When you go out, it's all about fun. There is no dishes to do, food is excellent and fresh (and expensive), you are enjoying yourself and everything is nice and great. You are the customer, what you want is what you are paying for. That is how it works in a normal restaurant, except not at Amy’s Baking Company.
As early as August 2010, Scottsdale, Arizona restaurant Amy’s Baking Company began receiving poor reviews on Yelp, which became the focal point of a local news story about the restaurant and its online notoriety. That same month, owner Amy Bouzaglo responded to the backlashes on the Yelp page, calling an unhappy reviewer names including “loser” and “moron” under the guise of a five-star review.
In 2013, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay went to the failing restaurant for an episode of his reality television show Kitchen Nightmares, which aired on May 10, 2013. Owners Samy and Amy Bouzaglo blamed their poor business on “haters” who were commenting on the restaurant’s Yelp page. Despite this, the owners were depicted reheating and serving prepared food and pocketing the wait staff’s tips. During the episode, Ramsay walked out, refusing to continue helping a client for the first time in the show’s history.
One day prior to the show’s national airing, a clip from the episode was shared on the /r/Videos subreddit, billed as the “craziest restaurant owners” in the show’s history. The post gained 7,784 upvotes, 2,966 points overall and nearly 1,000 comments before it was removed from the subreddit and commenting was disabled.
On May 13, Redditor dojosnail submitted a screenshot of Amy’s Baking Company’s Facebook page to /r/CringePics, claiming that the owners were having a public meltdown over criticism from the Kitchen Nightmares episode. The post gained more than 9,200 upvotes, 2,800 points overall and nearly 2,800 comments within 48 hours. On March 14, two additional screenshots were submitted to /r/CringePics by two different Redditors, each gaining more than 1,400 points each. That evening, all three posts were removed with most of their comments hidden.
At around 6 p.m. EST on May 14, all of the offending posts had been removed from their Facebook page. The owners left a status update claiming their website as well as all of their social media accounts had been hacked and they would be working with the FBI to track down the perpetrators.
Check out the Kitchen Nightmare episode here.
Remember our Abercrombie and Fitch column last week? For one of the newest responses to it click here.