The Story That Should Never Have Been
I’m no fan of Supervisor Tom Ammiano's politics or labor unions. I have serious reservations about Healthy San Francisco, however well-intended that city-mandated program may be. I’ve been open in my support for restaurants that impose a surcharge to cover Healthy San Francisco’s costs as I believe it important for voters to realize the financial impact of their elected officials’ actions.
But, there’s a right way and a wrong way for a restaurant to disclose their Healthy San Francisco surcharge and there’s a right and wrong way to report a story in the mainstream media and blogsphere. Unfortunately, when Ammiano and labor leader Criss Romero ate at 2223 Restaurant to participate in the Dining Out For Life benefit supporting a variety of HIV/AIDS relief organizations, the wrong way was the chosen way by the restaurant and the media, including bloggers.
San Francisco Magazine kicked off the fiasco by reporting on its staff blog, “According to [2223 Restaurant’s] chef-owner, Melinda Randolph, city supervisor Tom Ammiano dined there with five other guests, one of whom purportedly refused to pay the four percent service charge of $13.31 implemented by the restaurant to offset the cost of the Ammiano-sponsored Healthy San Francisco program. They did, however, tip 20 percent on top of the 18 percent large-party gratuity. ‘I was gobsmacked,’ Randolph says. ‘The service charge is intended to help mom-and-pop businesses like us deal with a $4,000-a-month increase in expenses. Then the supervisor comes in, and his buddy makes a scene and won’t pay it.’”
The one thing all parties agree on is that it was San Francisco Labor Council executive board member Criss Romero who complained. SF Mag stated, “’Before anyone else from our party arrived at the restaurant, I told the hostess that I didn’t want any political information related to the universal-healthcare charge on the table at dinner,’ [Romero] says. So when the server dropped the check with the surcharge included, Romero became incensed. ‘I believe that because these restaurants don’t itemize anything else on their checks besides food and drink, they’re trying to draw attention to the issue,’ he says. ‘We wanted a pleasant evening without politics being introduced.’”
It’s far from clear that SF Mag correctly reported what upset Romero but we’ll get to that in a moment.
SF Eater then got into the act, blogging the SF Mag post under the headline “Supervisor Tom Would Rather Not Pay That Surcharge” and closing its comments by saying, “However, regardless of what you may think of the health care issue—and more importantly for our purposes here, the questionable ways that restaurants are handling the situation—isn't the diner obligated to pay a restaurant's bill, no matter the politics? Isn't that a social contract that one agrees to when choosing/dining in a restaurant? In other words, even if you agree with the stance taken, were Ammiano and his party right or wrong to duck the surcharge?” Even more pointed was the URL they chose for their permalink, one that ends with “supervisor_skips_out_on_bills.php.”
At this point, I wrote a brilliant post, absolutely skewering Romero and, to a lesser extent, Ammiano. Feeling that Ammiano was the bigger fish, I called his office, hoping for some juicy quotes that I could use to increase his presence in my post.
Instead, I began to sense that what really happened and what was reported in SF Mag and Eater were divergent, perhaps wildly so.
The woman I spoke to in Ammiano’s office was confident of two points – that the surcharge had been paid and that what irked Criss Romero was the spiel regarding Healthy San Francisco that accompanied the delivery of the check.
My sense that something was amiss was confirmed shortly thereafter when I read Phil Bronstein’s piece regarding the episode on sfgate.com. After a bizarre digression regarding Filipino cuisine, Bronstein reacted to Eater’s “Supervisor Tom Would Rather Not Pay That Surcharge” headline saying, “Ammiano says that's not true and so does restaurant owner Randolph.”
Sorry, blogsphere, gotta score that point for mainstream media, even it was written in an MSM blog. And that brilliant post I wrote had to be spiked.
As Bronstein tells the story, “He [Romero] arrive[d] early at 2223 and he ‘told the hostess if (the table card) is on there, please take it off. It wasn't appropriate to go to dinner with friends, especially the author of the legislation, and get lectured by people who don't want the health care benefit.’ The six diners paid for the food, a whopping 20 percent tip on top of the automatic group gratuity, but there was that pesky surcharge and the waitress coming over to deliver the dogma. Romero marches up to the hostess. ‘If they're gonna tell me about this then I'm gonna tell them my point of view.’ Which he does. Romero says the whole group paid every part of the bill but the hostess took off an appetizer to make amends. Melinda Randolph says the restaurant removed the cost of two desserts. OK, not a big difference there.“
When I talked to Romero, he told me generally the same story, with some important distinctions. Whether those distinctions came about because of differences between what he told Bronstein and me or because of the way Bronstein wrote the story, I have no way of knowing.
Romero told me that during his pre-dinner conversation with the hostess, he enquired about how the restaurant handled the subject of Healthy San Francisco and was informed of the surcharge. He said that it was never in question that the party would pay the surcharge but he asked the hostess to make sure that the table not have to endure a spiel about the Healthy San Francisco program given that the author of the enacting legislation would be among the guests. When the check was dropped, the waitress delivered the Healthy San Francisco shtick that Romero had specifically requested they not be forced to endure. Romero expressed his displeasure to the waitress and then again spoke to the hostess, asking why his pre-dinner request had not been honored. The hostess apologized and comped some items for the table.
Note the difference – SF Mag and Eater claimed that the issue was the surcharge, Bronstein says the rub was “that pesky surcharge and the waitress deliver[ing] the dogma" while Romero says the problem was the dogma, because he’d specifically asked they not hear it.
Per Bronstein, there’s some he said/she said going on, “Randolph says Romero ‘demanded the surcharge be taken off the check.’ Romero insists ‘that's completely wrong.’ Bottom line for Randolph: The comped desserts mean ‘they did not pay’ the surcharge. ‘It's wrong to say we didn't want to pay,’ says Romero.” They also disagree as to whether or not Randolph was actually in the house the when the whole thing went down.
Responsibility for this debacle lies largely with 2223 Restaurant.
Romero’s request to be spared the Healthy San Francisco speech was perfectly reasonable. I mean, really, what’s a server going to tell friends of the legislation’s author that they don’t already know???
When this request was ignored, it became an issue of poor service. Comping an item or two in apology for poor service is a time-honored tradition in restaurants. Why do “[t]he comped desserts mean ‘they did not pay’ the surcharge?” It would be absurd to claim that free desserts to say “I’m sorry” for service problems such as delivering cold food equates to not paying a surcharge. The issue was the service; the fact that the service problem was related to the surcharge was coincidental.
But the media coverage didn’t help. Part of good journalism (and good blogging) is to know when something isn’t news. A diner complaining about restaurant service isn’t a story, even if one of the guests is a Supervisor. Really, what’s next, reading about Aaron Peskin or Chris Daly (choosing a couple of Supervisors at random) sending back an entrée???
And, if the media is going to write a story, they should get the story straight. SF Mag’s efforts were dubious in the regard while Eater SF extrapolated wildly (and incorrectly). To Eater’s credit, they issued a mea culpa of sorts after the Bronstein piece came out but they have yet to go back and edit the original piece, something that’s possible in the blogsphere but not in print.
As for Bronstein’s efforts, he seemed to have come closest to getting it right. However, his “Then again, Tom didn't restrain Romero, either” comment was a cheap shot (what was Ammiano supposed to do, follow Romero to the hostess stand and make it look like they were double teaming her???) and I’m still trying to figure out how “sizzling chicken ass” was apropos to the discussion.
While initial reports painted him in an unfavorable light, as the story emerged, Criss Romero looked better and better. Yet, Bronstein said that Romero, “wonder[ed] if the owner of 2223 ‘had me confused with people who work in the kitchen — I was one of the only Latinos in the restaurant that night.’” Snarky comments are not going to help your cause when you’re trying to portray yourself as a party aggrieved.
Then there’s the question of how SF Mag got the story in the first place. It’s doubtful that anyone in the Ammiano/Romero party wanted this in the spotlight so logic asks if 2223’s chef-owner, Melinda Randolph made the call. I’d have asked her that question (and had more to report on her side of the story) if she’d returned the call I placed to her restaurant asking her to comment. If she did tip SF Mag, she must have regrets because Bronstein said, “Randolph wants this particular incident to go away.”
As much as I support the surcharges, I’m growing weary of the disingenuous manner in which restaurants are disclosing them. Pardon me for questioning how “proud” you are to offer healthcare benefits to your employees when you didn’t do so before the City required it. Just a simple line disclosing the percentage surcharge or coperto you’ve added to offset Healthy San Francisco’s costs will suffice. Put it in the same area of the menu where you divulge split charges and large-party gratuities. I can figure out the rest for myself.
There is a darker backstory to this episode.
According to both Romero and Bronstein, there are restaurants in San Francisco that now refuse to serve Tom Ammiano. Romero didn’t want to name names in his conversation with me but Bronstein pointed to Range as being one offender.
Again, I’m no fan of Ammiano’s politics but this strikes me as a marriage of the Jim Crow South and an Orwellian insistence on orthodoxy. If someone was ejected from a San Francisco restaurant because of the color of their skin, citizens would be justifiably outraged. I find it equally abhorrent for someone to be denied service because of their political views, even when I disagree with them. I find the lack of outrage to be curious, not to mention disturbing.
During my conversation with Criss Romero, he said that on top of it all, the food at 2223 wasn’t all that great. When I told him that I’d have to eat there a do a review, he (jokingly, I think) offered to join me.
Now *that* would make for an interesting evening!
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