Last Monday, Bellevue pizzeria and wine bar Cork N Crust were gearing up for another busy Cincinnati Pizza Week, ready to offer diners their $10 special along with the friendly hospitality it’s known for. However, a couple negative reviews of the restaurant appeared on Google just as Pizza Week started, surprising the team.
“Yall should really learn how to treat your own staff with respect and dignity,” one reviewer left, alongside a one-star rating.
Another one-star review read, “It’d taste a lot better if the food wasn’t made with a fragile male ego. All the employees out on the floor were very friendly and attentive. 10/10 service! But, whatever is going on in the back/kitchen, needs to be re-evaluated ASAP. Do better, thanks!”
While negative reviews are just part of owning a restaurant, Cork N Crust co-owner Deborah Hill said those two reviews seemed out of place. She couldn’t think of an instance in her restaurant that would have prompted comments about treating staff poorly or “fragile male egos.”
“We were shocked when we first saw these. I mean, we are really proud of our good customer service and our reputation. And so when we started getting these reviews … it didn’t even make sense, you know what I mean? What are they talking about?” Hill told CityBeat. “My concern was, this is Pizza Week, and we’re counting on a good Pizza Week. And if you look at our reviews right now, there’s two one-star reviews that are terrible, and I was just afraid we would not have a good Pizza Week.”
Hill responded to the first reviewer, assuring them Cork N Crust treated everyone with dignity and to reach out to her via email so she could settle the matter and figure out what had happened. It wasn’t until a third negative review was left that she was able to connect the dots:
“Here an extra 5 Stars – People who are saying the staff was disrespected and fired is writing reviews on the wrong place. The actual place is (Cork ad (sic) Crust Newport News), not this business so I recommend anyone coming here to write a bad review of the situation they saw online to find the right business. Thanks,” wrote a reviewer named Imran Aboulhaf.
A case of mistaken identity
Cork N Crust had been mistaken for another restaurant of a similar name — Cork & Crust in Newport News, Virginia. The negative reviews had seemingly been meant for the Virginia restaurant, but what started it all?
A search on the social media platform Threads will bring up a post made on Nov. 9 by user Anjuli Gagliardi (@ricansopretty), a former employee at the Newport News Cork & Crust stating, “Got fired last week for asking for my paycheck,” followed by a screenshot of an alleged text exchange between her and Newport News Cork & Crust owner Chef Michael Johnson.
Gagliardi wrote, “Hey chef hope your day is going well, is there any chance I can come pick up my check today before 6? I’m able to be there around 330 I just wanted to ask first.”
To which Johnson replies, “When we talked about a good time of day to pick up checks what did I say?”
“You said when it’s slow but a simple no would’ve sufficed. Have a great day!!” Gagliardi wrote back.
“I said any day after 8pm. But you don’t listen. It’ll be on your check for Friday and also you are fired,” replied Johnson.
Gagliardi’s post garnered over 18,000 likes and 4,200 comments on Threads and led to backlash of angry comments and reviews meant for the Newport News restaurant that ultimately spilled over to Cork N Crust in Kentucky, as well as to the Cork & Crust Italian Mediterranean Kitchen in Harrington Park, New Jersey.
On Nov. 14, Johnson posted a video to Cork & Crust’s Instagram page, issuing an apology to the public.
“There’s a lot of misconception behind this and stuff like that. I’m going to explain that the best that I can. I had a moment of unprofessionalism where I fired somebody over text message. Now, on our day-to-day operations, I’m not normally someone who is hot-headed; I’m not normally someone who gets mad or upset or dwells on things. I just had a moment where, honestly, I felt like I was getting trolled. And if that wasn’t the case, that wasn’t the case. If it was, it was; whatever it is, either way that it goes, I had a moment of weakness and I’m able to reflect on that, which I have been over the last week, is that I’ve been reflecting on the fact that I lost my temper,” Johnson says in the video. You can watch the full video here.
Gagliardi responded to the video on Facebook, writing, “Imagine apologizing to the PUBLIC for firing an employee who asked for their check. THEN deleted all the comments and blocked me on Facebook because he knows he’s wrong and lying.”
When social media-driven backlash such as this happen, it’s not uncommon for businesses with similar or identical names to take some of the heat from angry reviewers. However, Hill feels like there’s another reason the waters were muddied between her restaurant and the one in Virginia.
A tale of two logos
Hill shared with CityBeat that she was aware of the Cork & Crust in Virginia for about a month before the negative reviews were posted. After Cork & Crust in Virginia opened in February of this year, Hill said she started getting orders and phone calls meant for the Virginia restaurant.
“We’ve had a couple situations where people have called to place an order with us, and then they said something that wasn’t on our menu,” Hill said. “And I looked him up. And I’ll be honest with you: I was quite surprised to see their logo. It looks shockingly like ours that I paid a lot of money to have put together for us.”
While Cork N Crust in Bellevue and Cork & Crust in Newport News share a similar name and pizza-and-wine concept, Hill says their logos are also nearly identical: same wine bottle, same wine-filled “O” and same pizza pie missing a slice.
Cork N Crust Bellevue’s logo:
Cork & Crust Newport News’ logo:
“That was our logo that we put together. We added the little pie thing on the logo. We paid a person to design that for us. So I was shocked when I saw that … but just kind of thought to myself at that time that it’s in a different market, you know?” Hill said. “But then this, when this happened this week, I felt a little bit differently about it. I was just very concerned that it would reflect on us.”
Cork N Crust in Bellevue opened in November 2021 and has used the same two logos designed by Menu Designs in St. Augustine, Florida, since. CityBeat reached out to Johnson for comment on his restaurant’s branding, but has not heard back as of press time.
Hill says she’s not pursuing legal action against Cork & Crust in Newport News, but she would like the negative reviews meant for Johnson’s restaurant removed from Google. She’s escalated the issue to Google, but as of Nov. 17, the reviews remain up.
“I just want to make sure in our area that people realize that those negative reviews do not reflect Cork N Crust Bellevue,” she said. “Cork N Crust is locally owned, family-run and operated. We’re built on hospitality, integrity and consistency. We value our guests and we value our employees.”
