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Review content:
I have been coming to eat at Le Petit Bistro since the day it opened around 15 years ago. I would say my wife and myself have been to this restaurant over 50 times. Besides, we must have recommended this place to over 200 friends, who recommended it to their friends and so on. Everyone seemed to like it, until about 3 weeks ago, when six of us came in on Saturday at 5:45pm, since we had a show to catch at 8pm. We were the first in, and were seated on the patio.
First thing I did, I came up to the owner of the restaurant, who was inside, near the bar, talking to his employees. I apologized, and said that my wife was allergic to shell fish, and since she wanted to order fish for the main course, it was important to notify the chef to use a clean knife and a cutting board, so my wife would not get the allergic reaction. We have been dining in LA restaurants, as well as everywhere else (Las Vegas, New York, San Francisco, etc.) for years and this has never been a problem, as long as we notified the chef about the problem.
This time, the reaction from the owner was totally unbelievable: He raised his voice at me in front of all his employees saying: "If your wife is allergic to shell fish, then she should not be ordering fish at all! I am not going to be responsible for her problems. I am not telling my chef anything. Let her order meat!"
This was unexpectedly rude and obnoxious.
I went back to the patio and sat down with my friends, telling them about the owners response. In the meantime, the busboy turned on the heater above us, and in 1 minute it became so hot, that 6 of us could not breath. There was no one on the patio but us, and I politely asked the waitress to shut off the heater. She did. In a few minutes the heater was turned back on, and it felt like in a sauna again. The owner came to the patio himself and I I addressed him once again, stating that it was so hot that we could not breath. His response this time was: "Well, you are not alone in the restaurant, and other people are cold and want the heater on". I said: "There is no one else on the patio at the moment, and besides we will be finishing pretty soon." The owner, very rudely responded: " Well, I don't care if you are hot or not, I am not going to have my other customers leave because you are hot. I am the owner, and I am making decisions here!"
Well, the owner's behavior was unheard of. I have no idea how one as rude and obnoxious like this can be in a restaurant business, regardless of how good his menu is. This is a typical arrogant French attitude, only this time we were not in Paris, but in Los Angeles. From now on, I will let hundreds of my friends know that Le Petit Bistro is one restaurant they should stay away from. I will also write reviews in various newspapers in my community, and on the web, sharing my awful dining experience with restaurant goers in Los Angeles.
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