The unbelievable story of Unbarlievable's troubles started long before many of us knew about it.
And, without social media, Google Docs and an investigative founder who is relatively new to Austin, we may not have known about the reports of crude talk and anti-Semitic imagery at the Rainy Street bar. Now, the Texas Alcoholic and Beverage Commission is investigating the matter.
This is no longer one person… it is bigger than any one individual.
For the uninitiated, the relatively new Rainey Street bar is accused of having a staff member leave glasses of beer in the shape of a swastika on the table and posting crude responses to complaints on several online reviews, such as 'Since you had a towel on your head, my bartender thought you were the new bus boy' in response to one complaint.
That might have gone unnoticed as a one-time issue without word-of-mouth, social networks and someone to put the dots together.
Meet Christian Rodriguez, the founder and CEO of Burstworks, an Austin-based market research startup based at Capital Factory. Rodriguez said he launched a business called Adnamic that was acquired in 2012. After that, he traveled the country and fell in love with Austin, moving here in 2015.
He now appears to be the person who started noticing the commenting trends at Unbarlievable. And, he says, the way Unbarlievable's issues were made public was really more about the people who contributed to a crowd-source conversation than any one person.
Rodriguez said the debacle, from his perspective, stemmed from a routine chat about where to get drinks with friends.
“We were trying to decide where to go and one of them mentioned ‘we don’t go to Barleivable anymore,’” he told Austin Inno in a phone interview. “I was like ‘what’s the problem?’ They said, while we were there, the table next to them ordered beers in the shape of a swastika and the server brought it out in that shape. And obviously, they were disappointed and upset. And, also, because they’re human and have empathy and emotion, and also they’re Jewish or a good part of them were, so they went to the bar and said ‘this happened and it’s not cool.’”
But the bartender didn’t offer much, besides free shots, Rodriguez said.
Our social networks showed a deeper trend, as they have in the past in slightly different ways with Gamergate before SXSW and innumerable other socially-driven campaigns. But the tieback to online reviews is somewhat new territory.
“This wouldn’t have been possible without Yelp and Google reviews,” Rodriguez told me. “That’s the only way I was able to find information about what occurred.”
The beer bottle swastika, for example, was first reported on Facebook in March, and several of the bar owners derogatory responses were found there too. Meanwhile, several Google and Yelp reviews cite questionable employee behavior.
Rodriguez said everyone should know things that go on the internet are going to be stored and can be unearthed to show truth, no matter how hard you may try to delete your words.
He said he had about 100 people adding information and adding research on Google Docs.
“It became a crowdsourced, living thing,” he said.
The "Protest Hate at unBARlievalbe" Facebook page, for example, had hundreds of comments and threads added to it. Though many may be more or less knee jerk reactions, many others added their experiences to the conversation.
Here's a screen grab of the Google Docs page, updating contributors...
Rodriguez said the lesson is don’t post things you don’t want the world to see forever.
“People will come together and organize using technology to do research,” he said. “Feel free to say this: A lot of people have come to me with a lot of incriminating material about a lot of different bars, and people should be careful and watch out. This is no longer one person… it is bigger than anyone individual. The Internet decentralized this effort.”
As part of the fallout, Pure Gold Realty moved its annual charity concert Rock 'n' Restock to a new venue, the Austin Business Journal reported.
He said the group he has organized to confront Unbarlievable and will demand on Friday that bar own Brandon Cash divest his interests from the bar, apologize further and make great strides to heal the rift in the community the fiasco has created.
“We believe change can be made and things can be better,” Rodriguez said. “So it’s about improving the over-arching community overall.”
We reached out to Unbarlievalbe through their website but have not yet heard back about the inquiry.
Unbarlievable owner Brandon Cash issued a statement Thursday.
"It is with profound humility that I issue this heartfelt apology," he wrote, in part. "To those who I have hurt and offended, I am deeply sorry. My words and actions were wrong, inappropriate and inexcusable. They certainly don’t exemplify the values of a community that I love and care deeply about and my insensitive actions do not represent the views of my loyal and dedicated employees."
But the group Rodriguez helped organized says the owner needs to do more, and the group still plans to protest at 7 p.m. on Friday in front of the bar.
