Toronto restaurant blasts social media influencer customers for racist remarks

Simit & Chai, a restaurant located on King Street West, which famously serves fresh-baked Turkish bagels, tea, coffee, and other Turkish delicacies, has taken to social media in the past few days to express racism they've recently faced.

In an initial Instagram post, which had the words "Fuck Racism!" displayed repeatedly, owners Dee and John Ulgen expressed through the caption the recent racist encounter they experienced at their shop.

View this post on Instagram

We will never stop saying this, FUCK RACISM! Two supposed professors just tried to “culturally educate” us with their racist remarks. We are still shaking with anger, but will follow up with details. We’d been upset with what our dear friend @justineabigail had to go through recently and to have something like this happen to us, just shows us that our country still has a serious problem with racism.

A post shared by Simit And Chai Company (@simitandchaicompany) on Aug 6, 2020 at 12:35pm PDT

In another Instagram post, which featured a dark screen and the word UPDATE, the owners explained the entire story to their followers.

View this post on Instagram

A duo, who run an instagram account dedicated to food, and who we later found out were professors, came to our shop over the past long weekend. After leaving the shop, they posted a completely false and ill-intended review (now deleted) through their instagram page. They loved the food but clearly had a problem with the owners (who were sitting on the patio the day they came in) and the way their business functioned. Instead of outing their ill intent and responding publicly, we decided to be decent and sent a private message. One point was that we weren’t accessible (which we are, and we have many customers who use wheelchairs), another was that they couldn’t find the sanitizer (which is at the cash register along with free masks for customers) and the worst was that they said they waited more than 30 minutes when in fact they waited only 16 minutes (camera footage). Their response to our message started out extremely condescending and turned racist when they made a comment that “there is clearly a cultural component to how -we- address customers” and that we should learn to follow the rules of this country. They made sure to tell us that these cultural inadequacies were the perfect things to teach to their students who were thinking of opening businesses in Toronto. They went on to try to lecture us that rules were there to protect us (we’ve not had a single problem with any officials in our five years of operation). This didn’t just feel like a patronizing situation, that we’re pros at dealing with, this absolutely felt like a supremacy issue, where this power figure was going to teach these immigrants how things are done here. Today they’re desperately apologizing to us because they tried to overpower us with supremacist rhetoric, they thought we would be scared, we would sit down and listen. Most of you know us personally and know that we won’t take their shit, but shame on us for letting this sort of mentality enter our doors. Shame on George Brown College for employing racists. Is this the kind of morals they’ll be infecting our kids with? We will not let our kids be exposed to this kind of poisonous discourse. This has to end! FUCK RACISM! Dee &John

A post shared by Simit And Chai Company (@simitandchaicompany) on Aug 7, 2020 at 9:09am PDT

They allege that two people who run a food account on Instagram visited Simit & Chai over the long weekend.

After leaving the shop, the two people posted what they call a "completely false and ill-intended review (now deleted) through their Instagram page."

When the Simit & Chai owners sent a private message, they said in their Instagram caption that the reply they received was "extremely condescending and turned racist."

A Toronto restaurant is upset after customers who are also Instagram influencers and teachers at George Brown College gave them a negative review and made comments they felt were racist #Toronto https://t.co/wwZuaDc21u pic.twitter.com/y6yjKpixnj

— blogTO (@blogTO) August 8, 2020

Dee and John have been running Simit & Chai for the five years it has been open in its King Street location.

"My partner Dee and I are at the shop every day," John told blogTO. "It's maybe just one of us there or we're there as a family."

"We have a daughter as well — she grew up inside the bakery while we were serving and working our asses off," he said.

On Monday of the long weekend, which was a Civic holiday in Toronto, Dee was working but John had the day off so he and his daughter went to visit Dee at the shop and joined her on the restaurant’s patio.

"Our patio is not open to the public at the moment — we don't have dine-in or patio service," John told blogTO. "We've been doing just takeout since April."

At this point, the two people who are the people behind the website and social media account TwoPickyFoodies tried squishing themselves into the corner table of the patio and remained there even after the Ulgen family told them the patio wasn’t open.

TwoPickyFoodies was a popular account with more than 35,000 followers on their Instagram and a following on their website as well. 

Their website, according to John, indicated they provide services for small businesses and review them.

TwoPickyFoodies posted a review about their Monday visit to Simit & Chai and tagged the restaurant.

The restaurant owners said the review unfair and "a bunch of nonsense." The reviewers said they waited for more than half an hour but the Ulgens said they checked their security cameras and found the pair had only waited for 16 minutes.

The reviewers also claimed the restaurant isn't very accessible but  John and Dee said they had moved the furniture for social distancing purposes to the hallway that leads to the washroom.

"Washrooms are not for customers right now. We're operating like we're still in Phase 2 or even Phase 1 - we're just doing takeout so there is no washroom use for customers," John told blogTO.

The duo also wrote they were able to find hand sanitizer but the Ulgens said the hand sanitizer is at the cash, "like any other takeout place," located beside the free masks they provide to customers who don't have them.

The Ulgens said they responded privately to the food account and had a rebuttal to every one of their complaints about the shop.

They explained why the hallway to the washroom was backed up, that they have many wheelchair-using customers during non-COVID times and that their sanitizer is located at the cash.

The duo responded in a way that the Ulgens felt attacked and believed was racist as they allegedly made comments about the Ulgens' culture.

"We'll tolerate any sort of criticisms," John told blogTO. "That's how we've grown over the last five years but we don't tolerate racism or looking down upon."

"What does culture have to do with anything? We told them they are not welcome at our store because of their racist behaviour."

The Simit & Chai owners called the duo out for racism over Instagram's direct message after they told John and Dee that "clearly there's a cultural component to how you address client inquiries and complaints."

John and Dee said the pair apologized and told them they are not racist. They added that they wouldn't come back to the Ulgens' restaurant.

John says he and Dee did not respond.

At that point, John and Dee posted the whole story from their perspective on Instagram and as soon as they posted their statement, the TwoPickyFoodies post and account had been deleted.

Since then, the TwoPickyFoodies did not address the Turkish restaurant again or respond but instead deleted all their accounts and websites including their Twitter, main website, and Instagram page where they once had more than 35,000 followers.

by Sami Chazonoff via blogTO