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Food

Recently Closed Restaurant Posts Savage Responses to Its Bad Online Reviews

"Thanks for being one of our shittiest customers glad we’ll never deal with assholes like you again we’re doing just fine.”
Screenshots via Facebook

After almost 27 years in business, The Dome Grill, a longtime St. Petersburg, Florida breakfast spot, has closed its doors for good. "I have a lot of compliments from the people of St. Pete,” owner Michael Karamalakos told the Tampa Bay Times. “Of course there are some negative things too, and I don't know why, but you take the good with the bad.”

Although the 80-year-old Karamalakos might be willing to shrug off any negativity or complaints he’d heard during the past two-plus decades, his 29-year-old son Kostas is taking a decidedly different approach. The younger Karamalakos has spent the past several days scrolling through the restaurant’s one- and two-star Facebook reviews and responding with some real talk. “It felt good,” Kostas said, of dishing out a lot of online venom to former customers, including some who left their reviews more than two years ago.

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For example, to a woman who complained that she had to pay for a side of honey on her pancakes, he wrote, “Aw poor you maybe we should have given you a free coffee and free juice too fuck it take your breakfast free while you’re at it lol”

To a woman who said she was glad to see the demise of this “shit stain rotten garbage dispensary”: “Yeah if you knew how to wipe there wouldn’t be any stains. We’re glad never to see your kind again either, the feeling is mutual.”

To a man who said that, after all of the restaurant’s health code violations (more on that in a sec), its closure was overdue: “Thanks for being one of our shittiest customers glad we’ll never deal with assholes like you again we’re doing just fine.”

To a man who said that his eggs and bacon were cold when he got them: “Cold as your attitude so happy we never have to deal with people like you again […] Cool story bro, now shove it where the sun don’t shine.”

To a man who complained about the “shitty owners” and “shitty atmosphere”: “Don’t forget about the very shitty customer.”

To a woman who said that she’d been given sour cream with her coffee: “NICE TRY SUCKERS WE WIN LOL […] We sold the building and are off to a great life with nothing but happy people and real personalities we will not miss people like you at all.”

To a man who said his food had a “chemical taste”: “Enjoy over-priced breakfast and a snobby ambiance cuz we out and very happy to be […] Screw customer service [it] is no long our priority buddy we’re more worried about being happy and being surrounded by happy people bye bye big complainer.”

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And going fully meta, to a man who said it was funny that Karamalakos waited until the restaurant closed to talk shit: “Yeah so crappy customers like yourself could find more ways to try and bring us down? If you had any balls you'd come talk the stuff you're talking to our face.”

True to its recent form, the restaurant announced its closure on Facebook last week. “We have nothing but love and respect for those who showed us the same, our loyal customers,” the post read. “To everyone else, thank you for the free advertisement. All advertisement is good advertisement, Hasta la Vista folks!!!” (And in the comments below the post, Karamalakos accused a former member of the waitstaff of stealing tips. Sigh.)

Despite what the Dome Grill wrote online, it’s not all good publicity. The restaurant was closed in April after the health inspector found 34 different violations, including “live roach activity on the cook line” and “more than 140 rodent droppings at the front counter.” WTSP reports that this was the third time that the Dome Grill had been closed by the health department in the past seven months; it was shuttered in October and November, after inspectors logged 51 violations, like “more than 250 rodent droppings” and “a piece of cockroach found floating in the milk.”

Um, maybe it’s time to tone that rhetoric down a bit, buddy.