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Facebook Chief Operating Officer speaking at the Makers Conference’s Raise Your Voice event in Hollywood ... telling Rolling Stone magazine he’s done touring, but not performing live ... And OOPS, we reported Tuesday that would host Sunday’s Writers Guild awards when in fact the emcee will be who is a star writer and comic on “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”
Cisn’t surprised and restaurant group was besieged by sex scandals. But the five-time James Beard Award winner felt “shock” upon hearing about his good “friend” alleged “Rape Room” at the Spotted Pig restaurant, which Friedman shared with Batali. “I knew Ken was tough on his staff, (but) that was a shock,” Colicchio (photo inset) told us at the Red Dress Awards at Lincoln Center, where he accompanied his filmmaker wife,
On Dec. 12, The New York Times published a story in which Friedman was accused of sexual misconduct by 10 former employees. While Friedman took issues with some of that story’s specifics, he apologized for his overall actions and took an indefinite leave of absence. Batali did the same. “Shows you that sometimes you don’t know someone as well as you think you did,” Colicchio said of Friedman.
Silverbush also appears to have sympathy, or at least empathy, for Friedman, who she says is working to improve himself.
“Learning how it played out and how he let it play out amongst his staff is certainly upsetting, but it’s heartening to know he’s 100% looking in, saying, ‘I’m a part of the problem, how do I fix this?’ She added: “He’s not pretending he’s not.”
Colicchio has taken precautions to keep bad behavior out of his eateries, which include Gramercy Tavern, Craft, Craftbar and Riverpark. “Years ago, I stopped giving out staff drinks,” he said. “We just stopped it. And I stopped doing staff parties six years ago.”
Colicchio’s Crafted Hospitality group also has its own human resources department, so employees with a complaint can go outside restaurant management with their grievances. He says restaurants, and society at large, are going through a “teaching moment.”
“Someone who’s flirting with someone and doesn’t know where that line is, that’s not a fireable offense,” he said. “But that’s a time where we can actually teach and that’s what we want to focus on.” Colicchio is also friendly with disgraced NBC host whose inability to know the line between sexual misconduct and decency cost him his job last year. “That was also difficult to swallow as well,” Colicchio confessed.