UPDATE ON 6-3-16

The owner of Nick’s Riverside Grill now says the woman who wrote the Yelp review and the woman who had a waste management problem are two different people. Read restaurant’s apology here.

EARLIER

Whether you’re in fire/EMS or the restaurant business, we know that many times, despite the old adage, the customer isn’t always right. Even when they’re obviously wrong, management in both fields often takes the high road and tends not to call the person out for their own role in the situation that has caused the complaint. But sometimes the customer takes it a little too far and management decides to push back with a reality check. That’s what happened yesterday (Friday) after a Washington, DC restaurant received a bad Yelp review.

When I heard from a friend in the restaurant business about the Yelp battle involving Nick’s Riverside Grill at the Georgetown waterfront I was a little skeptical. But it’s all there to read and quite an amusing and unusual response.

Here’s the complaint from the customer:

5/26/2016 NEVER GO AGAIN！WORST SERVICE！I went there for happy hour and they hold my card at the bar. Charged me two drinks and more while I only ordered one hh drink. I asked the bartender, he said he didn’t have the right to change the bill and asked me to call the manager later since he’s out. I called and they just said manager is really busy and will call me back. As u can figure, no call at all. And they post the charge without my signature! I didn’t sign the bill!! If u swipe my card wrongly for someone else, I’m not the one paying for it.

And now, the surprising response from Nick’s management:

Comment from Liz S. of Nick’s Riverside Grill

Business Manager

5/27/2016 We would like to address your complaint from the other evening. First of all, a manager did call you back, left a message and you chose to not return that call, probably because you didn’t want to discuss the event’s that occurred at our establishment that evening. We spoke to both bartenders and they are both confident that you did in fact have 2 happy hour drinks. You aren’t hard to forget considering… Out of compassion and being decent human beings we did not charge you a waste removal fee. We were trying not to cause anymore embarrassment or humiliation to you. But after receiving your phone call and seeing this review on yelp, we feel we are justified in defending ourselves. The fact of the matter is you lost control of your bowels in the middle of our restaurant, and you proceeded to sit in it for the remainder of the evening, making more of a mess. We had to reroute our other patrons so they didn’t walk through your mess, causing quite a scene. You then proceeded to throw your underwear away in our trash can and our poor manager working that night was left to clean up your feces. So for you to have the audacity to leave this review when we went above and beyond to make sure you were taken care of is petty and ridiculous. We hope in the future you will think before you act. We would be happy to refund your entire bill with the understanding you will never return to any of our establishments until you are potty trained

The person wrote back claiming a case of mistaken identity but Nick’s hasn’t pulled down what will probably be seen as a classic response to a bad Yelp review.