Something very strange afoot during the waning days of M. Wells’s occupancy at the corner of 21 St. and 49th Ave in Long Island City. According to QG’s Alan Richman:

What stands out is the heat and the long waits. During our meal, Obraitis [an M. Wells proprietor] came by to say that she and her husband had to leave to attend an event and were looking forward to seeing me in a few days. I felt the same, although I didn’t enjoy the food as much as I had at the first two dinners, and the service was dreadful. In order to get a check, I had to wave to our elusive waitress.

Late the next afternoon, an e-mail arrived from Obraitis. This is what it said:

I am a bit distressed by the feedback I received after your visit last night. Either you had despicable service or you guys were in an awful mood. It seems we couldn’t make you happy, several servers heard you complain and ask for more attention. One of those servers, a female, received a hardy pat on the ass from you. Totally unacceptable in our world. I don’t know what to think or how to proceed. But I must relay my worry.

I sat numb, experiencing the kind of paralysis a person feels when he picks up the phone and learns of a ghastly accident or a horrific illness. I was being accused of sexually harassing a member of a restaurant staff. After a few minutes, I wrote back, and this is what I said:

Absolutely, 100 percent untrue. I just went bone-cold when I read that. In all my years going to restaurants, I have never done that and never been accused of doing that. I would not do that. Who in the world told you that? I will be happy to come to your restaurant tonight and confront that person, face-to-face. It’s a lie.

That’s really strange, right? What started out as a somewhat poor review of an otherwise hyped restaurant (deservedly, I think) ends with two pages on sexual harassment.

On the one hand, I don’t think Richman would just blithely grope a server (and then include the accusation in the piece he filed). On the other hand, it’s equally nonsensical that a server would just make up such an incident. So, like, what the fuck?

We only have the text of the article to work with, for now.

Something on the article’s third page, that Richman sort of thinks reinforces his point, raises a bit of a flag for me. He writes,

Obraitis [an M. Wells proprietor] wrote, ‘…apparently upon requesting your check you tapped one of our female servers inappropriately.’ I suppose she’s backing off somewhat by adding the word ‘apparently’ and by changing the ‘hardy pat on the ass’ to a simple tap.

So, Richman noted earlier that the proprietors of M. Wells were not there at the time of the (alleged) incident, so anything the server said was heresy. Which would explain their saying “apparently”, now. Fair enough. But the fact that he seems to be content with “simple tap” rather than a “pat on the ass” is kind of disturbing. I’ve eaten out, like, tons of times. I’m no restaurant critic, sure. But I’ve probably eaten out like a thousand times. That sounds realistic? Maybe two hundred. I don’t know. Lots, is my point. And I’ve never touched my server. Like, ever. Never felt the need to “simply tap” my server. If someone said I may have “simply tapped” the server, I’d still be kind of flummoxed and not at all relieved.

Richman expresses his feelings on being accused of patting the server’s butt, saying, “For a man, a charge of sexual harassment is nuclear, because we are always perceived as guilty. It’s damned if you do and damned if someone says you did”. I guess I see where he’s coming from… except that I don’t. I hear a lot of guys say how being accused of rape or sexual assault or harassment is an automatic black mark, and how you’re presumed guilty. I * totally hear* that. I do. A lot. What I see, though, is actually that women are presumed slutty. Presumed to be asking for it. Or presumed to be lying. Presumed to be lying in order to stop a powerful man from doing something or to get a powerful man to do something. (Which case obtains here, since Richman goes on to wonder if the M. Wells proprietor didn’t just make the whole thing up to stop him from writing a poor review.)

I have no clue what happened at M. Wells, one of my favorite restaurants. Full disclosure. I love eating there. The service is bad, sometimes, because they are always packed full. Because they’re so good at being a restaurant.

What I do know, for a fact is that Richman started off his article by playing fast and loose with the truth:

I don’t know what a burger once cost at the derelict diner that became M. Wells, since I never ate there, but I’m betting it was about $2.99. M. Wells sells one for $42, proof that gentrification is thriving in Queens.

The $42 burger Richman so blithely compares to whatever working class fare that would have been at that diner? It is a 24 ounce burger as big as your head. It’s composed of beef and lamb, garnished with homemade pickles and homemade ketchup. Housed in the most delicious brioche bun I’ve ever tasted. It’s run through with a large knife, around the business end of which are giant onion rings. The $42 M. Wells burger is the most delicious hamburger I’ve ever eaten. Ever. Ever. And to try, rhetorically, to make a point about hipster food gentrification, to try to compare it to some Platonic $2.99 working class hamburger, to try to do that is to lie.

And lie poorly! The $42 burger is one of M. Wells’ best-known foods. By the way, it feeds four, easily.

So: I know Richman started his piece off with a gross lie. And I know that the private accusation that he harassed his server was enough to completely preclude the possibility of meeting with the M. Wells proprietors. Because, pshaw, being accused of sexual harassment is the worst thing? Because… M. Wells is being forced to close and move and Richman still got to write his hatchet job of a review? That sounds terrible.

From one Queens resident, please take these brief words as a hale and hearty invitation to never set foot in this fucking borough again, Alan Richman. You obviously don’t like Queens and its restaurants, and we don’t like you.