by Angeleno Tyler Hiebert on Yelp!<\/a> for the switch-and-bait, Sanchez was quick to respond\u2014and defend\u2014her use of the corporate chicken empire’s food, noting that her kitchen isn’t prepped to handle frying.<\/p>\nHer lengthy, vociferous response verbatim:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.longbeachize.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Scratch-169x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
“Hi Tyler – We PROUDLY SERVE Popeyes spicy tenders\u2014the best fried chicken anywhere and from New Orleans\u2014which are delivered twice a day. We also in case you need to know buy our gumbo from a friend who sells it at a local farmers market. And our jam\u2014which we used to make here\u2014we were introduced to a woman from Alabama who now sells the most wonderful jams and AS IT HAS ALWAYS been our goal to feature local food and guest chefs here, we promote usually small batch local producers in our menu. The exception is Popeyes\u2014we can’t fry at this location\u2014and it [sic<\/em>] the fried chicken I love so much and I ate a ton of it in the ATL. So I serve it. We also don’t grow our own veggies\u2014we purchase those\u2014and if we run out of our own slow cooked pork, in order to keep our menu intact, I will order a batch of carnitas from the best place in Long Beach. We don’t mill our own flour as we don’t own a mill or wheat farm and our coconut cake is made by our prep cook who makes cakes for private clients. Just FYI. So whatever to you and your little review like it was some great exposure\u2014and whatever to you dude.We do what we do and bring Long Beach the best food\u2014mostly made here but we always get by with a little help from our friends\u2014and we don’t want it any other way. Kim Sanchez.”<\/p>\nThis, admittedly, is somewhat of a moment when the situation could be viewed as a restaurateur simply getting defensive, especially in the age of Yelp! reviews that are often misguided, intentionally harmful for unreasonable reasons, or just flat-out unwarranted.<\/p>\n
But when another customer stated that using Popeyes was okay, they would just prefer to know <\/em>about it and the restaurant should just clearly advertise it, Ms. Sanchez told this customer to “get over herself”:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.longbeachize.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-17-at-1.01.17-AM.png\")
<\/p>\n
And this is where the ultimate point comes into clarity: If a restaurant is re-selling already-prepped fast food, it should clearly note that it is doing so.<\/p>\n
With all due respect, Ms. Sanchez, if you’re so proud to serve Popeye’s, then you should have a sign saying so and stop telling folks about your “housemade jam”; promote the other businesses you profit off of and skip the whole “Stay local” and #scratch mantra. When you run out of your slow-cooked pork, you tell customers you’re sold out; you don’t resell the work of others and claim it as “made from scratch.”<\/p>\n
To top it all off, your sarcasm, from not owning a mill to your “Whatever Dude”s, adds further fuel to the Yelper’s fire\u2014and this is coming from a food lover who\u00a0despises Yelp on almost every level.<\/em><\/p>\nThis isn’t necessarily an attack on your business as much as it is defending the right for customers to know what you’re feeding them; it’s about being forthright in saying that this is an insult to those who care about food and how it is made and where it comes from; it’s about really trying to ignite within you the idea that you’re basically creating and selling a form of gentrified Southern food, which is just outright egregious and offensive to those who cherish it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Y’know, the whole “Buy Local, Eat Local, Be Local” mantra is one that some, including myself, take seriously. Many try not to patronize Starbucks and instead go to Recreational Coffee. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":8624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[297,376,623],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[2691],"class_list":["post-1144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","tag-dtlb","tag-long-beach-foodie-update","tag-sweet-dixie-kitchen","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1144"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1144"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.longbeachize.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-17-at-1.22.24-PM-279x300.png\")
This is\u2014well,\u00a0was<\/em>\u2014a reason that Sweet Dixie Kitchen made my list honoring 15 essential Long Beach<\/a> breakfast joints: owner Kimberly Sanchez boasts of how Sweet Dixie “stays local,” the restaurant\u2019s Facebook page says \u201ceverything is made here,\u201d [it has since been removed but is pictured left] and she assigns her Instagram pictures with Made From Scratch hashtags like the one pictured below, while stating “there is simply no reason food can’t look and taste amazing with… better cooking methods.”<\/p>\n