Maybe the most exciting news I read this week in the food world is that the world’s crabbiest Washington, DC chef has left town and left the two restaurants she was micro-managing. This is not the first flare up for Carole Greenwood, and I suspect it will not be the last!
After all this is a woman who was notorious for storming out of the kitchen and saying to a customer who wanted something altered in the presentation of a menu item, “If I had wanted it that way, I would have made it that way.” Servers were literally afraid of her and knew they could not even meekly slink into the kitchen to ask for a menu alteration. The question would lead to an explosion.
That makes great television or theatre but does not work on my nickel or personal dining dollars. I want more. I want to know someone cares enough to speak civilly and not believe that customers are without opinions or dietary needs. This is a restaurant, not a place to be bullied. Your tantrum does not make my dining out experience 
delicious.
This female DC area chef rivaled the tirades of the legendary European chef and television star Gordon Ramsay. You know how over the years chefs have become rock stars. Well, her special blend of talent had some obvious flaws. Even with her background and finicky ways, she could cook. That is if she didn’t run out of specials or have so little menu food left to have guests question if was there anything in the house?
She was riding on a reputation she had garnered from her earliest roots as a hard-working female chef/caterer who managed to have a loyal following of customers. Some became friends and some eventually investors. She personified what it meant to be a poor businesswoman who was working hard but without the finesse necessary to run a restaurant. Ask the investors who learned how risky an investment in a restaurant can be!
Running a restaurant as a chef and part owner has certain inherent demands. Customers, for instance, expect a certain level of attention and some kindness along the way. She lost that part of the business equation a long time ago. No matter how often she reinvented herself, the scenario always had the same ending: A tirade of some sort.
In this more cautious economic environment, a lot of skills are necessary to keep one’s customers. Having good food at affordable prices is certainly a part of that equation. Her leaving town opens up two neighborhood restaurants to all the people who refused to go back. People who had given up on her a long time ago.
The first restaurant will be reconfigured to more of a friendly camping environment (Buck’s Summer Camp) while they plan for the future. The more casual, but cleverly designed, next door sister pizza place (Comet Ping Pong) will remain the fun, welcoming place that serves affordable foods.
I wish her no harm, but I do wonder if her style has become permanently unacceptable in this more careful dining universe.
Watch out New York; she’s coming your way.
Somewhere back in the recesses of your mind you can hear your mother tell you to clean the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher. “The dishwasher can only do so much.”
OK, Californians and other hearty Midwesterners, ignore the headline: On the East Coast we save a lot of propane and charcoal costs 5-6 months a year depending on how dedicated we are to the grill. One thing is certain, this weekend, even with its early calendar date, inspires us to think gas, charcoal, and even electric fire power. It’s grill season, Baby.
