Having recently read Anna Karenina I can rewrite the opening line without shame: "Happy family businesses are all alike; every unhappy family business is unhappy in its own way."
Indeed, there is no shortage of stories about family businesses that go awry. And now Park Slope has its own dysfunctional family business, Cafe Regular (11th Street branch) which has become city-wide news thanks to loyal regulars who are keeping the local blogs apprised of the murky situation.
I just heard from Aileen at Grub Street and she's got deep local on the latest over there.
but it was some promotional postcards that finalized the breach.
Designed by an employee, Richard (who managed du Nord) and Martin were
distributing these postcards to customers. Anne didn’t like them and
told the brothers to stop giving them out. Richard quit over the
micromanagement, and Martin sided with his brother. Martin declined to
comment to Grub Street, Richard did not return calls or texts, and
several calls to Anne at Café Regular went to message saying the
voice-mail system had not been connected. "It's really a Royal Tenenbaums level of dysfunction," said the source.
Apparently sister Anne wants to go a little upscale over at the Regular du Nord. She's talking computers and uniforms. The regulars of the modest and sort of perfect-as-it-is cafe are up in arms. Barista Martin, Anne's brother, has been ousted, probably for a host of reasons nobody even knows about.
The whole thing makes me kind of sad. It's sad when siblings don't get along. It's sad when mixing family and business gets ugly. It's sad, sad, sad…
And the regulars at the Regular are miffed. That's for sure. Hell hath no fury like a bunch of local cafe fans deprived of their morning coffee (and pleasant place to sit all day…).