Did Bruce Buschel's douche chills contribute to his shuttered restaurant?

We'd like to think so, and so do the good folks at Curbed Hamptons, who reported a few weeks ago that Buschel's Southfork Kitchens on the Bridgehampton Turnpike is up for sale for $3.8m.

Buschel, no stranger to this blog, is somehow a complete stranger to the idea that shitting on your target demographic often makes your target demographic suddenly hungry for McDonalds. Although, in fairness to Buschel, McDonalds is probably where Buschel figured his demographic eats anyway.

Buschel is a rare and interesing character in that, it's rare for people to want to see someone's dreams battered like Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket, yet sooo many people wanted to see that with him (peep the comments in the link). It's rare for someone to see their dream fulfilled and then completely undermine it by publicly attacking his own patrons in all his New York Times-contributing what-the-fuckery. It's rare for a New York entrepreneur to be so vaginally thin-skinned as to respond to relatively obscure blogs that criticize said what-the-fuckery, and it's rare for a massive amount of people to take glee in someone else's demise. Yet that is what Buschel and all the douche chills he invokes, has done.

Look at it this way: his restaurant closing is the equivalent of people saying 'I would rather starve than eat at your place.' Ah Buschel. The douche is strong in this one.

So Southfork Kitchens has shuttered. And that's a good thing. And Buschel may walk away with $3.8 million. And that's a bad thing.

See. We don't even want you to have money!

Bruce Buschel's Special Whine

This week we learned that Bruce Buschel, the thin-skinned owner of Southfork Kitchen in Bridgehampton, Googles himself. Or has his name on Google Alerts. Hi, Bruce.
We got a nice note from him in the comments section of our last blog post, which might have actually helped call attention to his need for added staff. No matter. He took issue with...whatever:

To Whom It May Concern,
Returning to Southfork Kitchen in mid-March will be the executive chef, sous chef, chef de partie, beverage manager, two cooks, two servers, two runners, porters and dishwashers. We are looking for more people because we expect the spring and summer to require a larger staff than the winter, and we want to spread the good fortune. In an industry that tends to have a lot of turnover, especially in a seasonal location, we think we are doing all right. But thanks for noticing.
By the way, I was building a restaurant before I became a blogger, not the other way around. Sincerely,
Bruce Buschel
Owner, Southfork Kitchen

We continue to belly laugh every time he talks about how to run a restaurant, using all his grown-up words, and explaining the way of the world to us, like this venture isn't just another one of his dollhouses. Oh, Bruce. You were building the restaurant before you became a blogger? What that implies is that we give a rat's ass about the chronology of your life. We don't. But thanks for noticing.

Work For A NYTimes Blogger, Turned Restaurant Owner!

Bruce Buschel, the restaurant owner who recently bitched out readers on his New York Times blog You're The Boss, is now looking to hire just about every position it takes to run a restaurant. Why? Well, maybe it has something to do with the fact that he posts the personal woes of his employees on his blog. Or maybe it has something to do with his overall lack of sympathy for staffers who believe that if they get behind the wheel in the midst of an east-end snowstorm, they'll die. Or maybe it's because he assumes his servers, by nature of their lowly stations, will never attend a book release party, or film premiere.

Either way, he's looking to fill the following positions. Be ready for a 10-day training period and, at the end of it, to be able to recite not only the menu, but Southfork Kitchen's "philosophy." Whatever that means. Godspeed:

He's looking for Cooks

He's looking for Front Of The House staff

He's looking for a Dining Room Manager

Hamptons Restauranteur Gets Ugly With Commenters

Our favorite, clueless, and harmfully unhinged restaurant owner Bruce Buschel is currently engaged in a cyber-smackdown with commenters on his New York Times blog "You're the Boss: the art of running a small business."

Buschel is a recovered writer, editor, filmmaker, and whatever else draws him attention. We're still waiting for him to release his own fragrance: Eu de Poorly Run Restaurant. He owns "Southfork Kitchen," a fish-house located on what is locally referred to as the Bridgehampton Turnpike: a double-yellow stretch of highway that bypasses all the cops and the need for safe driving. His restaurant doesn't need a menu-change: it needs an overpass!

Anyway, since he opened his fish-house, (local fish only, so we hope you like Ling and Porgies) he's had the unique luxury of blogging about it in the NYT (he even had the gall to review his own restaurant!) He's an absolutely perfect specimen for the Hamptons. Except...his blog posts are kind of obnoxious. And his ideas on how to run a restaurant are kind of um...idiotic. His commenters think so, and this week Bruce decided he'd had enough, and got cunty with em'.

Exhibit A:
Dear Wasting time,
I see how you earned your name. We had 60 people coming for dinner and six staffers protesting. You would have called the guests? People get hurt on the ski slopes. You would close them down?

Exhibit B:

Our first general manager left after four months of work, one month after we opened to the public. The current manager has been with us from the git-go. Thanks for paying attention. No, really, thanks.

And:

If people put their passion and time and money into a project, who determines if it’s a hobby or a business? I have an idea that might please you: Stop reading.

Ooh, burn. So we're trying to decipher Buschel's tack here. Either he has no concept that bitching out commenters on his blog is sort of a bad PR strategy for his restaurant, OR...he's trying to channel the success of McSorley's Ale House on 7th street, which is famous not only for its microbrew of the same name, but for its notoriously cranky bar staff. Either way, he has learned one effective strategy for running a Hamptons restaurant in January/February. Close down.

At Trata East, Your Waiter Might Actually Be A Slave

If you've ever eaten at Trata East in Water Mill, you might as well call yourself Thomas Jefferson, because you own slaves. At least that's what two waiters and two busboys are claiming in a lawsuit reported in this article from 27East.com.

According to the lawsuit, sometimes they got paid and sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they got their tips taken away and sometimes they got their tips distributed upward to managers. Also, they weren't paid for extra time worked in their shifts. Basically, Trata East was operating like a household full of children. Sometimes they got their allowance, and sometimes they had to be locked in the freezer and threatened that if they ever went to the authorities they'd make their passports disappear and claim they were here illegally. Ah, memories of home.

Check out the article. Then pick someplace else to eat your souvlaki. And feel free to e-mail us at news5525@gmail.com with some of your waiter/waitress/bartending nightmares. We'd love to hear it.

BLT East?

According to some foodie blogs, chef Laurent Tourondel is planning to take over the Sag Harbor space that housed the restaurant formerly knowns as Grappa. According to Tourondel, "no deal is signed yet," but he's got his eyes on it.

Apparently the French-born chef has a house in East Hampton. Tourondel's "BLT" restaurant chain was all over Manhattan, broken into specialty dish categories (BLT Fish, BLT Burger, BLT Steak, etc..) until he broke with his partner Jimmy Haber. Now he runs the sole space BLT Market. Hamptonyte Blog has actually eaten at BLT Burger (pictured above) and BLT Prime. The brisket was out of this world, but for the most part Tourondel's ego outpaces the quality of his recipes by a long shot. We feel like such insiders (it's an icky feeling) but let's just say we've been around Laurent a fair amount of times and weren't shocked to learn the break-up with Haber was LT's idea.

High prices? Check. Egomaniacal executive chef? Check. Soon-to-run sycophantic restaurant review from the Hamptons press corp? Check. It'll be like Grappa never left! And now this frees up Grappa owner and attorney Eddie Burke Jr. to defend more rich brats who run people over this summer, so everybody wins! And by wins I mean loses.