The Jian BBQ Story - Part I The Case of the Curious Manager

My friend offered to treat me to dinner. We were looking forward to Jian BBQ -- we'd heard good things about their food.

She had a Restaurant.com gift certificate. The kind you pay $10 for and get $25 to use at the restaurant. It had a long list of conditions -- you had to order at least $35 worth of food, you couldn't combine it with other discounts or "promotions" (more on this in a moment), you had to leave an 18% gratuity.

Jian BBQ is pricey. The average entree costs around $26. They had a tasting menu for two people with four meats and various sides for $50. We thought that'd be perfect -- we'd get to try everything and it would only cost $25 after her gift certificate.

Here's where the trouble began. Jian BBQ's obnoxious waiter told us we couldn't use the gift certificate on the tasting menu, because it's a promotion. "Really?" I asked. "Because if I go down to Matsuhisa, they have 3 different tasting menus for $50, $75, and $100, and they're a regular part of the menu." "Well, that's omakase, that's different." Now, omakase just means "chef's choice." Which is pretty much Japanese for "tasting menu," which is also the chef's choice. So that argument didn't hold any water.

"Well, what about Jar? Or Opus? Or any other of the hundreds of restaurants in town that have tasting menus all the time?" He had no answer for that, just that their tasting menu was obviously a promotion.

Well, how would we know that? There's nothing that suggested any of the things that are normally associated with a promotion, like the word "special" or "limited time" or even a little disclaimer on the bottom saying that the tasting menu is not valid with Restaurant.com gift certificates. We told him that if any of those things were there, we wouldn't even ask. But as they're not, we want them to honor the gift certificate. After all, it has a long list of terms and conditions that we need to follow to use it, and if something's not specifically excluded, then the gift certificate is valid for it. That's not just my opinion, it's how coupons work; it's part of the law. I know that because my friend happens to work at a law firm here in Los Angeles.

Our Jian BBQ waiter repeated that he couldn't honor our gift certificate for the tasting menu. He'd be happy to "work with us" to pick out the same items as the tasting menu. But at regular price. Since this was around 4x the price of the tasting menu, this didn't seem like such a good deal. Well, I suppose it was a good deal for Jian BBQ.

We went back and forth for a while, with the waiter getting loud and frustrated. I suspect this was because my friend and I weren't buying his flimsy argument and actually expected him to honor their gift certificate. The waiter told us that we weren't listening to him and that he's trying to help us out, but that we kept arguing with him. He continued to get louder and louder and repeat himself.

My friend asked to speak to the manager of Jian BBQ. The waiter disappeared for a moment, then came back and stood at the table, silent. My buddy said "We were waiting for the manager." "I'm the manager."

We couldn't believe it. Our Jian BBQ waiter tried to pull something out of I LOVE LUCY. All he was missing was a wig and fake mustache.

We were a little stumped by our waiter's boldness. So my friend asked to speak to the owner of Jian BBQ. The waiter told us repeatedly that the owner would just tell us the same thing he did and she was not interested in talking to us. Obviously, that's not the kind of customer service you expect. But that's what Jian BBQ gives you. If the waiter was smart, he would've just lied and pretended to go in the back and then told us the owner wasn't there. But instead, he was just plain rude.

My friend said the owner of Jian BBQ would probably be interested in hearing that her manager was rude to customers. The "manager" said that he didn't have to let us speak to the owner, that the owner still wouldn't be interested in talking to us, and that he's not being rude. We just weren't listening to him.

Finally, a nice, friendly waitress came over. And we tried to explain our issue to her.

But the trouble continued at Jian BBQ, the worst restaurant in Los Angeles.

More to come on Jian BBQ, its horrible personnel, and awful customer service...