This is (hopefully) more like a coffee shop – a place to share information and perhaps engage in some friendly debate. Which Jon invites and encourages by writing things like “What do you all think?” at the end of posts. It’s more fun when people keep things civil, but sometimes more interesting when they don’t…

Which is why “Your wife” and I pretty much agree to disagree about a lot. But it’s all good. Right?

I understand your sincerity in wanting to provide a great resource to Bend for happenings around town, but as this thread demonstrates, you guys are not journalists, but rather “citizen updaters.” When you pour out a story without the minimal kind of fact checking a reporter would do (i.e. interviewing the main parties being written about), what you end up with is a rumor blog, and that’s fine if that is what your intentions are, but from what I can see in this story, no real good was served. Is it that important to know what an utter failure someone was and all the messy details? I suppose it was necessary after dragging Mcmichael through the dirt to balance things out by dragging Susan through the dirt.

How about dragging yourself and your facts through the dirt before getting into borderline libel? You really shouldn’t report on thing like this unless you are attempting to adhere to some standard of journalistic ethics. Otherwise, you are just a re-pressurizing station for the Bend rumor mill. Next time, just call the damn owners. You might be surprised.

Sticking to more facts here. When Susan was presented with a very large, very detailed stack of papers from the landlord & their attorney’s months prior to Staccato’s last day of service, she irresponsibly set them aside not giving them the time of day. These documents explicitly asked Susan to come up with a better business plan that would be able to pay the bills, and potentially pay back the thousands of dollars owed through a very forgiving loan. Needless to say when Susan finally looked at these documents the wave of panic that must have hit her would have been hard, because she had a chance to rescue her business, but she was late acting on that chance by 8/9 months.

Furthermore, (I am letting you folks know all about it here) Susan passed off the responsibility of running the restaurant to her staff, excluding James (Head Chef/boyfriend). Neither James or Susan had a role in the day to day operations of Staccato for 10-12 months. These duties were forced upon key members of Staccato’s staff who accepted because of a very strong working bond between each of them. Anybody who has eaten at Staccato’s during the last year can attest to the outstanding job these employee’s did. The food was always great and the service was beyond exceptional. The only thing missing was a business owner, because the one they had could have been a tyrant and possibly a crook.

Your comments here have spawned a debate that is all speculation. The facts we can find elsewhere, in the Bulletin, for instance. Why would Staccato broadcast their inability to pay rent? Why would the landlord announce Staccato’s undoing months in advance? Why WOULDN’T a potential new restaurant do some early marketing footwork?

Your intial post is a naive attempt to dig up dirt on what sounds like a personal vendetta against a successful restaurant owner. For the same reasons that you dislike Gavin, I ADMIRE him: he is a go-getter! And that’s a rare quality in this town of adults who’d rather ‘play’ than ‘work’.

The truth is, Bourbon Street will open and be successful. It will also employ more people than Staccato could, becuase it will be open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, according to an announcement at Bite of Bend.

Finally, Jon and (his/Your) Wife have an ethical obligation as a news source in a small town to report on the facts in an unbaised way. Let the people discuss what they may, but if you want to be a readable source of information that we can trust, attempting to thwart the promise of a potentially successful new business will not earn you readers for much longer.

* The Bourbon Street coupon was printed and distributed before the closure of Staccato was announced, which seemed highly irregular and like a red flag;
* In the Bulletin’s article on Bourbon Street I took some exception with the claim of the last paragraph in light of the pre-printed coupon;
* I looked at the bits of business info online which seem to have been instigated well in advance of what was thus far presented as the “official” story.

Of course, it smelled fishy to me, but this was simply my own opinion, and I certainly don’t know the ins and outs of the restaurant biz, nor do I know the various behind-the-scenes goings-on of the Downtown dynamics.

To be fair, I have no idea of the story behind Staccato’s business (other than what is being posted here anonymously, which should be taken with a grain of salt for exactly the reason my own post should be as well), and I haven’t read the Sunday Bulletin’s story on it yet, so it’s entirely possible I’m off the reservation on this one. It happens, I’m not perfect by any means.

No bias on my part towards the Blacksmith; I rather like their bar and think they’ve done a really good job with it. I post things I find interesting and that I think deserve some notice and discussion.

Curious certainly shouldn’t attack or claim to know anything about your wife’s business knowledge or experience, but there are some big leaps of speculation being made here that don’t seem to be based on any knowledge of the transactional facts, unless you know something about the parties or the deal that is not being shared here. ?

Jon, did u call/email the owner of staccato and blacksmith before writing this story to get comments/background? just wondering.

@curious, You do not know me nor what my experience is or isn’t. My comments were based on my OPINION as a consumer and I said so based on what little to no information was coming out at the time and I believe I said that I believe there to be more that is not coming out whatever that may be.

If you must know, I have worked in restaurants many years ago and I do have a more of a business background than you think and my comments (whether it be on this issue or another) come both from my business and consumer perspective. However, this is not about me.

Of course, if you do not pay your bills (in any form; house, car, credit cards, business) then of course, there are consequences.

I did not need to respond, but I wanted to because there are no need for attacks, as my opinion is just that…my opinion based upon my own life experiences on what information is known at the time on a certain subject.

Jon is very fortunate to be able to keep up on his blog and moderation of comments to keep the discussions flowing, even though I know just how busy and very little time he has right now.

If this is the case, I’m very happy for them to be able to find a solid tenant that will most likely be able to uphold their part of the agreement.

However, “Curious”, that was a low blow to Jon’s wife in regards to her not understanding the restaurant biz. It’s one thing to point out someone’s error, another to flaunt your expertise in their face. Say, like, if someone were to point out your ignorance of how a personal blog is run, and why sometimes moderators take more than a few hours to approve a comment, hmmmm?