Whether you believe him or not, longtime owner of Tadich Grill Steve Buich, who says he retired from the business 20 years ago, has spoken out via email to the Chronicle's C.W. Nevius in response to his estranged daughter's claims that he disowned her for marrying a black man. Buich does not deny that he and his wife have neither spoken to their daughter nor met her sons (who are now in their 20s) for over 30 years, but he insists that other members of the family have stayed in touch with her, and that the estrangement had nothing to do with race. "Simply because a dispute involves people of different races," he writes, "does not mean that the dispute is racial in nature."
He says that his decision in 1983 to disown daughter Terri Upshaw, who was 23 at the time, had to do with the fact that she'd begun a relationship with a married man pro football player Gene Upshaw, who was 38 at the time, recently retired from the Oakland Raiders, and in the process of getting a divorce.
Says Buich:
Although I hold a strong belief that the details of my relationship with my daughter, including those that were omitted from the article [published in the Washington Post], do not warrant public attention, I do want to make one thing clear: This has never been a matter of race, but rather the sanctity of marriage and personal judgment of character.
Gene and Terri Upshaw were married in 1986 and remained together 22 years until Gene succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 2008.
Nevius circled back to Terri about her father's comments, but she stands by her original characterization of the situation. "The bottom line was that he was black," she says.
She admits, though, that she has been in touch with some of the family, including her aunt and uncle, Bob and Barb Buich. Bob Buich seems to support Terri's version of events, and says he was "proud" of her speaking out, without rancor, in the Washington Post piece.
And, he adds, that he had a relationship with Terri and Gene Upshaw and their kids over 15 years, and, "I think if my brother had known what a nice guy [Gen] was, and how well suited they were, he’d have understood."
Barb Buich also suggests there might be a "glimmer of hope" for a reconciliation between father and daughter now that he sees her story in print.
To recap, Terri Upshaw, who kept her silence about the estrangement all these years, decided to come out with the truth after being questioned so much recently by friends in Washington, D.C. following the opening of a second Tadich Grill there this month. The story has, naturally, damaged the restaurant's reputation, and caused an emergency clean-up procedure on the Yelp pages of both the SF and DC locations.
Mike Buich, Terri's brother, who manages Tadich Grill now, has yet to reach out, she says.
