2012.01.11
Pitt Boss owners say they will refund gift cards
I received a very emotional phone call this afternoon from Nickki Tedesco, who with her husband James Tedesco owned the shuttered Pitt Boss BBQ restaurant.
The abrupt closure last month upset many barbecue lovers, but also those who bought or received Pitt Boss gift cards. See this blog post for more on that.
Nickki Tedesco said that they have set aside money to pay back business expenses, which includes refunding gift cards purchased within the last year. She asks gift card holders to contact her via email at pittbossbbq@gmail.com.
The restaurant wasn’t profitable, and the Tedescos used their personal savings to keep it going, she said. While looking over bills the day after Christmas, they decided to call it quits, she said.
“We made a very last minute decision to close the door on our dreams,” she said crying.
Tedesco said she was disgusted that anyone would think they sold the gift cards knowing they were going to close.
“There’s no get-rich scheme,” she said.
She estimated they sold about 50 gift cards before the holidays.
The Coffee Pot has offered to redeem the gift cards at half the face value. The offer excludes the buffet, alcohol and items already on special.
As devastating as this appears to have been for them, I think it was the total lack of communication with patrons that got people upset.
Something should have been released about their status sooner. That would have helped to curb accusations and ill will.
Best of luck to them both.
Comment by belle — January 11, 2012 @ 5:25 pm
I am so sorry this happened. I always loved to go there. Nickki and james were always so personable and we enjoyed hearing about their new baby. Had not been there for about a year due to personal issues but will miss having their barbeque. Good luck, Nickki, James and Mark whatever you do.
Comment by Jo Markham — January 11, 2012 @ 7:50 pm
Having been in this business’ shoes years ago, my heart goes out to them. People don’t really know how hard it is to run your own business especially in this economy. Years later, i’m still paying of debt I incurred during my time as biz owner. I’m glad they saved enough to repay the gift cards and wish them the best for their futures.
Comment by former biz owner — January 11, 2012 @ 10:22 pm
Glad to hear that, and I agree with belle…better communication would have prevented the anger about the closing.
Comment by Other John — January 11, 2012 @ 11:47 pm
It was incredibly unfair and unprofessional of you to publish your first blog post about this without presenting the business owners’ side of the story. Just because it’s online doesn’t mean you should just post whatever crosses your desk without doing basic reporting. Posting “Customer is angry that closing business won’t honor his gift card” is lazy at best when you don’t bother to find out what the closing business has to say about it.
Comment by tass — January 12, 2012 @ 1:56 am
It’s unfortunate that a short sighted decision to offer gift cards when ownership was aware of the status of the business would negatively impact the perception of gift cards from local businesses that are successful. While the decision to close the business might have been ‘last minute’, there had to be an awareness of the overall health of the business for more than the ‘last minute’. I think the onus for informing the customer base rests solely with the owners, and the decisions made helped create the negative scenario.
A real lesson could be learned by the manner that a competitor – The Coffee Pot – reacted. Offering to cover much of the value of a defunct competitor’s gift cards, when your business is thriving and had no need to even get involved? That shows a real commitment to the customers of the Roanoke Valley and reflects on why The Coffee Pot has been a local fixture for so many decades.
Comment by abdnva — January 12, 2012 @ 5:31 am
the irony of their situation which is very obvious to SW Co residents is that they were doing great in their old location, which prompted them to expand. That opened up a Spot for Burger in the Square to move into their old location. Hopefully Burger in the Square will stay put!
Comment by ron mexico — January 12, 2012 @ 8:01 am
@tass: I tried for days to get in touch with the owners, and the landlord. I wouldn’t call that lazy, unfair, or unprofessional. It’s still news that the restaurant is closed, and that customers were angry about the gift cards. When the restaurant owners did contact me yesterday I immediately shared that interview with this post.
Comment by Amanda Codispoti — January 12, 2012 @ 9:47 am
@ Tass, Amanda and I have been getting calls and emails from readers for weeks asking us what was going on at Pitt Boss. I attempted to reach them through several channels, as well, but ultimately we had to go with substantiated reports from customers.
If preventing a story were as easy as being unreachable, there would be all kinds of articles – including good watchdog journalism – that would never make it into the paper.
Comment by Lindsey Nair — January 12, 2012 @ 10:38 am
I want to thank Amanda and Lindsey for writing about this on the Storefront site. In all honesty, the owners probably “stepped up to the plate” because of your article. If you attempted to contact the Tedescos and the landlord, and other people attempted to do the same, it was obvious that refunding the gift card money was not their original intent. The owners closed the doors, removed their facebook page, and did not return telephone calls. The least they could have done is post a sign on the door regarding gift card issues (knowing full well that they sold alot during the month of December). Bottom line……. you both did an excellent job reporting this, and I want to thank you on behalf of alot of other people in the valley with gift cards, for making the owners come out of hiding and deal with the situation.
Comment by TJ — January 12, 2012 @ 10:49 am
Amanda just saw where the fairlawn Food Lion is closing.
Comment by seth — January 12, 2012 @ 11:47 am
@seth: Thanks. The Food Lion on Franklin Road (near Kohl’s) is also closing. I’m working on getting something on that, but have been sidetracked with another story.
Comment by Amanda Codispoti — January 12, 2012 @ 11:51 am
@abdnva, The Coffee Pot is hardly a “competitor”… do they even SERVE barbecue? Even if they do, it’s hardly what they’re known for, and this isn’t some philanthropic gesture… it’s simply a low-class dive bar making a publicity grab at the expense of a failed business. That place has not earned its reputation based on quality, service, or anything of any real value… just self-promotion (oh, and alcohol). Worse yet, it’s usually by taking advantage of situations like this rather than honest advertising or anything else that could be considered genuine.
Comment by Spiny Norman — January 12, 2012 @ 12:41 pm
I;m not surprised by the Fairlawn FL closing. They didn’t do a lot of business in recent years, and the competition from the nearby Walmart and Kroger…plus Wades and another Food Lion in Radford were stiff. The FL in Radford was remodeled recently, the Fairlawn one was not. It didn’t even have a deli/bakery in the store for the past several years. When I asked the manager why they didn’t get a badly needed remodel, he said they were one of the lowest revenue stores in the company, which told me they were in line for an eventual closing…probably once a building lease expired or something along those lines. Sad to see it happen, but they were the highest priced grocery store in Fairlawn by a long shot.
Comment by Other John — January 12, 2012 @ 1:23 pm
So the story is they just woke up one morning and closed the doors?
How is posting “Customers angry” lazy or dishonest when in fact customers WERE angry? The owners could have weighed in with everyone else and explained the situation. They were held accountable for their actions – that’s part of being in business.
Sad they didn’t make it, but when restaurants close it’s usually bad management, bad food, or both. Plenty of local restaurants thrive here – Roanoke is good about supporting its locals.
Comment by Kristen — January 12, 2012 @ 2:13 pm
The Franklin Road FL is possbily the dirtiest grocery store I’ve ever been in. Are we going to get any of the Bloom stores in the area?
Comment by Kristen — January 12, 2012 @ 2:25 pm
Kristen – the Food Lion on Starkey near Buffalo Wild Wings must run a close second in the dirty department. They even remodeled the place not too long ago and it still looks dark and dingy and the meat department stinks. I only go in there if I’m desperate for a quick one or two items like milk and don’t want to fight the after work crowds at Kroger. It’s never busy in there – I’m surprised they aren’t closing, too. Oddly enough, I’ve seen several Bloom trucks recently along 419. I figured they were just using the trucks for Food Lion deliveries.
Comment by J — January 12, 2012 @ 10:18 pm
Kristen, I’d say no to Bloom. They’re closing several and reverting a lot of Blooms back into Food Lion. I’d say the demographics here just don’t work, especially since they’re closing several Bloom stores in NoVA, where I’d think they’d actually have a shot at working. But I suppose the NoVA competition from Giant, Wegman’s, and Whole Foods did them in.
Comment by Other John — January 12, 2012 @ 11:33 pm
I think this blog is terrific and that Amanda does an amazing and professional job. If the owners had openly communicated the situation from the start, a lot of this would have been avoided, as was pointed out.
Comment by Susan2 — January 13, 2012 @ 8:49 am
“Phone calls to the owners were not returned” is pretty standard language for news stories that lack the subject’s point of view. If you tried for several days to reach the owners, then you did what you could behind the scenes. But you absolutely should have included a statement indicating that the owners had an opportunity to speak to the issue but did not.
Comment by tass — January 13, 2012 @ 10:45 am
So, tass, are you saying that Amanda should have sat on the story until Pitt Boss’ owners responded to her numerous calls? What if they never responded?
Comment by Lori — January 13, 2012 @ 11:20 am
Lori can you read? Including a sentence in the original post saying “Calls to the restaurant’s owners were not returned” would have made it clear that she had given them an opportunity to speak to the issue. It’s SOP.
Her story did not indicate that she had tried to reach the owners, so many people had the impression that the poor owners weren’t being dealt a fair blow (as shown in many of the comments following the first post).
Comment by tass — January 13, 2012 @ 11:54 am
@tass: Actually, the blog post says: “The restaurant owners, James and Nickki Tedesco, can’t be reached.” How would I know they couldn’t be reached if I hadn’t tried?
Comment by Amanda Codispoti — January 13, 2012 @ 11:58 am
The bottom line is that when something life-changing like this happens, the owners have every right to sequester themselves and lick their wounds… at least for a couple days. Even so, life goes on outside their cocoon, so the press has to report on what happened. Amanda did her job… could’ve made it a bit more clear about the “can’t be reached” part, but I agree that the attempt is all that’s required. The owners can’t expect things to go unreported while they mourn the loss of their dream. Yes, they go unrepresented until they’re ready to make a statement, but now they have and if they’re as good as their word, everybody needs to back off.
Comment by Spiny Norman — January 13, 2012 @ 1:41 pm