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The LAW's James Verini gets to the bottom of the now-notorious e-mail (which you can read after the jump) that circulated a couple of weeks ago about a birthday party at Cynthia's on Third St. which was marred by the eponymous proprietor's expletive-filled response to a request for a new lamb dish. (The phrases "asshole," "fucking cow" and "tyrannical cunt" figured prominently.) And what's the lesson we can all take from this incident? Treating your customers like shit (you know, allegedly) is good for business:

She also claimed her business has not declined but improved since the e-mail went out. "I have never had better business. It's usually slow after the first night of the year. It has been packed every night." After more comments on l'affaire Teitelman, she said, "Quite frankly, I'm sick of defending myself. I don't care," and hung up the phone again.

We called a third time, and Hirsch yelled into the phone: "Write whatever you like. I don't care. Just remember?: lawsuits!"

Verini gets both sides of the story in his column, but if you're curious as to the contents of the e-mail, you can read it after the jump.

Subject: Cynthia's—The WORST Restaurant experience EVER!! ************PLEASE FWD & SPREAD the word

This past Saturday, my friend Lorie celebrated her birthday at Cynthia's Restaurant: 8370 West 3rd Street, LA, CA 90048 323-658-7851.

We had a reservation for 12 people to attend her birthday dinner that
evening. The experience was so horrible, that I had to pass it on in the hopes that you read this and decide not to solicit a business owner who has no respect for the customer and that you would tell as many people you know not to frequent an establishment such as Cynthia's. As they say, the pen is mightier than the sword.

Saturday night everyone arrived on time, and dinner/drinks were ordered (the total bill was $527.00) One of the birthday party guests ordered lamb. When it arrived, the lamb was cold. She then asked the waitress to kindly re-heat the dish. 5 minutes later, the plate came back and the lamb was "rubbery" (think of lamb microwaved). At this point, my friend politely asked the waitress to send the plate back again. What happened next stunned all of us ruined my friends birthday evening.

Cynthia, the owner of the restaurant, stood 10 feet in front of the table and pointed at my friend who had sent back her meal and beckoned her to come over like she was going to the principals office. My bewildered friend got up and walked over to speak with her. After about a minute she returned to the table stunned and informed us that Cynthia said, "There's nothing wrong with the lamb, you're an a**hole and I want you to leave my restaurant."

At this point, the entire table could not believe that a business owner would have the audacity to be so blatantly rude and disrespectful to a paying customer. No one at our table had complained to her, in fact, at this point, the service from our waitress was good & the food service respectable. 2 minutes goes by and the bill of $527.00 was delivered with an 18% gratuity already added and the $100.00 birthday cake hadn't even been cut! (a cake that we brought to the restaurant and agreed to pay a standard cake cutting fee of $35.00) When we asked the waitress about cutting the cake, it took them another 5 minutes before they would even
brought us the cake with plates and utensils. Now your probably saying "Why would you put up with all of this"? First, in order to secure the large reservation the birthday girl gave her credit card to secure the reservation. Even if we refused to pay, they would have still charged the credit card for the dinner. Secondly, this was my friend's birthday and at this point, she just wanted to cut the cake, eat and go.

After the cake eating was done, and our party had settled the bill, I
approached the owner Cynthia and asked her politely what was the issue... did she really call my friend an a$$hole and ask her to leave the restaurant? IT GET's WORSE.... she told me without hesitation and a loud voice in front of 1/2 the restaurant that my friend was an "a$$hole and a fat cow and that I could "F-off" and get the "F" out of her restaurant." I was SHOCKED! I couldn't believe that business owner would speak to paying customer with such abusive language. I said, wait a minute, "hel
me understand what's the issue is here, she didn't like the way her food was cooked, and you used foul language and asked her to leave the restaurant? Cynthia then said "F-You... I've been in business for 20 years and I have amazing taste". She then grabbed the phone and started to call the police. I said "YOU are out of your mind CRAZY and you can't get away with treating customer's this way and I will do everything I can to spread the word about this story" We then left the restaurant in disgust. I hate to say, this was not the first time that I had heard about Cynthia's "rants", and customers that night came out to the street to thank us for standing up to her and her bad service.

Please pass this story along to anyone....friends... business owners... anyone that you know that might value the customer. No one should ever have to be spoken to in that way again and I sincerely hope that you do not frequent an establishment like Cynthia's. What a shame to give your $money to such a bad business person.

Respectfully,
Joe Giadone
ps. You'll all be glad to know that a complaint has been filed with the Better Business Bureau, City Search
http://www.citysearch.com, Zagat's (
http://www.zagats.com) & "Reader Rants"at the LA Times
http://www.latimes.com
PASS THIS ALONG TO STOP BAD BUSINESS!