Alan Epstein
Google
On Sunday, December 9th, I played at a 24 hour DJ event at Cafeina Wynwood for Art Basel. The event ended on Monday morning. After I got home and looked in my bag, I realized my headphone bag with my DJ headphones and a few USB thumb drives was gone. I thought it was likely that it fell out of my bag, and was left in one of the compartments in the DJ booth.
Cafeina is closed Monday through Wednesday. I Googled their number and called, hoping to reach someone who might be able to check for my headphones. Each time I called through Wednesday, the calls went to a woman’s voicemail. I left several, detailed messages. I also texted several times, as the recording suggested sending a text. No response, at all.
On Thursday, the call finally went through to Cafeina’s voicemail. It suggested leaving a message if you wanted to make a reservation, so I felt relieved that someone would finally listen and respond. That didn’t happen.
Because I’m on a super tight budget, at the moment, I rode my bike from South Beach to Cafeina Wynwood on Friday night (over a half hour ride). I waited at the crowded, outdoor bar for awhile, and couldn’t get anyone’s attention. At one point, a bartender looked at me and pointed, and then turned away in about 2 seconds and served someone else.
Finally, I noticed a girl next to me had gotten the attention of the manager behind the bar, and they both walked away from the bar to go inside. I followed them. After they finished talking, I told the manager my story. He said he hadn’t heard about the headphones, but would ask the people working there. I sat patiently, for a few minutes, and then noticed he was gone. I saw him on the other side of the room walking back outside, and followed him.
I approached him, and asked him why he didn’t take care of my issue. He said he was very busy, and wasn’t responsible for my headphones. I told him about how many attempts I made to try to resolve the matter outside of business hours. He said that the calls go to a corporate office on non-business days.
I told him that as the business a manager, he WAS responsible for the way that the business runs, and how customer issues are handled and the response to those issues. What if someone leaves their credit card there - a very frequent issue at bars and nightclubs? What if someone loses something important? You expect a response during non-business hours, right?
I would definitely recommend NOT to patronize this business, which is run by a manager who wants to shirk responsibility. I do not him responsible, at all, for my headphones. I DO hold him responsible for having a system to secure and return lost items to customers, and to have a system to respond to customers that have pressing issues during non-business days. This is a crowded bar, where people are partying and getting intoxicated, so it’s reasonable to expect customers to occasionally drop or misplace things there.
The root of “responsibility” is “respond.” I would call this business and its manager “irresponsible.” They don’t respond.
