CWRU alumni claim Ninja City owner threatened customer after negative review

Group starts boycott of new University Circle restaurant

Jessica Yang, Social Media Editor

After floods of positive reviews from Cleveland publications, including Cleveland.com calling it “this year’s most anticipated opening,” Ninja City diners may want to rethink going to the newly opened restaurant. According to a group of CWRU alum, the restaurant has been cyber bullying disgruntled customers.

CWRU alumnus Ruchu Tan and four friends went to Ninja City on Sept. 8. Tan didn’t enjoy his experience, causing him to leave a one-star review on the restaurant’s Yelp page.

Within hours of publishing the review, Tan alleges that Bac Nguyen, the restaurateur behind Ninja City and Bac Bistro, a Tremont City eatery, messaged Tan through Facebook. The messages were laced with profanity, racial slurs, and personal taunts against Tan and his friend, Divya Agarwal, who was at the restaurant with him.

Tan posted screenshots of the messages to the picture sharing website Imgur. Screenshots of these messages show Nguyen sending Tan threats such as, “You are retarded and have no business trying to trash someone’s business when you have no idea what yore [sic] talking about. If I ever see you near my restaurants again you will be in trouble,” and “Straight up though if I ever see you near my places of business, we are going to have a discussion… You’re ugly and physically weak.”

The messages also note that Nguyen knew who Tan was through “mutual acquaintances”.

Tan ultimately messaged Nguyen back, asking for an apology.

“I was going to put this behind me when I got the apology,” said Tan. But Nguyen didn’t let it go.

Tension escalated once more when Nguyen started including Tan’s initials, RT, and his full name in Ninja City’s social media posts and statements. He started alluding to Tan in posts as well, saying “fraudboibusters” and “haters be hatin’ [sic] from the sidelines.”

In response, Tan started a Facebook group called “Stop Consumer Intimidation” with the goal of boycotting Nguyen’s businesses  until Nguyen publicly apologizes for taunting unhappy customers and for using racial slurs. The group has more than 200 members.

Agarwal and Tan declined to take legal action, and hope it doesn’t have to escalate to a situation where such actions are necessary.

“We have nothing to lose in this,” said Agarwal. “We will still have our friends, whereas Nguyen has his business to lose.”

Ninja City did not return requests for comment.