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More than two dozen Park Slope restaurants and cafes owe at least $910,000 in unpaid wages to more than 200 workers, the State Labor Department announced yesterday. Inspections during the spring revealed that some workers made as little as $2.75 an hour; the minimum wage for food service workers is $4.65 per hour. (Today the Daily News revealed that the restaurants include Aunt Suzie’s, Baluchi's, Sotto Voce, Olive Vine Café, and Sweet Melissa Patisserie.) Getting chiseled out of already laughably low wages is rough, but at least they didn't have the misfortune to be employed by Paradou owner Vadim Ponorovsky, who's earned some notoriety today for an incredibly nasty email he sent to staffers at his Meatpacking district restaurant. His gloriously profane and hateful missive, which makes Hunter S. Thompson's letters seem like Get Well Soon cards, is published below in its entirety:
To All,Please read this email carefully. This is the last time we will be discussing this.
This weekend, saturday and sunday we had 451 customers. Guess how many emails we collected? 60? 80? 40? No. None of those. We, or more acurately you, collected 2 emails. Thats less than half of one percent. 2 fucking emails.
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU ASSHOLES?!?!?! How many times do we have to tell you how important it is that you collect emails. Everytime we have a slow night and you make no money and you sit there bitching about how you make no money, remember its because youre fucking lazy motherfuckers. YOU SHOULD ALL BE FIRED IMMEDIATELY!!!!! ALL OF YOU, INCLUDING THE HOSTS!!!!
Let me guess, youre probably sitting there saying "Vadim is such a fucking asshole. How dare he speak to me like this. I dont need this." Youre right, you dont, so why dont you get the fuck out. Any and all of you.
Youre probably sitting there saying "How dare he speak to me like this. How dare he not have respect for me". Youre right there also. I have absolutely no respect for any of you. Why? Because every fucking day, all of you continue to show that you have absolutely no respect for me or Alex. So if you dont respect us enough to do the little that we ask you to do, then GET THE FUCK OUT YOU FUCKING LAZY DISRESPECTFUL ASSHOLES!!!!!
Effective immediately, any server or host who fails to collect at least 20 emails per week, will be fined $100. Anyone failing to collect at least 20 emails for two weeks in a month will be fired immediately. No matter what. No matter who you are.
You dont want to do your job, you dont want to do what we ask, you dont belong at Paradou. Go find another place to work.
How dare you disrespect Alex and me this way. How dare you completely ignore what we ask of you time after time after time.
I am sick of all this shit, you bunch of fucking children. This is what I have to deal with at 6AM?!?!? I wouldnt tolerate this from my 13 year old, and Im sure as shit not going to tolerate it from any of you assholes.
You give no respect, you get 10 times back.
The email was forwarded to Gawker by an understandably disgruntled employee. But Ponorovsky doesn't see why everyone's so offended, and he sent out another email today to the dining blogs defending himself from those who don't understand that the dining industry is WAR, and that email to his staff was just "my version of Allen Ginsberg's Howl." Anybody want to bring over some bongos and a jug wine and read this with us tonight?
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What a dick. I wish I owned a restaurant so I could offer these people a new job.
but you don't so stfu
Vadim's letters should be included in the next printing of Good to Great. He certainly knows how to stir up employee morale, implement strength finders, and redefine leadership for a new age.
Smells like a class action lawsuit is just about ready to be served.
If the plaintiff class is anyone who has received a rude email, I am totally in.
Well, that's one restaurant I don't have to waste my money in. Especially if I'm forcibly throttled (or guilt-induced) to divulge my email address to the Paradouche.
Is that the type of email solicitation I'm liable to get? "Come to my fucking restaurant, you whiny-ass child, or I'm going to send you another shitty-ass email like this one!"
How about a bonus as an incentive, rather than a penalty? Great scott! That's *genius*!
his yelp rating is going to take a nose dive
already has. at 7pm it was 3.5 after several 1-star comments; now 3 stars.
That's funny. I get emails from Paradou. Gues what Vadim? Fuck off.
Be forewarned, employees. Vadim owes a lot of money in wages and will use his new 'rules' as an excuse to not pay them and cite your not following them as a weak excuse to withhold payment.
Two out of 451 sounds like the correct number of people who would give their email addresses to some restaurant.
I've worked in restaurants with both good owners and bad. The bad owners never got the employees to do as they wanted.
Looks like now there will be less business which will hurt both the owner and the waiters, as does any discord to any company. Does he email gift certs or coupons or anything worthwhile?
Used to go there sometimes. Never again.
wish we could embed in comments. Anyway, this email made me think of this.
this is a feel-good email if you ask me...
Just wow. I really like their restaurant on 7th Avenue and was disappointed when it closed. Now I hope every one of this prick's locations goes down in flames.
Now there's gonna be one less restaurant in Park Slope. No way in hell the place will survive after that completely dickish email. Good riddance.
It's in the Meatpacking District, where assholes thrive.
I thought he also owns one in Park Slope...
But anyway...wherever he has a restaurant, hope it caves.
Considering all the press this has gotten on Gothamist, Eater, Gawker, Yelp, etc. etc., I wouldn't be surprised if the place goes under sooner rather than later. If so, hopefully the employees can find somewhere else - divulging this email may be a double-edged sword.
I also wouldn't be surprised to see a new commentator backing Paradou, as in that one thinly-disguised post on Gawker.
Read the diner comments and reviews from New York Magazine. Going back to February most of them hated the place, citing lousy service and being ripped off. I don't think the owner is alone in corkscrewing that cheesy dump into the ground.
I wouldn't go there based off that email less because of the owners behavior but more so out of fear of what an employee treated like that would do if I sent something back to the kitchen
that's the first time I've heard of a restaurant asking for your e-mail address. it's bad enough I get that at Kmart, Radio shack etc. would you like a $5 off coupon, we need your e-mail address.
You give no respect, you get 10 times back.
that's gonna be my new sig.
I actually agree with him.
Waiters are servants. They should do as they're told or look for another job.
You, my friend, are a bona-fide asshole.
I'm a co-owner of a small business. And neither my partner nor I would ever, EVER, speak to our employees this way.
I don't necessarily fault the owner for being pissed off. It's natural to get pissed off when people who are on your payroll aren't doing what they're told. But there are ways of dealing with people, and NONE of these ways involve spewing expletive-laced rancor. People are human; the guy could've made his displeasure known but he could've done it in a much more straightforward way. He didn't need to belittle his staff. A memo like this is guaranteed to be completely counter-productive, even without being publicized this way.
What an idiot you are. You're trying to spout off some holier-than-thou bullshit stating "there are ways of dealing with people, and NONE of these ways involve spewing expletive-laced rancor" but start off the post by calling me an asshole.
Go back to your hypocrite cave with your queerbait partner
You're not one of our employees. You're just some douchebag who apparently agrees w/this restaurant owner's fucked-up so-called "management" style. At least man up to the fact that you're a prick, asshole.
eh, shaddup ya doosh.
I was going to ask what sort of idiot gives their email address out to restaurants but someone beat me to it. Now I'm wondering what sort of employee, after being ordered to give this guy 20 addresses per week, would actually bother to collect real ones rather than simply make some up. Also: It's one thing to send a really nasty email but to expect good results after sending something like this? If this guy expects anything other than disappointment and misery he's not just short-tempered, he's as dumb as a bag of cement.
Does this moron seriously believe that his employees can and should force customers to give their e-mail addresses? That will somehow help his restaurant? Really? Other than selling the e-mail addresses to spammers, I don't see how.
Vadim doesn't understand that e-mails can be resent and kept forever! In America e-mail reads YOU!
I worked for a dick like this once. When one of the web designers decided to leave the job and move back to PA, the boss sent an officewide e-mail telling all of us that this guy would "never amount to anything" and he's a "loser" who is giving up a big chance he was given (employment at this wonderful company).
What was the company?
SYS-CON MEDIA
You know what? I'm not sure if there is to be anything to be made of this. This just happens to be a venting and ranting email. Maybe he has just cause and the staff are not doing their jobs. Maybe he's a poor owner and manager. Who knows? Only judgment I can form at this time is that this kind of email is not wise to send. From a PR or HR point of view. And I don't think it's very productive.
correct.
Vadim Ponorovsky is the Buddy Rich of restauranteurs:
http://basementrug.com/downloads/buddy-rich-bus-rant.mp3
yelp has been removing all the negative posts if it was not based on actual dining experience.
About fucking time.
I'm sick and tired of going through "reviews" to only read that the author didn't like the color of the paint on the wall, without ever mentioning the food.
you think? fucking scumbags posting reviews to a restaurant that has been nothing but great because of some fucking rant letter and you are happy? fucking loser. what a shame.
That's right Vadim, get it all out, get it all out...
no they haven't rating has actually gone down from 3.5 to 3 in the last 4 hours alone.
Now THAT's how to abuse staff. Gordon Ramsey, are you paying attention?
www.forgotten-ny.com
This guy sounds about as smart as the baker who made the "Drunken Negro Head" cookies.
maybe the servers did ask for patron's e-mail addys but like any person who hates spam the answer was no thanks.
What should the employees do? Show up for work, and in unison, mid-dinner rush, walk out.
Maybe the Times or one of the bigger mags will pick this up.
I think people should start reflecting on their own attitude before they start pointing fingers at other people. What a complete dickhead.
Cheers~
Mark
Employees have every right to refuse to do ridiculous things. It sure must be frustrating for owners to have thinking employees and not frightened children. Fuck him and any employer who thinks that being the owner entitles you to ask for anything without treating employees with respect.
Don't go to his restaurant. If he's this big a dick about emails, what kind of hospitality do you think he truly has for anyone, staff or customers.
The waiters can all go work at some other of the thousands of places in the city. Fuck him.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Man...you people are total pussies if you get this worked up about an email.
I've seen CEO's of multinational companies rail on people lower than them plenty of times because they're doing shit jobs. Bosses do that. Deal with it. The world isn't rainbows and sunshine.
If these waiters don't like it, they should just look for new employment or do a better job. Not passive-aggressively send out this email to the media and risking his co-workers jobs by possibly shuttering the place. They might not care if the restaurant gets closed down due to bad press, but I'm sure some of his colleagues depend on this place and don't want to go on a jobhunt.
I'm sure you're a wonderful person. You sound like it.
and what are you exactly, a captain of industry?
This is too easy. Give him hundreds of addresses to spam sites. Let him mail out his crap and he'll be overwhelmed with big penis ads in no time.
http://www.toastedspam.com/emaillist
One more overpriced place I don't need to go to. Why are emails so important? Every place I have gone to that collects emails do so because they suck. Just what I need another crappy email to look at. What a moron.
Resturant workers generally have a very weak financial status and these seems to increase their owes much more. Something must be immediately done to relieve the workers and pay their dues.
I used to love that place. Guess I won't be going there anymore.
As ussual the ordinary everyday man gets shafted by the ones who THINK they are in charge! Disgrace
Hmm... WTF!!!
modern ceiling fan