Restaurant dream suffocated by WEDI incubator bait-and-switch, cook says
After losing $15K life savings in West Side Bazaar, Hla Thu drives UberEats to eat
Fledgling restaurateurs paid West Side Bazaar for a space to serve customers while business startup experts helped them develop successful enterprises.
What they learned at the Westminster Economic Development Initiative’s 1432 Niagara St. space was how little WEDI promises meant.
Launched Nov. 1, the $11.5 million project is backed by state and federal funds and community foundations who support WEDI’s promise: to help tenants grow self-sustaining businesses, with state-of-the-art support.
“With this new location in a beautifully renovated historic building,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul, “we are creating opportunities for even more budding entrepreneurs to turn the businesses of their dreams into a reality.”
Instead, the West Side Bazaar turned the businesses of their dreams into nightmares, five former tenants said, because WEDI broke its promises.
Kitchen spaces lacked crucial equipment, like wok burners, promised by WEDI salespeople, they said. WEDI added a quartet of pot burners, without water spigot or counter, for five restaurants to share.
They got no security guard or staff dishwasher, as WEDI promised. Instead, they said, incubator staff said tenants would have to shoulder those duties themselves.
They got no dumpster. Instead, tenants hauled bags to garbage cans, and faced fines for not following garbage rules posted in languages they did not understand.
They didn’t get enough air conditioning to keep cakes from melting. Asked to turn on the air conditioning, staff advised its bakery tenant to buy and install a refrigerated case.
Tenants’ projected budgets relied on WEDI’s promise to help draw customers through social media and other marketing. Then WEDI told tenants its marketing ended Jan. 1.
Tenants said they complained that traffic was sparse, less than five percent of WEDI’s estimated 250,000 annual visitors. Tenants asked for actual customer counts, they said, but none were provided.
Tenants were told their West Side Bazaar point of sale system would not charge fees after an initial $200 investment in the terminal. WEDI then billed tenants about $80 each month for the “free” service.
Most people in the new West Side Bazaar’s inaugural tenant class only spoke Burmese. But no one at WEDI did, souring tenant-landlord relations from the start.
“WEDI shall provide appropriate interpretation and translation services upon request from any business at West Side Bazaar,” WEDI’s West Side Bazaar Tenant Handbook states. Tenants signed the handbook and were warned they would be held to what it said. It was never provided in Burmese, tenants said, though WEDI promised one.
When Burmese tenants complained about the differences, WEDI staff could not fully understand their concerns, former tenants said. Burmese-speaking tenants attended mandatory meetings where they were issued detailed directives without interpretation, either spoken or written, meeting participants said. Later, some would be fined by WEDI staff for not following directions properly.
Directions like these posters, which lay down the rules of the West Side Bazaar kitchen.
Kenneth Wong, a Burmese language instructor at University of California at Berkeley since 2015, tried to read WEDI’s Burmese language poster.
“I took a look at the Burmese instructions in the photo. They are laughable to me, but I can imagine they would be frustrating to those who need to rely on them,” Wong said.
The heading, for example, reads “Dog Machine Duties” - obviously a mistranslation of “Dish Machine Duties.”
“Bamboo Ridge” is translated as “the village of bamboo.”
"Egyptian Bites” is translated as “Egyptians biting (with their teeth).”
“Silverware” for knives and forks is translated as “objects made of silver.”
“Trays” are translated as “gramophone record discs.”
“Run all bus tubs …” is translated to mean “run with the tubes from the buses (as in public transport vehicles) …”
“Three-basin sink area” is translated as “a water-sunken region with three-sided shelves.”
And “slop cabinet” is translated as “immediate ministers (as in “elected officials in charge of ministries).”
“Without the original English, I couldn't make sense of the Burmese text,” Wong said. “I'm tempted to use this example in my class to illustrate why, at least when it comes to Burmese language, machine translation is not to be trusted.”
WEDI board stays mum
Why did WEDI hire managers who couldn't speak their tenants' language? That was among a detailed list of questions put to WEDI on Friday via email. On Saturday, longtime board member Steve Zenger replied that WEDI would not answer any questions about the allegations.
Last month, WEDI board members declined to explain why the non-profit hired Executive Director Carolynn Welch’s nanny as a full-time staffer. Or why it rejected qualified applicants for the Downtown Bazaar bar to install Welch’s ex-boyfriend, who had never run a bar, was ineligible for an alcohol license, and went out of business in April.
Welch offers WEDI’s view on tenant issues
Many of the questions Zenger declined to answer in July were addressed by Welch in a June interview where the executive director strongly defended WEDI’s management of the West Side Bazaar.
Starting with its language support. “We've spent a lot of money on translation and interpretation services,” Welch said. “Every document they get is translated and interpreted. Other meetings, we have an interpreter present every single meeting.”
WEDI staff uses Language Line, a national translation service, to communicate with tenants, Welch said.
“I've gotten some Language Line bills that would absolutely blow your mind, because they've been using Language Line as much as possible to communicate with people.” (Language Line’s rates for organizations with government grants are about 20-25 cents per minute.)
“So we have been working really, really hard with translation and interpretation for pretty much everything over there,” Welch said.
No tenants were fined out of the blue, Welch said. “It's not an immediate fine. It's when they're doing it 9,000 times over.”
It was a problem, and new West Side Bazaar manager Kat Carter was applying the solution, she said, adding that Carter has 20 years’ experience in the restaurant industry. “It was a free-for-all that's now being railed in, because Kat is just a much more effective supervisor for the space.”
“If she's treating people poorly, that's absolutely unacceptable, and I will look into that,” she continued. “But people are pissed because they were getting away with basically murder. And now they have to follow the rules. And there's some people that are really pissed about it.”
Fines are explained in the handbook, Welch said, so “they're all aware of the fines. Every handbook is translated into the person's language.”
WEDI never offered a staff dishwasher, Welch said. “The dishwashing they were supposed to take turns doing, and I offered the ability to hire someone together if they would like to, but the dishwasher was not built into our budget. The dishwashers were business owners, and they were supposed to take a day to do the dishes. And if they didn't want to take a day to do the dishes, they were all going to pitch in to hire a dishwasher.”
Does WEDI track West Side Bazaar visitor numbers? she was asked.
“There was a people counter in the front that we were using,” said Welch.
But not anymore?
“I know the subscription came up. I'm not sure if it's been renewed yet,” she said. “But that was very recent.”
So you're not sure if you're collecting data.
“Right now I'm not,” said Welch. “I have to follow up on my subscription and make sure it was renewed,” said Welch. “The numbers I saw, which it's been a while since I've left, were about three to 400 people a day,”
That’s not what tenants are seeing, she was told.
“That's why we're working to get our marketing up and going again,” said Welch. “I have a meeting about that tomorrow, and then we're going to implement a plan in the next couple of weeks.”
Despite departures, WEDI expected to fill the spaces, she said.
Two years ago, Welch said WEDI had a list of 120 would-be businesspeople waiting for a spot in their business incubator. Now it's recruiting again.
“We had an open house last week, for recruitment,” she said in June. “We are following up with the 25 individuals that came to that open house. We also met with all the local small business organizations to let them know exactly what the criteria is for businesses to move in, so that if they have anybody they can identify.”
Instead of commissary kitchen, excuses
One of the exiting tenants, Kimberly Behzadi, said she’s leaving to save her Read It & Eat Bookshop from failing.
“The lack of preparedness and direction from leadership left the bookshop in a compromised position from its opening in October,” she said. “There is no ongoing marketing support and effort from leadership, who seem resistant to feedback. We still do not have full access to the commissary kitchen meant to house our cooking classes.”
The commissary kitchen passed inspection on Feb. 7, said Kara Kane, Erie County Health Dept. public information officer. It was included in the West Side Bazaar’s most recent inspection, she said, valid through Oct. 31.
“There is so much opportunity to do good here,” Behzadi continued. “These incubator spaces are meant to nurture, lift up small businesses and families, create stable jobs, and change the landscape in Buffalo. Instead, I see a new business leave each month, myself included, to escape a sinking ship and try again elsewhere.”
A cook tries to cope
Hla Thu is precisely the sort of immigrant cook the West Side Bazaar was built to help.
Born on Ramree Island, Burma, he arrived in Buffalo in 2015, ready to work. He applied for the Westminster Economic Development Initiative’s small business incubator with Cozy Thai, Fuze, and Saigon Bangkok on his resume, and $15,000 saved.
What he didn’t have, despite struggling through months of English as a Second Language classes, was fluent English. The West Side Bazaar promised supportive services like Burmese translation that would allow Thu to focus on growing his clientele into the crew of regulars that would make his jump to a brick-and-mortar space possible..
In a career spanning 14 years, two continents, and nine restaurants, Hla Thu learned to deal with a whole world of kitchen problems.
In April, at the West Side Bazaar, Thu faced a new challenge: trying to convince manager Kat Carter his dishes were authentic.
Carter, who grew up in Jamestown, told Thu he couldn’t sell dishes listed on the Bamboo Ridge menu because they were not Vietnamese. WEDI had decided to narrow menus and eliminate perceived overlaps, with Carter in charge. Her telling him he didn’t know his food was the last in a series of landlord issues that convinced the 32-year old Burmese refugee he had to flee the West Side Bazaar.
His $15,000 gone, he still owes WEDI $20,000 for the microloan it helped him get, said Thu, interviewed with an interpreter. Now he’s driving UberEats and Amazon full-time to eat, and warning his Burmese friends against joining the West Side Bazaar’s next set of recruits.
Tenants: WEDI didn’t deliver
Bait-and-switch, Thu said. That’s what happened to him and others at 1432 Niagara St.
When tenants toured the building, WEDI staff said the kitchens would be outfitted for their use, including a wok burner and appropriate ventilation hood required for Bamboo Ridge’s menu. Wok burners use a series of focused gas jets to make the cooking surface much hotter than regular stovetops. Wok cooking contributes a characteristic aroma known as wok hay, “breath of the wok,” to its dishes.
When Thu and his Burmese partner arrived to get cooking, there were no wok burners. WEDI staff told him it was because the Buffalo Fire Department would not allow its installation.
Most Chinese, Thai, Indian, and Bangladeshi restaurants in Buffalo have at least one wok burner, permitted and inspected by the Buffalo Fire Department. Why WEDI did not install any in the West Side Bazaar remains unclear.
Responding to complaints, WEDI provided a pair of two-place pot burners, four burners once shared by five restaurants: Ramree Burmese, Bamboo Ridge, Phyu Thein, William’s Kitchen, and Chef BigWayne Jamaican Cuisine. They are shorter than counter height, forcing cooks to stoop, and did not have the counter space or water spigot wok cooks use to clean between dishes.
At 25 Grant St., WEDI set up a centralized, simple-to-navigate online ordering system. A similar system promised for the new building remained just a promise. Asked when the new building’s online ordering system would come online, tenants said WEDI staff told them to figure it out.
Fines, not counseling
The West Side Bazaar tenant handbook includes a schedule of financial penalties WEDI staff can add to tenants’ monthly rent, for rule violations. Tenants agreed to the fine system as part of the bazaar rules. WEDI staff assured prospective tenants that fines were a worst-case scenario, only issued after teaching and counseling from WEDI staff did not correct the problem.
The fine schedule includes $50 penalties for attendance policy violation or improper garbage disposal, $75 for failing to fill or maintain filled wash sinks on their assigned dishwashing day, leaving food out overnight, failure to clean shared space, or failure to empty and properly store a mop bucket.
In practice, most fines landed without WEDI staff trying to educate or explain first, tenants said. If there was a Burmese language translation of the tenant handbook, they said, they never got one.
Thu was fined $75 for leaving meat out of the cooler overnight to defrost. He deserved that one, he said. Because there was so little refrigerated space in the kitchen, it was the only way he’d be ready to sell food the next day.
When tenants complained about the lack of refrigerated space, WEDI staffers told tenants the solution was for them to buy portable units and plug them in.
The orange peel was different. Thu had taken the kitchen garbage out, and replaced the liner. Then he put an orange peel in it. That cost him a $50 fine from West Side Bazaar management for improper food waste disposal.
Frustration was also on display by Carter, who yelled at tenants in a language they didn’t understand, they said. So they avoided her.
Text message from West Side Bazaar employee to business owner reacting to Kat Carter.
Carter also asked Thu and his partner if they had a green card, they said. Odd questions for candidates WEDI had already vetted and accepted as tenants, from a professional with diversity, equity, and inclusion experience listed as a strength on her LinkedIn profile.
Besides possibly violating federal antidiscrimination law, that struck Thu as rude, especially since he had become an American citizen in February.
That allowed him to change his name from Khaing Zin Hein to Hla Thu, which is what his family always called him. It means “beautiful person,” taking on extra resonance as he grew to 6 feet tall, a giant among Burmese people.
A teacher tries to help
Kate Knowles was a schoolteacher for 15 years before starting Manchester Place Baking Co., two years before becoming a West Side Bazaar tenant. The bazaar was supposed to be a classroom, but what this veteran teacher saw left her aghast.
“I witnessed many times the managers talking at owners instead of with them. This was especially troubling because many of the owners don’t speak English well, and to have a conversation of substance requires slowing down and really listening,” said Knowles.
“You have to take the time to let them look for their words, get out Google Translate when needed, slow your own speech a bit, and be mindful that they might not know a word (and translate it for them).”
Knowles helped other tenants navigate the WEDI system. “I helped them write letters to WEDI, compose text messages, and everything in between. They did not feel comfortable going to the managers for help, because they knew they would not take the time to listen to their concerns.”
Fining seemed to replace teaching for these first-time operators, she said. “What should have been happening is literal teaching of best practices. And teaching often takes repetition. I’m talking about hands-on teaching, not the texts we would receive multiple times a day from upstairs (from the air conditioned offices). A good teacher’s presence and guidance should be felt all the time. Not in an intimidating way, but in a helpful and cheerful way.”
WEDI generated at least three revisions of the tenant handbook after the first one that everyone signed. “WEDI staff said we were bound by the new changes in a handbook revision, text we never reviewed much less approved.”
The overall impression Knowles got was that WEDI staff were not up to the task.
“During my time at the Bazaar, I experienced my business name being misspelled 80 percent of the time, including to outside consultants and media who came in to meet with me. Knowing how to spell my business name seems like the most basic of knowledge about my business.”
The business coaching Knowles needed wasn’t part of the deal, after all.
“I was told that we would be getting mentors specific to our fields,” said Knowles. “That would have been amazing. It never happened.”
The menu squeeze
Another jarring change occurred in April, when Carter told restaurant owners WEDI was changing the menu rules. She told some operators to would have to eliminate some of their best-selling dishes in the name of overall menu organization.
“Attached is a document that explains why the West Side Bazaar is returning to the 10 items menus we originally asked each of you to have, (but did not follow through on),” Carter emailed. “I am sorry that this has been confusing or feels like we are looking to hurt your business - I assure you that is not the case, in fact it is the direct opposite. We believe that limiting each restaurant's menu size (and removing any duplication between menu - real or perceived) benefits all of the businesses collectively.”
The justification for the menu limitation was threefold, the attachment said.
“1) All restaurants in our Business Incubator are brand new restaurant owners and managing a smaller menu while you learn all the other skills like menu engineering, inventory management, batch preparations and others needed to run a sustainable, standalone restaurant is optimal.
2) There are eight restaurants at the WSB so from the customer perspective the West Side Bazaar does have an 80+ item menu.
3) The shared kitchen at the West Side Bazaar has limited cooking, storage space and dish machine area capacity. And remember, once you graduate you can have as big or as small of a menu as you like!”
Then Carter told Thu he was doing Vietnamese food wrong.
In an April 10 email, Carter informed Thu that after reviewing Bamboo Ridge’s menu, “a lot of these items are not Vietnamese food. You market yourself as a Vietnamese eatery. We need to discuss changing that, or continuing to make this more Vietnamese.
Crab Rangoon is American version of Chinese
Drunken Noodles are traditionally Thai
Orange Chicken is American Chinese.”
Carter said that Bamboo Ridge needed to rewrite its menu descriptions, to avoid overlap with West Side Bazaar neighbor Phyu Thein, a Burmese specialist.
“Need better descriptions for these to describe the Vietnamese flavors and ingredients you use to make them distinctly Vietnamese - otherwise you and Phyu Thein cannot both have these items on your menus:
CoConut Soup
Spicy Stir Fried Noodles
Flat Rice Noodles
Bamboo Ridge Fried Rice.”
On April 17, Thu explained to Carter in an email that while many versions of fried noodles or fried rice might seem the same, they differed from country to country and culture to culture.
“All the restaurants in south east asia use similar ingredients like noodle. Flat noodle is used in Khat Kyee Khight in Burma,Pad Kee Mong in Thai/Lao and "who teeyoo" in Vietnam. Drunken noodle is American fancy name for those dishes. Even if the name & ingredients are same, sauce is different. If u guys are really eager to understand Thai, Burmese, Chinese, Vietnamese and so called Asian American recipes, don't waste your time in google. I would like to invite you to work my kitchen for a week. I gona show u what is difference.!!!!”
Carter rejected his attempt at education. “I would love to spend a week in your kitchen!,” she email later that day. “But since I don't have the time, and my job is to help you become a business OWNER ready to have your own place you are going to have to use words to describe to this American audience what makes your cuisine VIETNAMESE and what makes your menu items so special. If you don't like descriptions, I drafted to get you started....edit them - in the document I shared. And if you want help learning how to do that please make an appointment with me. I am available to you all the time.”
Sign of the end
After the Bamboo Ridge menu met Carter’s approval, Thu taped over deleted dishes on his $200 illuminated countertop menu. But one of his regulars asked Thu to make his favorite taped-over dish one more time. Thu did.
After getting his food, the customer went upstairs to complain to management that they forced his favorite West Side Bazaar cook to take his favorite dish off the menu.
The next morning, Thu arrived to find thick white tape applied to his sign, obscuring the deleted dishes completely, and a warning from Carter to never go off-menu again. On April 30, Carter told him to remove the taped-over counter menu completely.
“Hey. I have received complaints about how your menu board looks. Please remove your menu board immediately. You may put it back up when the new one arrives.”
Carter removed it herself, Thu said, taking it off Bamboo Ridge’s counter and putting it out of sight in the back.
Thu was insulted, and Bamboo Ridge was over. “I will leave the end of May I can’t work with you guys anymore because too much pressure and complaining,” he wrote.
“I know that you and Myo have been struggling to manage all the responsibilities you have as a business owner, so I am not surprised by this,” Carter’s reply began.
Thu asked a WEDI staffer to talk to Carolynn Welch, so he could tell her about his experience. He didn’t want to go back to Carter, but to the top of the organization.
After giving notice, Thu emailed Carter back, in the best English he could manage: “In my knowledge, Business means, how to make noy customer happy, how to promote my menu, creating more menu and get more money, this is all i can thinking about in my - Right now, You allow me to make only 1o menu, so how should I sun my restaurant with loth menu liteme. - I'm not speaking English, but I know what i am ooing.”
Welch did say she would talk to him, Thu said. A meeting was arranged, he said, then canceled for lack of an interpreter.
These days, Thu drives UberEats and Amazon deliveries now, 35 to 45 hours a week. While he’s driving other people’s food to customers, Thu keeps an eye out for places where someone could start a restaurant.
He’s resetting, not done, Thu said. He’s keeping his hand in kitchens by helping his friend Htay Naing at Nine & Night on Amherst Street, one of the WEDI tenants at 25 Grant St. when fire hit.
In Black Rock, Naing finally found a place of his own. He pays $2,500 monthly rent for Nine & Night, he said. Thu paid $2,000 at West Side Bazaar.
Naing was actually the person who suggested Thu become a West Side Bazaar tenant. Despite that, Thu said, they remain friends.
EDITOR’S NOTE
The story says that WEDI declined to answer questions about its management of the West Side Bazaar.
That’s accurate.
But it’s worth getting into the details that sentence summarizes.
I believe it helps readers - and my efforts - to describe possibly relevant backstory. Community journalism is a public process, undertaken by journalists in the public interest. Showing how it works makes sense to me, because more transparent my efforts are, hopefully the better understood they are.
On Friday, I emailed WEDI officials.
Dear WEDI,
In researching a story about WEDI and its management of the bazaars, I have developed questions that I’d like the organization to answer, so WEDI can add its voice to the story. Please let me know when you would like to talk.
I’d like to interview Carolynn Welch, Steve Zenger, and Krista Schwartzott. I'd also like to interview Kat Carter and other WEDI personnel who have worked at the West Side Bazaar, 1432 Niagara St.
Other questions I would like WEDI to answer include the organization’s response to complaints by West Side Bazaar tenants and ex-tenants that many of the features WEDI promised it never provided, hurting their chances of success.
A security person
A staff dishwasher
A wok burner and appropriate hood. Tenants said the absence of this promised equipment was blamed on the Buffalo Fire Department not allowing the installation.
Adequate refrigerated space
Fee-free point of sale system. Tenants said they were told they could pay $200 towards the POS terminal, and would not be billed fees. But they were still billed a monthly fee, they said.
Marketing support
Business coaching
Communication, including staff guidance, tenant handbook, regulatory postings, tenant meetings, and other materials in vendor languages.
Counseling and instruction before fines were levied
Online ordering system, as developed by WEDI at 25 Grant St.
Adequate air conditioning
OTHER QUESTIONS
What parts of Kat Carter’s résumé and experience made WEDI to decide she was the right person to run the West Side Bazaar?
Has WEDI staff had cultural sensitivity training?
What is the total amount of fines levied against West Side Bazaar tenants so far?
Is the air conditioning system at the West Side Bazaar capable of lowering the temperature on the first floor such that baked goods do not melt?
Besides the dishwashing duty, how much work was added to tenant responsibilities after the Bazaar opened?
Two years ago, Carolynn Welch said there were 120 businesses on the West Side Bazaar waiting list. Why does WEDI need to solicit new recruits today?
I look forward to your answers.
On Saturday, Steve Zenger replied. I’ll annotate his response.
Myself and the team at WEDI have made several attempts to have a conversation with you.
“Attempts” is doing a lot of work in this sentence.
An offer to meet was sent to you via email on Sunday, June 23rd. Our invitation was met with no response from you.
True. Zenger did offer an on-the-record meeting with WEDI board members, were they got to control what questions I asked. Any questions about how the organization chose the people it did, to do the things they did, were off limits.
To me, there was no point to that, so I didn’t ask to meet. It’d be like swiping right on a “just friends” profile and following up with a proposition.
When I followed up with you via text Monday, June 24th, you turned down our offer to meet indicating you needed more time to prepare.
Or as I put it, I don’t even know what questions I want to ask you yet.
On Tuesday, June 25th, we emailed to set up another time to speak with you, specifically Thursday, June 27th at 3pm. Again, we received no response from you.
True.
In the interest of being thorough, our group convened at the West Side Bazaar on June 27th at 3pm on the off chance you would be able to meet. We waited until 3:30p to be certain you would not be attending. You did not. Rather, you published various articles and social media posts accusing our group of being unwilling to meet you to discuss the matters.
While I’m glad the board members visited, I never gave any sign whatsoever that I was interested in meeting. So their vigil was self-propelled.
It has become abundantly clear that you are not interested in hearing the whole story from us.
Not true. What I won’t do is let WEDI set the ground rules and agenda, then go to the trouble of publishing a story that would be an extended WEDI press release.
Therefore, we are respectfully declining your request to meet and to question the merits of certain WEDI staff members. As board members who volunteer our time, talent and treasure to WEDI, we have important work to do and we need to tend to that work. Our mission is to make WEDI and the small business owners we serve as successful as possible.
Please note that future requests to answer questions or to meet may go unanswered.
That’s a shame, because I had one more: How do members of WEDI’s board feel its current management of the West Side Bazaar accomplishes its mission of “removing systemic barriers to economic equity for all Western New Yorkers”?
As always, anyone who wants to talk about their WEDI experience - as customers, vendors, supporters, board members, employees, or anything else - my email is andrew@fourbites.net.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the cooking hardware WEDI added after tenants protested the lack of wok stations. It also undercounted the restaurants whose menus relied on those burners.
#30#
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Would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. The management is so condescending, to both the vendors and you.
Drinking wine, crying, laughing and burning with rage all at once.