Question: Why did James deserve better, to borrow your melodramatic phrasing? I'm not seeing how they deserve anything simply by virtue of being a new restaurant. It sounds like they served an overpriced mediocre-at-best meal to industry professionals, and friends at that. Now this apparently unfortunate experience is being discussed on an internet forum. Big deal. I doubt too many people will seriously be dissuaded from going to this restaurant simply because of this thread (as was stated by another poster). In short, James will not fail as a restaurant because someone went on a rant on the internet. Rather, the demise of the restaurant will occur if they continue to serve sub-par food at inflated prices. So, assuming those who run James are intent on it being a fine dining restaurant, this thread should in the long run have a positive effect. That is, they should be checking out these sorts of forums, taking in negative feedback, and improving their restaurant by ensuring that something like what was described at the start of this thread never happens again.
