Dirty sauce: NYC restaurant owner goes postal on staff, media

By Kate Kennedy Mon., Nov. 23 2009 at 9:59 AM

Categories: Culinary Events, Follow That Story, The Dish

If you haven't heard about NYC restaurant owner Vadim Ponorovsky and his epic acts of douchebaggery, get ready for a story that plays out like a white trash reality soap opera.

Podorovsky, who owns a restaurant called Paradou, told his waitstaff to start collecting e-mail addresses from the guests in a botched attempt to spam them with restaurant crap. When they failed to meet his requests, he sent out an email to the staff, in which he dropped the f-bomb nine times, while calling them "lazy disrespectful assholes," "fucking lazy motherfuckers" and "fucking children." Nice work, Stalin.

So, one of the servers decided to forward the email to Gawker.com, which, in turn, posted the e-mail on their website. Within two days, the e-mail went viral and Podorovsky's hissy fit was published for all to see. In subsequent interviews with Eater, Blackbook, and Grub Street, Podorovsky continued to make the rest of us feel better about ourselves while exploiting his talent for excessive use of profanity. Check out some of the gems:

On the waitstaff:

"And you know, calling your waitstaff 'scumbags' happens every day in a restaurant. It doesn't just show up in emails."

On himself:

"If you talked to anyone who ever worked for me, I could say without any sense of self-aggrandizement that they'd say I was the best boss they've worked for."

On going apeshit:

It was "a restauranteur's version of Ginsberg's 'Howl'--like 'Jesus, Christ, how many times do I have to do this shit?'"
"The profanity is a part of how I speak, I view curse words as basically emphasis adjectives."

On what he thinks about the threats he's received due to the e-mail:

"If anyone on my staff feels that they need [the media] to defend them, they've chosen poor champions. Now please kindly go fuck yourselves."
"Any time, any place, these fucks, if they want to send me an e-mail, I will crack every one of their fucking heads and make the streets run with blood. I will not have my family threatened by anyone. I will fucking slaughter all of these people and dance on their heads."

Happy Monday! Now go hug your boss.