Social media no-no has restaurant doing major damage control
Apr. 24, 2013 1:46 AM
If fumanchu85 didn’t like the amount of a tip or a customer’s behavior at Padi restaurant in Hockessin, he let everyone know it.
Sometimes, the restaurant employee took photos of credit card receipts that showed the patron’s name.
Sometimes, the employee surreptitiously snapped the customer’s photo.
Then, to shame the customers, fumanchu85 posted the photos and credit card receipts on an Instagram social media account and added racial slurs, vulgar comments and hashtags such as #deuchbag #cheap #jew #hillbillies.
While social media can be a great tool for attracting business, what happened at Padi serves as a cautionary and painful tale of what can occur when restaurateurs and business owners don’t monitor their sites.
The account with the fumanchu85 screen name belonged to Aaron Kwan, manager of Padi in the Lantana Square Shopping Center off Del. 7 and Valley Road.
Kwan is the nephew of Padi owner Eve Teoh, who says she isn’t computer savvy. She said she didn’t know anything about the Instagram account or a Padi Facebook page or the cringe-worthy comments and photos that were posted. .
On April 13, the day The News Journal ran a story about the restaurant’s social media snafus, a Facebook comment posted at the bottom of the delawareonline.com story under the name and picture of Padi sushi chef Patrick Wang said: “What has been done is been done. Apologies has been said.”
Wang added: “From what I see and hear while growing up in the states ‘white’ people talk more crap and get away with it. Why is that! But for a person from a different background we have to watch what we say or we get the bad end of the stick.”
“These are not the views of the owners of the business,” said Edward B. Rosenthal, an attorney representing Teoh.
David Kincheloe, president of National Restaurant Consultants, a company near Denver that assists food service clients worldwide, said he has never heard of a restaurant manager or employee so blatantly blasting customers on social media.
“Heavens, no. If I was the general manager or the owner of that restaurant, I would fire that guy even if he was my nephew,” he said.
Rosenthal said Teoh and her husband Kay Soon, who helps out at the 130-seat restaurant, are working hard to apologize to customers and to restore their reputation.
“You’re not going to stay in business insulting your customers,” Rosenthal said. “There’s a way to vent and there’s a way not to vent.”
Teoh, who also owns Rasa Sayang Malaysian Cuisine in the Independence Mall shopping center off Concord Pike, has written an open letter to customers that has remained on a counter at Padi since April 19.
In it, she apologizes for “unacceptable and insulting behavior on the part of members of our service team at Padi.”
“We sincerely apologize for those actions, and want the community to know that those actions and opinions are not consistent with our beliefs and values, nor are they welcome at our restaurant.
“We want to assure all of our customers, and members of the community, that those responsible for insulting our customers and members of the community will be held accountable, and that we are taking steps to insure that this type of behavior never happens again,” the letter says.
Rosenthal said Kwan, manager of the Thai and Japanese restaurant since it opened in 2010, was on indefinite unpaid leave..
“We’re holding him responsible,” Rosenthal said, “but we feel there may have been other people [involved].”
The attorney said he will meet with employees this week and offer training so “that they understand they are the face of the restaurant.”
Rosenthal is drafting a social media policy, and Teoh plans to hire someone to handle social media marketing.
There has been some fallout at Padi since the disparaging remarks on the social media sites were disclosed.
Teoh received an anonymous letter from “Big Tippers from Wilmington” who wrote: “Disgraceful! I have been a server for 25 years and I have never done anything like the horrible things I have just read about. My husband and I will not be back to either of your restaurants. There are many others that have nice servers that deserve a big tip.”
Rosenthal said there may have been some drop-off in business, but “it hasn’t had a devastating effect.”
He also said receipts and the social media data still available were being sifted to find and apologize to aggrieved customers.
The Instagram and Facebook pages are no longer available for viewing. The Instagram account was deleted shortly after The News Journal contacted Kwan on April 12.
For four months, Kwan’s Instagram account could be viewed by anyone with Internet access and was linked to the restaurant’s public Facebook page, which he also managed. It also featured posts complaining about customers who allegedly didn’t tip.
When initially contacted by The News Journal, Kwan said he wasn’t sure if he posted the disparaging comments, patron’s photos and credit card receipts.
Later, he blamed the insulting items on other employees, saying they also had access to the Instagram and Facebook accounts.
Kwan said that he often left his smartphone and tablet computer laying around the restaurant and that any employee could post photos on his social networking accounts.
But other restaurateurs aren’t so sure that is what happened.
“I don’t think that it is restaurant specific but I don’t know of anyone that would leave their social media outlets open at home — if you have teenagers at school or in the workplace. To do so is to invite undesired consequences,” said Xavier Teixido, owner of three Delaware restaurants.
“Running a restaurant is like having a hundred faucets on the wall; they’re all going to drip eventually,” said Teixido who runs Kid Shelleen’s, Harry’s Savoy Grill and Harry’s Seafood Grill.
Teixido said that a manager at each of his three restaurants monitors the respective social media accounts on a daily basis.
“Guests will post things on our site that may be offensive and have to be dealt with,” he said. “It’s just another one of these faucets you have to pay attention to it.”
Restaurant consultant Kincheloe said Padi is doing all the things that he would recommend in a crisis situation: Apologize to all customers and find those directly affected to seek amends.
Kincheloe said he would take it even one step further and offer a free meal to the customers who had photos and credit card receipts posted.
“You offer them to come back and have whatever they want on the house,” he advised.
“We are all human. We all make mistakes,” Kincheloe said. “How you respond to the mistake is either you can win a customer for life or lose a customer for life.”
Teoh’s husband Soon said the ordeal has been hard on his family.
“Terrible,” he said. “We can’t sleep.”
Still, he said they now understand the good – and bad – of social media.
“It’s a good lesson for us to learn,” Soon said.
