I like Stachowski’s a lot. Jamie, the owner can be very combative, however. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, he owned a quite good restaurant on M Street, Restaurant Kolumbia, which was right by where my office was then. He had just spectacular flame wars with customers on the review sites (Yelp or Trip Advisor, I don’t remember).
I was just looking at a very favorable puff piece about Stachowski in the Washington Post in 2012, which described him as having “a difficult persona” and a “volatile temperament,” and a drive that is “perhaps totally over-the-top loopy.”"
I actually love the Yelp reviews where thin-skinned restaurant owners get into flame wars with any customer who is even slightly critical. I remember a restaurant in Titusville, Florida that was quite good, but that had terrible Yelp ratings because the owner engaged in truly nasty hand-to-hand combat with any local who dared to leave anything less than a glowing review. Fun stuff.
John Tanner and I ran into a similar character out at Odd Barbecue last week. I put up a review on Yelp that was good (4 stars) but was critical of his refusing to talk with John (which was embarrassing to me). He responded with this: “It’s a shame you chose to share this publicly, it seems your intention is to wound us in some way for causing your embarrassment.”
He has other customer responses that are even more aggressive:
Kelly W (6/21/2021) - “Please do us and everyone in the industry a favor, learn how to cook, stay home and keep your crappy opinions to yourself.”
Regina D (8/4/2021) - “Haters gonna hate… This user was clearly flustered that someone in the service industry wasn’t kissing their bottoms and couldn’t handle processing their own payments.”
Kin K (7/30/21) - “These kind of ‘reviews’, ones in which a business owner has no chance to make it right, are not helpful to an already battered industry and are very telling of the type of person that writes them. There are people behind the food you so proudly insult, and we have sacrificed so much of our time, energy and health to make the best possible product for our customers. Please reconsider how you interact with the businesses you visit, you may find that kindness, honesty and sincerity will get you better results.”
Fun stuff, as I said.
