Now infamous for being the first restauranteurs “fired” by Kitchen Nightmares’ star Gordon Ramsey on last Friday’s episode for being unable to work with Amy and Samy Bouzaglo, the owners of Amy’s Baking Company are currently embroiled in a social media nightmare where the owners are claiming their Facebook page has been hacked.
Last week’s episode ended with Ramsey walking away from the restaurant owners and claiming he was unable to work with the Bouzaglos because they do not listen to criticism. The owners of Amy’s Baking Company admitted to firing 100 employees and were alleged to have stolen tip money. Since then, the couple reportedly took to social media to respond to critics. Instead of replying in a calm and collected fashion, the person who posted on Amy’s Facebook page responded to critics in an increasingly bizarre and somewhat abusive fashion, callling detractors “trash”, “pathetic” and that “G-d was on their (Amy and Samy’s) side with Samy calling his wife “a jewel in the desert.”
In an interesting twist, Amy’s owners are now claiming their social media sites were hacked with the following post on Facebook: “Obviously our Facebook, YELP, Twitter and Website have been hacked. We are working with the local authorities as well as the FBI computer crimes unit to ensure this does not happen again. We did not post those horrible things. Thank You Amy &Samy.” This may be possible. Highly doubtful, but you never know. Remember that Anthony Weiner claimed his Twitter account was hacked before fessing up that he did, in fact, send pictures of his crotch to a follower on social media.
Amy’s needs to rebuild its brand by apologizing to its customers for letting this debacle deflect from the real business of serving quality food to the public. They need to thank the customers that have stuck by them and the 50,000 plus Facebook fans that like them. Then they need to get off social media and not allow themselves to be baited by those who expect to see them explode. If they can’t do this, once the foot traffic of customers that will come into the restaurant to witness the madness subsides, the restaurant will be long for this world.
Our advice would be to make the big, public mea culpa and zip it. If budget permits, bringing in a dedicated and experienced public relations person to rebuild the brand would be a good move, too. So long as they don’t fire that person.
