rude to my staff I’ll politely show you the door. There’s absolutely nothing on that plate in front of you for you to act rude and disrespectful. My evaluation centered around the customer’s disposition and the server’s attitude. I know my staff. If I saw that a personality conflict ensued I reprimanded my server. I was a server for a decade. I could get snappy it happens. With the customers I could tell you before I made it to the table that I was going to win or lose the battle. All these years I’ve gotten pretty good at reading body language. I’d usually sigh to myself and think “let’s get this over with.” We’d chat, they’d start cussing at me, I’d get a sneer, a plate pushed towards me and they’ll start yelling. I’ll quietly grab their plates of food and walk away. After about 5 or 6 minutes of sitting their with nothing in front of them they’d get up and leave.

Most of the time

When you start yelling and cursing the conversation ends. No reason to make a scene for all to see. By the time they realize what you did they’ve embarrassed themselves and usually leave. If it went up another notch I dialed the police. I had no interest fighting anyone but I’ve had to escort a few out the door. It’s funny how the mentality changes after your both standing outside and you notice the manager has taken off his apron.

In 30 years of service I’ve never laid a hand on someone from a miscommunication or an argument stemming from a table call. Ok one time I elbowed an asshat downtown the night after he disrespected me at work but he had it coming for sometime. It was personal. The other parking lot confrontations ended quickly. Usually the customer gets sober real fast when they see the situation. I’m not a big person. If it’s more than one person I have my kitchen give me a hand. Do you really want to confront 4 ex cons with sharp knives in their hands? I don’t think so. If I can intimidate line cooks I’m not worried about a schmuck who claims to know karate or “sees red” when they get angry. *yawn everyone says that.

I’m barely 5’11” and my weight class hovers around 175. I’ve had plenty of experience of getting physically harassed in my younger days. It turns you into a different person. Your knee jerk response is to reply physically. Even now when another local business went sideways and got a little disrespectful next to my deli. My actions were “I’m better than this I’m going to ignore it. I’m the better man.” The back of my mind was already preparing my muscle memory of where I’ll hit him first, second, third and it necessary if he continues his aggression.

You can take the boy out of Piedmont but..

Listen it would take a lot for me to hit someone now. It would take an act of aggression that left me no choice. I’m tired man.

I was going somewhere with this.

Yes

I had to look at the title.

Reviewists

I’m all over the place when it comes to restaurant bloggers and reviewers. I have respect for some and others I sort of want to stick your face in a plate of hot fresh mashed potatoes. It’s not hard to figure out which are honest and are insightful. Others are doing it for notoriety. Again nothing wrong with that if it’s an honest reflection. It wont hold as much salt with me if you’ve never worked in a restaurant.

Same goes for any occupation or talent. I love football and baseball. It’s the only two sports I’ll sit and watch if I have time. I always call out the fat couch surfers who bust the chops of professional or college athletes. Or the sports commentators that haven’t played a sport since before their first pube dropped on the bathroom floor.

Suit up or shut up has always been my philosophy.

It’s the same for the service industry. “Have you ever operated a restaurant?” “Do you have any goddamn idea how hard it is to keep one afloat?”

I’m an insider I have advantages others don’t have. I’ve seen and experienced it all. So like some of those ex athletes that sit along with the commentators wearing their expensive suits across from each other I get the urge to shake people and scream “YOU ARE AN ENTITLED TWIT”

But

I can’t because I’m back in this shit once again. I have to behave myself again.

I get reviews. I’m not against reviews at all. If you want to express yourself to the world about your tuna fish sandwich then by all means. Just make sure you know what the fuck you’re talking about. And don’t do it as an emotional response.

When I read customer reviews I usually let out a large sigh and think “Jesus fucking Christ on a crutch you aren’t even close” I hate Google, yelp and all of those other plateaus (I don’t keep up with them for that reason) that are in place for you share your experience so quickly. There should be a better peer review.

“Is this person an asshole? Most of Kyle’s reviews are below 3 stars.”

“Is this person educated?” Kyle can’t spell “grevy”

“Sorry Kyle you’ve entered 100 reviews we are closing your account. Go find a fucking hobby you noob”

My last review “disappointed to find another deli in Greenville that’s not a NY deli.”

Read what you just wrote.

Ok

Read it again.

This is why I had to put the bottle down.

“Pricey” I’ll fight this to the grave yall. If I’ve ever been accused of anything it’s that I don’t charge enough. I want everyone to be able to afford my food. My charcuterie boxes have not gone up in price in 3 years plus. Have you watched grocery prices climb? I haven’t budged. That means I’m losing potential profit. Sorry my prices don’t reflect 50s Mayberry you old coot.

Reviews trigger me. Opening up a business will take years off of your short and precious life. Most of us put a lot of passion into our business. I give it my all. My food I want to be adored. Fresh, curated and thoughtful. My atmosphere cozy and warm, service friendly and memorable. If I come up short I will bend over backwards to fix it. I will reshape my menus, floor plans and philosophies if it’s not working.

It’s personal. It’s fucking suppose to be.

I’ve gotten some shitty reviews that I’ve deserved. I dropped the ball and fell on my face. I’ll reach out to any review to explain with transparency and will go out of my way to fix it if you allow me to. I’m not perfect I fuck up a lot of shit.

I forgot to put sauerkraut on a Reuben last week and all I could think about was if he comes back I’m making this man another Reuben and taking care of it. He chose to eat at my establishment and I didn’t meet his expectations.

He came back. I took care of him. I was genuine and his response was too. He’ll be back again.

It’s the ignorant ones that grind my gears man.

Some of you need that keyboard shoved up your ass.

Reviews are around for a reason. They do keep us honest. As long as you are honest too. Don’t ever use one to tear a business down. Unless you’ve exhausted every single other options of communication.

Some businesses don’t give a shit. So be it. It’s on them but speaking for others it’s always for me

“did you reach out to the company first to discuss your issue?

“Did you speak with a manager before you left?”

“Nah, my French fries were underwhelming I’ll post a review about it as soon as I get in my car. People need to read this to heed my warning. Although taste buds are suggestive and unique mine are paramount and my opinion should be posted publicly. I haven’t had a blow job since Bush was in the Oval Office and I’m miserable.”

I’ve had confrontations with unruly customers and thought “that actually went well’ and then 20 minutes later they’re leaving a scathing review on yelp because I didn’t pay for their entire meal. Sorry yall I’m not that manager.

Also fuck yelp

I’ve never berated a reviewer except for one. I’ve had some ex chef cunt come at me on trip advisor and insult my tattoos, food, and RBF. I’m sure he was just upset that his tweezer food concept in Asheville shit the bed. I replied professionally and then crop dusted him and his boyfriend at the Pumphouse. It was the most my wife would allow me to do.

The one I confronted was an ex employee asshat who reviewed Habitap one week after he didn’t show up for his shift. He made up some shit so I acted accordingly. I responded to his review. He referred to himself as a chef which is like calling me a doctor of medicine. After I responded I made sure his current employer was aware if what a dick bag he was and he was later severed from his employment. He also lived in cherrydale while I resided there so I made it a point to look for him in every public place I frequented. Have I mentioned how petty I am?

Also don’t piss off someone who has your address, Social Security number and bank draft info. I would never but there’s always a first time..

I’ve been fortunate with Chadcuterie. Not so mainstream and man it’s hard to get mad at a box of charcuterie. Also up until last month I’ve worked solo so anytime I even got the vibe that I was half assing a product I started over. Not much drama in the charcuterie world. All my reviews were positive. Haven’t lost a single customer that I know of although I think one of my longest termed clients might’ve found another coochie hookup. A little disappointing. Loyalty isn’t what it used to be.

Rant over

Grazeland opened itself up to being back on Google and yelp. It’s necessary I get it but I stil hate it, Some of you don’t get what a bad day to you can do to a small business. Especially, sorry if this offends you but some of you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. It’s impossible for me to bite my tongue if you misrepresent my company. It’s my child I’m always going to take up for it. At the same time I will be the first to spread my cheeks if I dropped the ball. I fuck up shit all the time. I left sauerkraut off of a guy’s Reuben two weeks ago and could not relax until he came back in again and I made it right. My brand is my legacy and my legacy is my brand. I know I’m a very outspoken person but I give my food my all. That’s why I make as much from scratch as I can and you never see freezers in my deli. It’s all scratch and fresh

As it should be.

Cheers!