Many small business rely on Social Media to engage their audiences and restaurants are no exception. When dealing with negative comments some simple rules apply. It would be the same rules that you would use if the person making the negative comments were in front of you in the middle of the restaurant: Stay calm, do not go on the attack, and try to defuse the situation before it becomes a big issue. This restaurant followed none of these steps and ended up in the spotlight for their Social Media meltdown.

It started with getting on Gordon Ramsey's Television show. Or to be more accurate the Social Media nightmare started with the restaurant getting kicked off of the show kitchen Nightmares. The owners of the restaurant were deemed too difficult to work with and they were dismissed. After the show detailed some of how the owners run their business some nasty comments were made on the restaurant's Facebook page.

The owners decided to defend themselves and their ways on the Facebook page and it quickly escalated into a boxing match crossing over to Reddit. There was name calling, personal attacks, profanity used and threats made. And that came from the business owners. As I said, the best thing to do is act the same way as you would if the person was right in front of you with everyone watching. Stay calm, you will do yourself and your business a great disservice if you lose it and fan the flames of discontent. Do not go on the attack, you will only escalate things and you cannot listen to the customer complaint reasonably if you are on the offense. Try to defuse the situation before if becomes a big issue, this comes about by listening to the complaint and genuinely trying to address what is making them upset. Listening is key, people want to be heard, and more importantly they want to be understood.

The full blow by blow of the meltdown can be seen here including the posts from both sides of the fence.  My advice is to view this as a cautionary tale on dealing with the public via Social Media.