Ti Amo   

I am not writing this as a patron of Ti Amo, but as an ex-employee. I feel it necessary to express the nature of work relations regarding the owners and particularly the restaurant wait staff. Upon completion of college I wanted to work there for a bit of extra money a few nights a week. I had an air of idealism about the owners business paradigm around local and organic food and found it to be an inspired example for other local businesses in the community. The reality as an employee their became immediately disconcerting. I have worked in a half dozen fine dining establishments in south Florida and the California bay area in particular, and have never been treated so poorly and disrespectfully in my life. I found the owner('s) to have a complete disrespect towards the staff on many levels. I have never been fired from a job in my life, and was arbitrarily let go on account of one inebriated individual professing bad service, while the rest of the table profusely was apologetic for his behavior. Without any open dialogue (despite my attempt to explain) or forum between myself and the owner, I was told to basically permit and reward his outburst and bow to it. I was promptly fired after this one instance, never having any problems with customers prior. I felt belittled, disrespected, and treated as I was completely expendable to a restaurant I worked diligently at. This was expressed to me by others working with me that they also felt the owners portray an air of irrational superiority over the workers who provide them a necessary function to their restaurants operation. This is in direct contradiction to a paradigm of empowering the health and vitality of local systems. I will not support this establishment any more, nor will I urge others to do so, irregardless of their food, until the wait staff in particular is treated like human beings and not just a commodity that can be tossed aside arbitrarily.

Chef Elmo and his wife were not nice people and to hear that they got the rug pulled out from under them is good news that didn't come nearly soon enough. I was surprised to read that there was a majority owner as Elmo and his wife made it out like they were the sole owners. Its not just that Elmo was abusive towards his staff with his screaming temper tantrums, but he was also a fraud. Hardly anything that came out of that kitchen was not frozen. Elmo relied on steam trays so much that the entrees would ALWAYS come out bathed in a puddle of water on the plate. The salads were tossed by the server's bare hands that had just cleared used plates. No one on the line practised cleanliness of any kind. Line cooks regularly dealed drugs out of the back door. Sometimes I wonder if Elmo was drugged up the way he would have manic screaming mood swings. The only staff member who was ruder to the customers than the front waiters was Lupe herself. Elmo and Lupe were also crooks. I remember one time they called the whole staff in to rearrange the restaurant for a private party the following night. We spent five unpaid hours heaving around tables and furniture the day before working a grueling shift serving a couple hundred people. Elmo and Lupe charged the clients an 18 percent gratutity on the party, whose bill ran up tens of thousands then took most of the gratutity charge for themselves and cheated their entire waitstaff out of hard earned money. I've heard a lot of stories about other Gainesville restauarants skimming off their waitstaff's tips, so I guess they felt it was an acceptible practice. Can't say Im sorry to hear that the owner fired them. The only injustice is that Elmo and Lupe were allowed all those years of making a good living defrauding the dining public of Gainesville, not to mention stealing money from kids trying to put themselves through college.

i got the lamb and it made me gag...it was all fat and completely bland. it was supposed to be encrusted with pistachios but i did not see nor taste any. it was absolutely horrible!