The Tadich Grill saga: Execs finally give their side of the story
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Version 0 of 1. The owners of the Tadich Grill restaurants in San Francisco and Washington say they do not tolerate discrimination. They say they have nothing to do with the dispute between former owner Steve Buich and his daughter Terri Upshaw. And they say they hope a generational family dispute doesn’t get in the way of customers enjoying their seafood cioppino. “The ownership, management and employees of the Tadich Grill are deeply saddened by the recent newspaper stories regarding Terri Upshaw and her parents, the former owners of the restaurant,” Michael Buich, son of Steve Buich, said in a statement. “To be clear, none of the parties involved in this family dispute own or operate the current restaurant operations in any way, and our restaurants continue to employ and serve people of all races, religions and countries of origin. We believe strongly that discrimination in any form should never be tolerated.” [Terri Upshaw says she was forced to choose between family and love] Terri Upshaw spoke publicly about her complicated family history for the first time last month in this column. The widow of Gene Upshaw, a Hall of Fame Oakland Raider, told me her family disowned her after she revealed her relationship with Upshaw in 1983. Terri, who was 23 at the time, is white. Gene, who was 38 and in the process of divorcing, was African American. Terri said her husband’s race is the reason that her parents and brother and sister had not talked to her in more than 30 years, and the reason none of her family has met her sons, 25 and 28. Her sons have communicated with cousins only on Facebook, she said. Terri lives in Northern Virginia, and the second Tadich Grill, co-owned by her brother, Michael, opened to much fanfare in Washington in early October, which is why the back story came to my attention. [Famed San Francisco restaurant brings old school touch to Washington] At the time, neither the Buichs nor Tadich executives would comment. Reaction to Upshaw’s story was fast and fierce on both coasts. People took to social media to take sides, especially against the restaurant. Many posted negative, one-star, “I’ll never eat there” reviews to express their displeasure with what Upshaw said she had gone through. The Yelp-bombing got so intense that Yelp posted a note on the Tadich Grill page: “We will ultimately remove reviews that appear to be motivated more by the news coverage itself than by the reviewer’s own customer experience with the business (even if that means removing points of view we might agree with).” [After Terri Upshaw accuses her family of racism, the family’s historic restaurant, Tadich Grill, gets Yelp-bombed] Gerard Centioli, who has managed the original Tadich Grill since 2009 and now manages and co-owns the D.C. location, this week called the dispute “sad,” but maintains that whatever it is about, it is not about the restaurant. “As difficult as this kind of family issue is to comprehend, it would be unfair if the continued hard work of our employees and staff were tarnished by a complex and personal generational dispute that does not involve this restaurant, its ownership or staff,” he said in a statement e-mailed to The Washington Post. Centioli told me over the phone that the D.C. location has “been well received” and had a “significant flow of guests.” The restaurants’ numbers haven’t been affected in either location, he said. “We are simply operating a restaurant and look forward to serving people of D.C. just as we do the people of San Francisco.” Terri’s father, Steve Buich, who is in his early 80s, sold his interest in Tadich Grill — which started as a coffee stand in 1849 during the California gold rush and has been in the Buich family since the early 20th century — to Michael in 1993. The father has not responded to interview requests but e-mailed this statement to the San Francisco Chronicle (it was later sent to The Post): “This is an issue between a father and his daughter and does not extend to the rest of the family, who have been in contact with Terri and her sons, despite what the article suggests,” the statement says. “This personal family matter has nothing to do with Tadich Grill, which I retired from over 20 years ago. Although I hold a strong belief that the details of my relationship with my daughter, including those that were omitted from the article, do not warrant public attention, I do want to make one thing clear: This has never been a matter of race, but rather the sanctity of marriage and personal judgment of character. Simply because a dispute involves people of different races does not mean that the dispute is racial in nature.” According to a 1999 San Francisco Business Times article, a former Tadich Grill employee sued the Buichs for racial harassment and won a $175,000 jury award, later reversed by a judge for what the article called “technical reasons.” Centioli had not heard of the lawsuit and said he has no knowledge of operations before 2009. In an e-mail response, Michael Buich called the lawsuit an “unfortunate situation” involving an employee he characterizes as litigious. Buich said he never demonstrated any discrimination. “It is the only lawsuit having anything to do with personnel relations and/or discriminatory claims that I (and to my knowledge Tadich Grill) have ever been involved with,” he said in the e-mail. Michael Buich, responding via e-mail earlier this week about the family and the business, stressed that there was no linkage to “the dispute between my Dad and my sister and the restaurant (my father retired in 1993 and his brother in 2000. I purchased the business from them at those respective times, and have run it since). “That being said, I have reached out to my sister and am working to bring the family back together,” he said in the e-mail. “I hope you can recognize that this is a family issue that doesn’t involve the restaurants, or for that matter anyone but the family. I am sure you can respect and understand how difficult any father-daughter dispute can be to patch together.” For more by O’Neal, visit wapo.st/lonnae. |