BY ELAINE MAGLIARO
Paula Deen—the Duchess of Deep-Frying…the Maven of Mayonnaise…the Belle of Buttah—was back in the news this past February. Word was out that the former Food Network star was “maneuvering for a comeback.” The southern damsel know for her high calorie cooking fell out of grace with her TV network after she was embroiled in a legal dispute “with a former employee who accused her of racial discrimination and sexual harassment.” In a court deposition—as well as publicly—Deen acknowledged that she had “used racial slurs in the past.”
Deen lost important sponsors and merchandisers of her products and her food empire seemingly crumbled last year. It was reported that Deen told a crowd of people at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival in February that she was “back in the saddle.” She also told People Magazine that she gave credit to her fans for helping her get through difficult times. “If it wasn’t for my fans’ love, I’d be home breathing into a paper bag,” she said.
Deen said she was fighting to get her name back. “I feel like ’embattled’ or ‘disgraced’ will always follow my name. It’s like that black football player who recently came out,” Deen said— referring to NFL prospect Michael Sam. “He said, ‘I just want to be known as a football player. I don’t want to be known as a gay football player.’ I know exactly what he’s saying.” She also said she empathized with what Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty went through recently. Deen added, “It’s amazing that some people are given passes and some people are crucified.”
Paula Deen has been through SO much. Maybe it’s time that those of us who were critical of her when news broke about her past behavior last year show some empathy for the poor persecuted purveyor of artery-clogging cuisine.
I might have actually considered feeling a modicum of sympathy for the little lady with the deep-fried drawl—had I not read an article about Deen in the Washington Post this week. Evidently, Deen decided to abruptly close Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House—a restaurant she co-owned with her brother Bubba Heirs—on Thursday WITHOUT BOTHERING TO INFORM THE RESTAURANT EMPLOYEES! According to the Washington Post, Deen’s employees showed up for work, “only to find kitchen appliances being removed from the restaurant.” The Savannah Morning News reported that long-time employees collected their severance checks in the parking lot of the restaurant.
Caroline Moss (Business Insider) said that a statement about the restaurant’s closing was posted on Facebook
Since its opening in 2004, Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House has been a destination for residents and tourists in Savannah, offering the region’s freshest seafood and oysters. However, the restaurant’s owner and operator, Bubba Heirs, has made the decision to close the restaurant in order to explore development options for the waterfront property on which the restaurant is located. At this point, no specific plans have been announced and a range of uses are under consideration in order realize the highest and best use for the property.
The closing is effective today, Thursday, April 3, 2014. Employees will be provided with severance based on position and tenure with the restaurant. All effort will be made to find employees comparable employment with other Savannah restaurant organizations.
— Jaret Keller, Deen Spokesperson
One employee told TMZ that restaurant workers were “paid through Wednesday and got vacation pay along with two weeks severance.” The employee said that “the whole ordeal was particularly hurtful, since so many staffers stuck up for the Deen family during the controversy — some patrons threw food at them and they still defended Paula.”
Paula Deen Restaurant Closes — Eatery at Center of Racism Scandal Shuts Down
SOURCES
Paula Deen: I’m like ‘that black football player’ (USA Today)
Paula Deen Defends Herself Against Baseless Racism Charges With Adorable Punchline To Racist Joke (Wonkette)
Racist Butterball Paula Deen Is Just Like Michael Sam, Says Racist Butterball Paula Deen (Wonkette)
Paula Deen Empathizes with Duck Dynasty Star Phil Robertson (Mediaite)
Paula Deen Empathizes With Phil Robertson and Nigella Lawson, Offers Another Apology (EOnline)
Paula Deen: ‘I’m Fighting to Get My Name Back’ (People)
Paula Deen says she’s ‘back in the saddle’ (USA Today/AP)
Uncle Bubba’s, co-owned by Paula Deen and her brother, closes after 10 years (Savannah Morning News)
Paula Deen shutters Uncle Bubba’s — without bothering to tell her employees (Washington Post)
Paula Deen abruptly shuts down restaurant, forgets to tell employees (Business Insider/Yahoo)
Paula Deen Restaurant Closes — Sorry We Screwed You Over, But Here’s Our Card! (TMZ)
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
I stand my original opinion of her — arrogant and racist.
Oh my….
I’ll have to say she handled the closing like a total schmuck.
Done with all the grace and thankfulness to loyal employees one would expect from a drunken wolverine.
Well when you get hungry you’ll eat just about anything….. Class is not a priority for her….
One employee told TMZ that restaurant workers were “paid through Wednesday and got vacation pay along with two weeks severance.
=====================================
which, If you’re a server, comes out to about $85.00.
I’ve eaten in The Lady and Sons, it was OK. I used to like her plucky personality until I heard about the racial slurs and the wedding theme for he brother’s wedding, or was it a son? Dear God! What did she think would happen? Why was she surprised at people’s reaction?
Martha Stewart survived a felony perjury conviction better than Paula Deen survived a stupid, but legal, racist comment. That should be instructive to like-minded people, but being smart and being racist in the business world are not mutually exclusive.
What a terrible shame that those politically correct, race baiting liberals did this dirty deed to a great southern Lady………oops!…………….sorry………………………wrong blog.
Mike… Mike…. Extra matzoh for you…
Well, I presume she wouldn’t have closed it if it weren’t losing money. So I am glad that pain was delivered. The employees will find other jobs, it is a high turnover industry anyway, both for employees AND restaurants; there are always new places opening, people leaving one job for another, and slots to be filled.
Tony,
I see the move as closing a marginally profitable restaurant that had become a PR burden to help salvage her brand and likely done at the behest of her new business partners. The best way to avoid trouble is not to be there when it starts, so sometimes the solution is to eliminate the “there” there. Another scandal arising out of that relationship would have proven fatal to her brand. That group out of AZ wants to protect its investment.
Tony & Gene,
I read that Bubba’s was still a bustling/popular restaurant.
Elaine,
From what I read, it was indeed a going concern, but one of the articles you cited (Savannah Morning News) contained this:
Unless it was going gangbusters, I can easily see the business decision to close a profitable going concern if the PR cost (and potential future costs) outweighed the value of the brand in a salvage situation. If you want to get the Uncle Bubba’s name out of people’s face and let the scandal die down, removing the piece from play is a rational move. Sacrificing a knight instead of the queen.
And another thing: What does Michael Sam being “black” have to do with his coming out? Isn’t that kind of a gratuitous qualifier or descriptor? It isn’t like “black football player” narrows the field of candidates down because she couldn’t remember his name.
And another thing: Michael Sam is gay, and doesn’t want that to be constant part of how people describe him, as the gay NFL player; a position he achieved without anybody knowing he was gay. So by analogy, is Deen saying she IS a racist, but doesn’t want people describing her as a racist business owner? Because she was just born racist and we shouldn’t be focused on that aspect of her personality or whether her racism becomes manifest in how she runs her business enterprise?
Michael Sam’s homosexuality does not plausibly result in breaking the law in the performance of his NFL job; Deen’s racism, especially if she claims it is inherent and she cannot alter it, does plausibly result in her breaking laws against discrimination in the performance of her job as manager and CEO employing other people.
And another thing: However, the restaurant’s owner and operator, Bubba Heirs, has made the decision to close the restaurant in order to explore development options for the waterfront property on which the restaurant is located. At this point, no specific plans have been announced and a range of uses are under consideration in order realize the highest and best use for the property.
As a business owner, including being a partner in restaurants, this is pure bullshit. You can “explore” development options for years while running a restaurant on the property, everybody involved in such options knows full well you can do exactly what they did: Shut the restaurant down in one day with zero legal ramifications; just pay the employees some severance and walk away.
If you want to explore options, you choose something, get the plans, write the details, and shut the restaurant down one day, empty it, cut the power and water and gas, have your city permits lined up and pull the trigger on demolition within the week.
In the meantime, let the restaurant earn a profit until the day of closing. You don’t close a restaurant unless the cost of keeping it open is likely to exceed the expense of leaving it closed. If it is earning a steady profit, even a thousand a month after expenses, you leave it open until you have to close it to do something else. You don’t shutter it and throw away that money while you hope you have an idea.
The only mitigating factor might be Gene’s ideas, sacrificing profit for a PR comeback, and/or Paula divorcing her brother, business-wise; or maybe telling him he can do something else but not a restaurant or anything food related or in her wheelhouse.
Gene: “The company had never shown a lot of profit,” Hiers testified.
Except the $300K to $360K he was siphoning off every year… which is much more than what most single-store restaurants earn as profits in a year.
Gene,
“Unless it was going gangbusters, I can easily see the business decision to close a profitable going concern if the PR cost (and potential future costs) outweighed the value of the brand in a salvage situation. If you want to get the Uncle Bubba’s name out of people’s face and let the scandal die down, removing the piece from play is a rational move. Sacrificing a knight instead of the queen.”
I agree. Isn’t it too bad that she didn’t bother to inform her employees that she planned to close the restaurant? She appears to be quite a self-absorbed Southern belle. Maybe she views the little people who work/worked for her in much the same way as her ancestor viewed his “plantation workers.”
*****
Deen had announced back in February that Najafi Companies was planning to invest $75-$100 million to “help her bounce back.” As part of that deal, she said, she’d be “launching an umbrella company, Paula Deen Ventures, to oversee her restaurants, cookbooks and product endorsements.”
Tony,
Stipulated, but context is important. In the context of the whole brand’s value, Uncle Bubba’s was costing more in bad PR than it was generating. I also agree the “exploring options” excuse was a bullshit cover. That was ultimately what made me decide it was a PR “pruning” move.
Well they weren’t wealth producers, Elaine, but just leeches siphoning off the lifeblood of Paula’s sweat and tears as a “true producer of wealth”. 🙄
I almost said that with a straight face. 😀
I go with the PR angle because as we learned when this story first broke last year and its aftermath playing for sympathy worked well for her as she was getting support from those who felt bad for “Poor Paula” being picked on by those nasty PC liberals. Now she can point to how she was driven out of business by these “unjustified” attacks on her character. Also Savannah waterfront property is worth big bucks. .
Poor Paula.
BTW … a restaurant is a great place to launder money through unless authorities start watching then it’s time for a late night kitchen grease fire, insurance pay off, and moving to a new location with a different name … at least that what Uncle Vito told me.