Yesterday, and observant reader sent in a link to some New York Magazine coverage of a restaurateur in mid-meltdown. Vadim Ponorovsky, owner of Paradou restaurant in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, recently sent out a group email to his staff berating them for their inability to coax enough email addresses from their customers:

Everytime we have a slow night and you make no money and you sit there bitching about how you make no money, remember its because youre fucking lazy motherfuckers. YOU SHOULD ALL BE FIRED IMMEDIATELY!!!!! ALL OF YOU, INCLUDING THE HOSTS!!!!…

…Youre probably sitting there saying “How dare he speak to me like this. How dare he not have respect for me”. Youre right there also. I have absolutely no respect for any of you….if you dont respect us enough to do the little that we ask you to do, then GET THE FUCK OUT YOU FUCKING LAZY DISRESPECTFUL ASSHOLES!!!!!

And so on. Nice right? But it gets better. After Gawker piggybacked the story without any sourcing of their own, Ponorovsky started getting nasty emails and death threats from the public. This, unsurprisingly given the tone of his email, sent him on a freak out safari, a la crazy. New York Magazine continues the story:

Paradou owner Vadim Ponorovsky just called us in a huff because he says that after Gawker and other blogs published an angry e-mail he fired off to employees, his wife, who answers the phones at Paradou, is now receiving anonymous death threats along the lines of “we’re going to kill you” and “we’re going to burn down your restaurant.” Vadim says, “This has now hit a point beyond civil discourse,” and adds, “You can quote me on this: Any time, any place (and you can put my personal e-mail, [email protected]), 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 these people and dance on their heads.”

Wow. Eater NY picks up on it (hat tip to reader SH) and finds Ponorovsky has a habit of going off the rails:

Take a look at the owner’s response to an admittedly harsh Citysearch review, found by a Gawker commenter. An excerpt: “You are an idiot. I am so tired of people who have absolutely no cultural or historical awareness telling people what we should eat or not and how we should behave or not…How dare you wish that I go out of business and call me heartless. How about I wish instant death to you and your family.”

Not exactly cut from the same cloth as John Bishop…

There are, of course, many Vancouver restaurateurs with notable rage issues (and some who have actually been convicted of being “boors”). My favourite delights in responding to letters of complaint with the kind of viciousness that can only gestate in the mind of the criminally insane. It’s something of a minor miracle that our “screamers” aren’t sent up for public ridicule from time to time, especially in this day and age of tweets and bloggery.

I suspect, however, that despite the sturm und drang, those who go so shockingly and publicly batshit (like Ponorovsky) see a nearly immediate uptick in trade. I once knew a chef who tossed all his guests out during the dinner rush. He just snapped. Word got around, and lo! Reservations went up like an Apollo rocket. This is, after all, the era of Gordon Ramsay, when the public expects a measure of insanity from their neighbourhood restaurateurs – perhaps proof positive that even with white linen and silver, dining will always be a savage pursuit.

Please pass the skulls.