Unprofessional behaviour by Jim (The Owner) in the cafe and on social media.

The owner, Jim, is very unprofessional with how he handles inter-personal conflict and the atmosphere became hostile. Intimidation, raising your voice and targeting customers with staring and comments is not how you get dogs to stop peeing. All customers were cleaning after their dogs, myself included. His hostile outburst left a customer leaving distraught and accidentally let my dog out into the street, next to Upper James. I was able to get my dog back. To be clear, I am not blaming anyone. Yes I was watching my dog and yes the person that let my dog out AND my friend can verify this. But that is not my complaint. My issue is how Jim handled the situation was very unprofessional as he continued to not acknowledge the situation or his behaviour when it was brought to his attention. My friend stated Jim was present when my dog escaped, as he was cleaning the golden retriever's pee.

The tension in the room resulted in almost everyone leaving except one customer. Myself, my friend and two owners of the golden retriever were not happy with Jim's actions that day.

Jim also enabled hateful commentary and participated in online harassment. I posted my experience in a dog-meetup group. My post was removed and I was kicked due to "hate speech" even though my review has been approved on other sites..weird (I later found out Jim is the admin). A new thread opened up to discuss myself and his community began harassing my friend for defending me (who was present at the incident). Jim made a lot of false assumptions and claims. My friend offered to disprove those claims by reviewing surveillance tapes, however, Jim "does not feel comfortable" letting her back in the cafe. If this is the case, do not slander our names without evidence, especially if we are not able to prove what we were saying was true.

Jim also sent me personal insults through private messaging and attacked my character for posting on several platforms. I do not recommend this cafe due to Jim's behaviour and actions. It is very unprofessional and there is no excuse in how you treat customers in this way. I am posting this to spread awareness and promote change in the hopes Jim will change his ways. My constructive criticism is not an attack but to identify a gap in your service.

Screenshots can be found on Facebook. Original review posted for "hate speech" was approved on TripAdvisor.

UPDATE:

An employee of the café finally took down the facebook thread and promo photos of my dog after a month. This happened when the poster of the thread was confronted (who refused to apologize and delete her thread). Thank you so much to Bailee, who deserves a raise and promotion for resolving things in a friendly & professional manner. Jim can learn more from Bailee on *excellent* customer service. Jim was well aware about the online thread and chose to close commenting instead of deleting it. The thread remained publicly visible. Jim was asked to delete photos of my dog, which he did not respond to. It is shameful Jim continued to keep those photos up when we were not happy with the service provided on that day. It’s also gross how Jim encouraged online bullying and refuses to address what he has done online. Jim has since apologized but called me "nasty" and that i "require professional help" for asking to discuss things over the phone and that i would like a public apology on social media for his actions online, proving his apology was not sincere and he is not genuine about making things right.

Alot of reviews have also been made after I posted mine. Its obvious people at this cafe are attempting to cover up my review and I would call it biased since these people are employees or friends of the staff at the cafe. Some of these reviews reference me and the two gate system, not obvious at all. The issue has never been about the two gate system but the owner's unprofessionalism!!**

Mar. 14, 2020