‘Hat of the Day - Joseph “Speak English Or I Won’t Let You Give Me Money” Vento
Move over, Soup Nazi, and say hello the Philly Cheese-Dick. While most American businesses operate on the model that the customer is always right, asshat businessman Joseph Vento proudly informed the Philly Inquirer that that his not his policy. Vento’s alternative? “Why should I have to bend? I got a business to run.” Yup, and I got one less business to patronize.
Maybe “Why should I have to bend?” is how business gets done in the Old Country, but by the third generation you’d think he’d have learned that it’s not how we do business here. I guess some immigrants will never assimilate. Dual ‘hat tip to NK and MM (the latter of whom appears to be unclear on the concept herself).
June 3rd, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Bravo, Xrlq.
June 3rd, 2006 at 8:14 pm
Restaurants do not need lots of customers (especially certain Italian joints). My family used to run a pizza place in the University District of Seattle, and my dad was always throwing people out for one thing or another, that is, after he did the math and found out the huge volume of bussiness we were doing was loosing us money faster than if we’d had fewer customers. People were lined up around the block like it was Star Wars, that was probably the only decent pizza most of those people had in their lives. Anyway, the more customers you get, the more the toilet breaks. The employees think you’re rich and steal even more than usual. All your bills are higher. Non-chain restaurants don’t really make money anyway; They loose it for you if you’re a real-estate millionare with a Johnny LaRue’s Hawiian Town fantasy, or they launder it.
Whoa, went on a lot longer than I meant to.
June 4th, 2006 at 8:11 am
Asshat? Por que?
June 4th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Soup Nazi: “No soup for you!” Good one Xrlq.
June 4th, 2006 at 11:29 am
“Yup, and I got one less business to patronize.”
You went there a lot, did you?
June 4th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Playing a little bit of Devil’s Advocate here, the guy can run his business any way he sees fit. (Legally, of course.) If his business goes under because of this policy, that’s his problem.
June 4th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
Spoons: porque he’s acting like a prick, that’s porque. A patriotic prick is still a prick.
LK: no, but it’s not as though I never travel to Philly. When I do, I always get cheese steak sandwiches. I just won’t be getting them from Geno’s.
Andy: I agree. I’m not questioning Vento’s right to be a prick, just exercising my own right to call him one.
June 5th, 2006 at 2:51 am
Yeah, that’s an awful business decision. He’s only gotten worldwide free publicity for his political stance.
June 5th, 2006 at 6:18 am
Indeed. Maybe his competitor should get even more worldwide publicity by announcing a policy of mixing boogers into the cheese stakes he sells to Republicans. Most Philly residents are Democrats, so that shouldn’t piss off too much of his customer base, and besides, all publicity is good publicity, right?
June 5th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
A handful of quibbles:
Perhaps you would be less upset with him had he posted a sign: “To make sure we give you what you want, we humbly request that you place your order in English?”
Technically, Vento isn’t violating the customer is always right approach… since he’s not taking their order, they’re not customers.
And where did you get the silly idea that American businesses think the customer is always right? Tis ain’t the case. If it were, why don’t the airlines take my word that I am not a security threat and let me skip through the security lines?
While you won’t be frequenting Geno’s, I figure the sales he loses due to your - and all those of a like mind - boycott will amount to a rounding error in his daily take… the typical philly cheesesteak eater isn’t likely to get all bent out of shape over having to order in English.
And while it’s not quite the same thing, I would be thrilled if the order takers at the fine eating establishments I frequent were able to understand English well enough so I don’t have to check the bag before I leave the drive-through window to see if I got what I ordered.
June 5th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
He is indeed a ‘Hat.
Since I never eat there, I can’t further withhold my patronage.
However, I *can* start to patronize him.
“Awwww, cute little cheesesteak-place owner….so *adorable* when he acts like an idiot… awwwwww!”
Hey everyone: If you need a better place to eat a ’steak, try Ishkabibble’s on South Street, or possibly Steaks on South. Better food, better quality, and less ignorance.
June 6th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
I don’t really see your point. Many American businesses only serve English speaking customers just as many only serve customers that can pay with US dollars. So you are really just objecting to the sign, just as other people might object to a prominent photo of the proprietor together with some politician that they dislike. Myself, I don’t pay much attention to the politics of the businesses I patronize.
June 6th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
My point is simple: don’t be a dick, especially if you’ve got a business to run.
With all due respect, that’s a totally crappy analogy. Dollars are legal tender in Philadelphia; Rubles are not. I don’t fault the Philly Cheese-Dick for insisting on being paid in U.S. currency, as accepting anything else would be a significant accommodation on his part. I also don’t fault him for not going out of his way to hire cashiers fluent in Hmong, Tagalog or Swahili to accommodate every potential customer. I do, however, fault him for going out of his way not to accommodate non-English speakers with whom he is able but unwilling to communicate. I don’t speak a word of Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovenian, Dutch or Italian yet somehow have managed to get what I wanted, when I wanted, in all of their respective countries, and have never encountered anybody with this prick’s attitude. Nope, his kind you only find here; as if there weren’t enough people around the world who already think we’re a nation of arrogant jerks.
June 6th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
Well, I think it is kind of arrogant to visit a foreign land without speaking a word of the local language and still expect all the natives to cheerfully serve you. And in fact I doubt they all actually will.
June 6th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
Ah, X, with “his kind you only find here”, you blundered off safe ground. One of my really enjoyable experiences in Paris was having the locals all but refuse to serve me because I didn’t speak French well enough for them. Thank god for McDonalds.
And since when did you start worrying about what people around the world think of us?
June 6th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Since people started giving them good reasons to think lowly of us. I’ll go to the mat for The Arrogant American who withdraws from Kyoto, seeks democracy in Iraq, tells the UN to take a flying leap, or does anything else meaningful enough to be worth pissing people off over. This guy is just a needless embarassment.
June 8th, 2006 at 10:58 am
I think you missed a major point this guy made… His ancestors had to learn to speak English (presumably outside some Italian neighborhoods) to do business in this country. He is applying that same principle to other immigrant groups.
On a personal note, my Grandmother was darn proud of having learned English to get her citizenship. Somewhere in the past 75 years, that’s been lost.
June 8th, 2006 at 11:09 am
BR, I got his point, and I agree wholeheartedly with his point. What I take issue with is his being a dick about it.
June 8th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
So maybe this guy should think that you have to eat while you learn English and wonder whether his parents would have learned Ebglish first or starved to death first if all the food sellers back then were the kind of jerks he is.
June 12th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
It’s his business. He can be as much of a dick as he wants — and the publicity is getting him a whole lot of business he didn’t have before.
June 13th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
As long as he requires the same of his fellow Italians then it is not racism. But then again, you do you think that he would refuse an Italian that doesn’t speak English? We have many of those here in Philly.