Why Restaurant Owners Are Exploding

From Slate "The Big Money; Daily Bread, the Business of Food"

Why Restaurant Owners Are Exploding


By Dan Mitchell

Posted Friday, November 20, 2009 - 2:19pm

Restaurateurs are going through hard times. So hard that some of them are starting to lash out, either at their customers or at their own employees.

In Bethlehem, Pa., two college students received what they said was terrible service at the Lehigh Pub. That establishment, like many others, tacks on an 18 percent "gratuity" to every bill for large parties—in this case, six or more. The two students, who were with four friends, refused to pay the tip, and were arrested.

As Larry David hilariously pointed out in a recent episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, such gratuities are gratuitous. They shouldn't exist, and waiters should be tipped according to the level of service they provide, no matter how large the party. That, after all, is the operant idea behind tipping.


From what the college students—Leslie Pope and John Wagner—said about their experience at the Lehigh Pub, the waiter deserved nothing. They had to fetch their own silverware and napkins while their waiter was out smoking. They had to ask the bartender for soda refills. They waited more than an hour for their meals.

The bill, sans the "tip" of $16.35, came to $73.87. The Lehigh Pub took the money but then called the cops, who arrested the two for theft of service.

"Gratuity is thanking you for your service," Pope told the Lehigh Valley Express-Times. "You can’t give us terrible, terrible service and expect a tip."

According to the NBC affiliate in Pennsylvania, the restaurant offered to comp the meal itself, but the couple refused, apparently on principle. Dan Jaffe of the DUI Attorney blog wrote: "On what planet does the logic of offering a $73 dollar comp, which was declined, justify going after the couple for paying the $73, but then refusing to pay the 'required' $16 tip?"

Since news of the arrest broke a few days ago, people poured onto the Lehigh Pub's Yelp page to give bad reviews. As of this writing, there are 381 reviews with an aggregate rating of one star. The overwhelming majority of those came since the arrest, but earlier ones, written by people who had actually dined there, rated the place anywhere between terrible and mediocre.

The couple have pending court dates.

In terms of sheer rage, however, no restaurateur beats Vadim Ponorvsky, owner of Paradou in New York's meatpacking district.

Gawker got ahold of an e-mail Ponorvsky sent to his employees, berating them with abusive language and threats for not collecting enough e-mail addresses from diners. Presumably, he wants to spam his clientele, which just makes the whole thing that much more insane. (Who wants their waiter asking for their e-mail address?)

The language in Ponorovsky's lunatic rant is probably too blue for my editors to accept, or else I would paste in some of the e-mail here. But check out the Gawker post and feel the rage. It's really quite something.


Dan Mitchell has written for The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The MInneapolis Star-Tribune and Wired.