Bonsai Garden Breaks Silence After Facebook Fiasco

Bonsai Garden, 1801 Knickerbocker Rd.,  has recently received quite a bit of negative attention after a customer posted a photo of her food on Facebook with the caption, “This is what we found in our food from Bonsai Garden today—a cockroach.” However, this post did not gain near as much attention as when former employee, Michael Anthony Andros, posted his reply with multiple curse words and claiming that he contaminates the food of rude customers' who don't adequately tip.

Originally, Bonsai did not want to comment on the situation, but they broke their silence Tuesday evening. Owner Cho Sum and manager Rachel Deller shared their thoughts on roaches, Andros, and business since the incident.

Deller and Cho both stated that Andros was immediately fired upon learning of his behavior on social media.

“We were appalled,” Deller said.

After receiving multiple phone calls and messages, Deller stated she checked Facebook to confirm the vulgar post by her employee.

“I told the other manager that we need to fire him because we do not condone that type of behavior with our servers at all,” said Deller.

Bonsai managers went as far as calling a mandatory emergency meeting for all employees.

“We told them that if anyone had a problem with us firing Michael, or if they were going to behave the way Michael was behaving, that they were no longer going to be welcomed to be employed here.” Deller continued. “We took it very, very seriously which is why we had ‘no comment’ before. We wanted to figure out for ourselves what was going on.”

Cho Sum stated, “[Andros] is still like a kid,” which became apparent after he was fired. While he had a civil and understanding attitude with the Bonsai managers upon his termination, he immediately posted another vulgar status on his Facebook about the demise of his employment.

Deller stated that Bonsai has definitely lost business since this incident, and while she and Sum both said they cannot comment on the roach that was supposedly found in the food, as it cannot be proven, Sum noted, “We have an appointment with Bug Express every single month.”

Deller added, “All restaurants have some faults. They have some mistakes that happen. We don’t condone what Michael said at all; that’s not what we represent. We want to represent a high class restaurant.”

Deller and Sum said they hope San Angelo will give Bonsai another chance and hope to bring business back up to an acceptable level.

“We are totally open to customer complaints or suggestions," Deller added. "We are here for San Angelo; we’re here to serve San Angelo.” 

Previously, officials from the Health Department stated they would be following up with Bonsai after learning of the complaint. Inspector Kevin Little stated, "Any time a cook threatens to adulterate food that has been served to the public, that is an extremely serious matter." Furthermore, the law states that it can be considered a terroristic threat to tamper with the public's food.

Little was informed by Sum that the employee had indeed been terminated so he performed his routine inspection.

"There were a number of little problems, like no paper towels, and just some of the various problems that restaurants have from time to time," he noted.

Little did say that he always looks extremely close when performing these inspections. "I did not see any live [insects]," he said.

While pests do not seem to be an issue for Bonsai, Little explained, "There are some deficiencies that need to be improved."

Some of these deficiencies include hand-washing and the use of cloth towels.

If anyone still has doubts, the sit-down dinners at Bonsai Garden are prepared in front of patrons. It's a Japanese steakhouse, after all.