Complaints, Disputes and New Addresses

L.A.-based legal recruiter Steve Sklar and his guests had a bad experience at R.J.’s the Rib Joint in Beverly Hills earlier this year. The spareribs were cool, the coffee burnt, and they never got a chance to order a second round of drinks. In general, Sklar thought, the restaurant seemed understaffed; certainly his table’s waitress seemed to have too many customers to handle.

Following advice I’ve given frequently in this column in the past, Sklar wrote to the restaurant to express his dissatisfaction--in this case, directly addressing Bob Morris, president of Mor Food ‘N Fun, which runs R.J.’s. Although he never heard back from Morris himself, Sklar now writes to tell me, he did get a phone call from one of the restaurant’s managers, who wanted to know the name of the offending waitress.

There was no offending waitress, Sklar replied. In his opinion, the organization of the dining room, not the individual server, was at fault. The manager kept pressing for a name, promising that the waitress would not be fired, but Sklar was adamant. Identifying the waitress would only have given the management a convenient scapegoat, he says.

I probably wouldn’t have identified the server either--and, though I don’t know if Sklar had this reaction, it seems somewhat insulting to be asked to “rat.”

A call to Morris on the matter, though, revealed that he was distressed to learn that a manager had called Sklar directly to deal with the complaint. “Every single letter of this kind is supposed to come to my personal attention,” he says--adding that he almost always invites disgruntled diners back to the restaurant at his expense. He also explained the policy of asking for the server’s name: “People develop a one-on-one relationship with their waiters, and then are sometimes reluctant to blame them when something goes wrong. We often get complaints that begin, ‘We had a terrible experience, but it’s not the waiter’s fault. . . .’ About 50% of the time, it probably isn’t. But sometimes it is. We ask for the waiter’s name because we’re honestly trying to find out where the problem was. We have to start somewhere. Otherwise, we’d never be able to track it down.

“It is true, though, that we never fire a waiter because a customer complains. The only thing I’ve condoned immediate firing for is when somebody shows up drunk, drugged or we find them chasing tips. Or, of course, if we find someone who’s just a lousy waiter--someone who’d probably be happier being a doctor or a lawyer, or maybe a restaurant critic.”

MORE NAME GAMES: Jeremiah Tower’s hotshot new San Francisco restaurant, Speedo 690, has encountered a stop sign. Speedo International, which manufactures a well-known line of swimsuits that look as if they’ve been applied with a paint gun, has taken Tower to court for his use of the Speedo name--though it is well known that Tower borrowed the name not from the swimwear company but from the Speedo Carburetor Shop, which used to occupy the premises he has taken over. Apparently unimpressed with this fact, Speedo International wants Tower to stop using the name, and to share whatever profits he might reap while continuing to use it. But if Tower thinks he’s got trouble, he might enjoy hearing that the Soviet government, no less, has sued the German firm of Henkell & Sohnlein in an effort to stop the marketing of a vodka called Gorbatschow.

SCENES FROM THE RESTAURANT STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS: Jean Leon, who is moving his famed La Scala from its original Beverly Hills location this fall, has found new quarters for the restaurant in the same community. La Scala II, which Leon plans to open soon after the original closes, will be located at 410 North Canon Drive (on the former site of Benito’s 1).