Post #570904 by skitiki on Sun, Jan 2, 2011 8:52 AM

It was indeed an outstanding night (the DTB staff was amazing, especially the bartenders, and Waitiki was simply incredible) until the very end when about 5 or 6 of us were gathering our things in the Dagger Bar (it was just a little after two), the lights were up there was no booze to be seen and we were making our way to the door to go wait for our cabs that had been called about an hour earlier and not yet shown up.

Art Snyder made one last appearance in the bar. He looked at all of us and said, "You need to leave. I've spent too much time and money on this place for you people to mess it up for me." (Only "mess" wasn't the word that was used).

We were all quite stunned at his rude and unprofessional behavior. We went outside and as soon as the door closed the exterior lights were extinguished and we were left standing in a cold dark parking lot on the PCH waiting for our cabs.

Now, he has every right to not want to get shut down for having people in his bar past the legal hours, but there were many ways Art could have handled this situation and he chose just about the worst one. Especially after we had all spent several hundreds of dollars in his restaurant over the course of the evening on mugs, cocktails and tips for his staff.

Certainly none of us would ever want anything bad to happen to DTB or Art, but I have to say that to show such utter disrespect for the very people who support him and to behave so unprofessionally, was an unfortunate end to what had been an outstanding evening.

Perhaps, it was just a fluke, or Art was just tired, but unfortunately for me the result is that I'll never set foot in DTB again and certainly won't recommend it to anyone else. There are far too many great Tiki places in LA where you are treated politely and respectfully for me to spend my money or suggest that others spend theirs in a place with an owner who clearly is not about the Ohana.