Everyone's a critic. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Be careful what you wish for. And beware the ur-cautionary tale of the Riddle's Penultimate Cafe discussion on stlbites.com.
A member of that local food-talk forum recently posted a six-paragraph wrap-up of her Friday-night, nine-guests-in-tow, "horrifying," "terrible, terrible," "stupid," "worst" birthday dinner at Riddle's. Compacted string of incendiary adjectives aside, the post (which you can read, along with the rest of the thread, here) was tempered and reasoned, offering a more-than-fair amount of observational info to back up the flame words: "we ordered our food at 7:15ish; entrees arrived at NINE;" "exactly one was hot. Two were stone cold, and the rest lukewarm at best;" "my husband waited a half hour for a refill of a Diet Pepsi."
The poster followed up saying that she'd tried twice to contact management through the restaurant's website but got no response. Until she did.
Although Andy Ayers has passed ownership of the restaurant on to his daughter, K.T., the Riddle's website still funnels messages into his mailbox. Hence when the complainant finally did receive a reply from K.T. -- which she characterized as "lovely, lengthy, apologetic... addressing each of my concerns, making no excuses" -- dangling oops-ily from the bottom was what Andy had written to K.T. in forwarding along the original email:
"This woman is plainly out for blood. I understand that she has posted this entire boatload of negativity on a Post-Dispatch restaurant blog. [stlbites.com is actually an independent site with no ties to the P-D.] And she is not content to vent - here she is again, demanding, it seems, a response."
Two days later, Andy faced the fracas head-on -- and chip-on-shoulder. From his first sentence, which disclaims his heretofore silence "because of my schedule," his salvo reads as a cavalcade of passive aggression, backhanded put-downs and puffed-up face-saving. He characterizes his forwarding comments first as "professional," then "side-splittingly hilarious miscues" and "intemperate," and lastly as a "loveable [sic] but acerbic father's sarcastic but eyes-only remarks." He states that he was only trying to "add a note of urgency for my daughter, who has, shall we say, already plenty of things to occupy her time." (Man, those Ayers folks sure are busy.) Of the complainant, he writes dumbfounded, "She refuses to accept all efforts at apology. Days later she is still seething with anger." He does not resist noting that he found this woman's handle -- ladydisdain -- to be "interesting." (Ladydisdain later explained that it's a reference to Much Ado About Nothing, her favorite play, lines from which she'd also quoted on her wedding invitation and her daughter's birth announcement.) He ends his posting with the rhetorical, "What exactly is it that you ARE out for, Lady Disdain?"
In the same way that it's disheartening to see a YouTube clip revealing your favorite actor as a cad, it's too bad to read that someone who has done so much to counter the stultifying trends of restaurant corporatization while furthering the mores of food and drink as more than just caloric nourishment (see here) has such a capacity for juvenile, unproductive, entrepreneurially counterintuitive behavior. Couldn't the cold, harsh light of day have won out over the temptingly truculent glare of a computer monitor? Where's the plain-and-simple "we messed up and I am sorry" contrition? Would a restaurateur go so bumptiously toe-to-toe with an unsatisfied customer face to face? What exactly is it that you WERE out for, Andy Ayers?
A restaurant critic usually learns the hard way (at least, I sure did) that when you pen a negative review, you must make it imperatively clear to your readers (which will include the owner of the restaurant you are slamming) that you gave the establishment every opportunity to show its best side.* "Out for blood" happens when putdowns are blasted without substantiation, or when a critic walks in the door expecting -- and therefore intuiting -- the worst. (I believe in the everybody-starts-with-an-A grading theory.) Ladydisdain seems a seasoned restaurant goer who hopes and plans for the best. In her critique, she comes off as genuinely disappointed, not gleefully judgmental. In fact, Ayers is the one who conveys not a note of authentic remorse. If you can't stand the heat... but wait, Ayers already got out of the kitchen, didn't he?
Yet many restaurateurs do ignore or blow off online customer comments that they would take quite seriously (or at least do an Oscar-worthy job pretending to) if delivered in person. On the Riddle's thread, a number of stlbites members wondered whether "owners really want to hear it," and that it may even be a problem specific to St. Louis: "They're just going to think everything was great all the time and, then, if you're the rare guy that does complain, they're not going to think you have a valid point because nobody else has ever said something similar."
Mother's Day is coming up. We''ll all be taking her out for what will hopefully be a nice meal. Let's all abide by bevavior she'd be proud of and agree to the following: Next time a customer posts negative comments about his or her dining experience, let's make sure those comments put forth a clear desire to see the restaurant do better rather than die painfully. Let's see the chef or owner responsible face up online and reply with a timely, well-intended "I am very sorry to hear that. Let me look into the matter and see what I can do." And then let's say we fellow readers be willing to accept that as a promise extended to all of us and give the benefit of the doubt. Lest we all starve. -- Rose Martelli
* To see what I mean, look for my review of Riddle's in the July issue of SLM, in a new bi-monthly column we're calling "Rose Revisits." My editor and I scheduled the review and I visited the restaurant before this situation arose online. As a critic, I've been mulling over what ladydisdain wrote and while I believe in the veracity of her statements, they have not influenced me to alter my review. Riddle's has a few shortcomings that I'll be addressing. But that kitchen still makes a mean plate of mushrooms.
