The owners of a cult Melbourne eatery have detailed horrific verbal abuse and heckling they endured at the hands of disgruntled, bitter customers, making the tough decision to close down this month.
Tuck Shop Take Away penned a shocking post to their Instagram account this week, detailing years of verbal abuse hurled from strangers at the small, family-run eatery over their nine years in business.
Random reviewers called the owners of Tuck Shop vicious names online, while branding their staff “so slow they must be stoned”.
Others criticised the joint for selling out of food, while one consistent troll complained about their lettuce being shredded and the placement of the salad inside a burger.
One Google review even went so far to say: “It’s so bad, it should be burnt to the ground”.
“They don’t realise there are people, families, human beings on the other end,” owners Clinton and Karina Serex said.
“We have names, we have faces, we have feelings.”
The Caulfield North-based business has achieved somewhat of a cult following within Melbourne’s food scene.
The eatery, known for its burgers and milkshakes, has lines running out the door most Fridays and weekends, and the shop will often post that it has sold out of stock on particularly hectic days.
But after nine years of ups and downs, it will close its doors for the last time on February 12.
While it was made clear the business was not a Covid-casualty, the owners wanted to draw attention to the tough conditions faced by hospitality workers and small businesses, which often led to burnout.
“This industry is tough and on the surface it might look successful, rewarding and easy, but the reality is that it takes all of you,” they said.
“It is unrelenting and unforgiving – it takes a toll. This is why we are ready to go.”
The couple aren’t the first hospitality business to highlight the abuse often suffered by staff from customers, with bad behaviour increasing over the past two years of the pandemic.
The behaviour has been particularly horrifying amid vaccine mandates and restrictions being enforced across hospitality and retail in Victoria, stopping unvaccinated individuals from entering venues.
Melbourne cafes last year reported threats for supporting police charities, while others had bricks thrown through windows and were left threatening notes that their shops would be burned down.
Ms Serex described people criticising the business for selling out of burgers, saying the sentiment was “buy more food, cook faster, be better, shut down if we couldn’t serve everyone”.
“I’d actually after a while feel sick in the stomach when posting that we’d sold out, knowing what was coming,” she said.
“I spent nights crying, wondering why the heck we were doing this. The ugly side of people was just way too much.
Ms Serex said while the abuse hurled at Tuck Shop was rampant in the first few years, it did continue and played a role in their closure.
“No one deserves to be treated like it – the people writing these things have no conscience or heart,” she said.
“We’ve copped oxjmtzywur fair share and I wanted to write about it in the hope that even if we help one other business owner to know they’re not alone, well that’s good enough for us.”
