Kevin L.
Yelp
Disgraceful. Wholly unprofessional.
I was just beginning to call Beloved's my new favorite and routine bakery cafe in town, until this experience. This is a review primarily of the public berating and profanity-filled kangaroo court session the owner/manager, Zach, was holding in the front of the house. I'm making it public since he already felt free to do the same. This was a master's class on how not to manage staff. This wasn't the act of a strong, confident manager and leader; it's something deeply insecure and petty people do. So here is a story on how to absolutely ruin the atmosphere of your "beloved" establishment.
I was enjoying a croissant and coffee while doing some reading and letter writing. A time to focus and chill before work in a quiet cafe, though interrupted several times already by Zach's loud conversations and someone toying with and increasing the music audio levels. Soon after, several people joined him a few tables away from mine.
It was quickly apparent this was not a pleasant social gathering. This was an interrogation.
He was there to confront an employee about a suspected theft, with several accusers by his side. Raising his voice, interlacing his empty accusations with profanities like, "I get [this], but I don't f***ing understand why [that]..." , he would get up several times to do things like fetch a book this employee referenced he had been reading. Why? Apparently as a means of trying to trap him in a lie. He wasn't taking denial to be the end of this story. No, he had an agenda. The absurdities were too many to detail here.
So, the owner's volume, coupled with the profanity, and paired with the intent to hold audience with both staff and customers and to humiliate the accused: just grotesque.
I'm certain Zach wouldn't even be embarrassed that his behavior was perceived this way by a customer. This was a *purposeful* performance, and the purpose was to shame an employee and to send a message to the rest of the staff that had a front-row seat to this act. Public opinion be damned. It was a gross, ugly personality on full display, and a tragi-comedy in light of the namesake of this place. No discretion, no grace, just an insult both to his staff, the employee being berated, and to paying customers that were forced to bear witness to this. And over a matter of what, $50? Damn, dude. I would have given you $50 if it had gotten you to shut up and return yourself to the back of the house where this should have unfolded in the first place.
Anyway, I could no longer read nor focus on writing, so I left, but not without asking one of the many sweet staff members who this arrogant blowhard was, his name, and letting her know I found this to be one of the most distasteful and unprofessional displays by an owner/manager I have witnessed in all my years. Truly a pathetic, small man, if this is how he operates on the daily.
I resisted Beloved's for a long time because I found the name off-putting, like naming something that's just too good to be true, or people who overuse superlatives, a la toxic positivity. Case in point was today. The social-media veil of romanticized perfection and food-sharing passion fell hard.
Bakery products: 4-stars
Front staff: 5
Owner and atmosphere: good grief, sell this business to someone who isn't deeply insecure and who has a heart. What a sad bully. I've worked in bakeries and cafes, and served as a Marine once upon a time. There is an immense difference between respectful, demanding, hard-nosed leaders and managers who will take you aside if you need correcting, and those that need to puff themselves up to be something they're not. This display was the latter.
I'm embarrassed for you, if you're not embarrassed for yourself. I'm sure you'll come here to try to defend such behavior, or to criticize or correct me or both, but this display was exactly as it was: classless.