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Santa Ana Chef Blasts Customer On Yelp Over Negative Review

SANTA ANA (CBS) — The customer is always right – ah, but not to chef and restaurant owner Jason Quinn, who blasted a reviewer on Yelp and has no regrets about it.

Quinn, the 25-year-old owner of The Playground in Santa Ana, knows that his restaurant has a few rules that might irk a new customer. For example, they don't serve ketchup and they don't serve meat well done.

"We love what we're doing and we have opinions on how things should be served," Quinn says.

Quinn's restaurant has been in business for just two months, the brick-and-mortar establishment of The Lime Truck, which won Great Food Truck Race on Food Network last fall.

The Playground's 4.5 star rating on Yelp has definitely helped business. But when a reviewer identified as Naseem M. gave the restaurant one star and complained about the 3 percent gratuity for the kitchen staff, the unbending policy on meat doneness and even Quinn's parents, Quinn responded with a vengeance.

Quinn's nearly 2-page response was peppered with some choice expletives, asked the reviewer how cheap he was and flatly told him he was wrong. Quinn says these customers will never be allowed back in his restaurant.

Quinn says he did everything possible to make the customers happy, even offering to pay for part of their meal. But in hindsight, Quinn says his only regret was not kicking them out as they were sitting at the table.

"Frankly, I told them to burn in hell," Quinn said of his response to the review on Yelp.

Quinn has no regrets about his response to the review and says he's not worried about bad publicity.

"These are people who are using a public forum to discuss their experience, which is exactly what we want," Quinn said. But, "the truth of the matter is, these people were awful."

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