I’m sure lots of people would sit if the restaurant wasn’t very full. But I don’t think most of them have the level of expectation that results in leaving without the food and alerting the media if they are told they cannot.
As far as I’m concerned, Aretha Franklin can sit anywhere she wants.
If you’ve got empty tables and you tell a 72 year old woman she is not allow to sit while she waits for her order, you deserve all the bad press you get.
Yeah, if this was a sit-down restaurant with table service (and it seems like it is–I’ve never been to a Johnny Rocket’s), then I could see being a bit upset. I’ve never done this at a sit-down place, and I would assume it would raise eyebrows for this reason: it looks like you’re screwing a server out of a tip.
Now, I’ve done this many times at hot dog stands and hamburger joints that are counter service only. Why? Because I realized I had a little more time to eat than I thought, so rather than eat in the car and stink it up, I just sit down, gobble my food, and bus my table. Where I live, there’s no difference in tax or price between dining in or eating out (at least not that I’ve noticed.) When I lived in Evanston, there was even a Burger King where, after a certain time, they had to give you the food as a take-out order even if you were dining in. It had something to do with getting around city regulations against 24-hour restaurants.
That’s just showing her the R-E-S-P-E-C-T she deserves.
Not in Ontario where the incident took place.
Canadians can be rude? Who knew!?!?!?
You misunderstand- I’m not saying the restaurant doesn’t deserve whatever negative reaction they get for doing what they did. They do - just as Franklin deserves whatever negative reaction she gets for doing what she and her nephew did. I’m saying that the fact that many people might sit if there were empty tables doesn’t mean that they actually expect to be allowed to sit and would be so outraged if they weren’t that they would leave without the food and go to the media.Even if “the media” is the consumer reporter at the local weekly paper.Even if the person is 72. I’ve seen plenty of people get take-out at restaurants that weren’t fast food- and I’ve never seen one go sit at an empty table to wait for it. I have seen people sit at the counter in a coffee shop to wait for a takeout order or at the bar in places that do takeout orders at the bar, but never at a table.
And BTW, I doubt any of this had to do with Franklin being 72 - if it did, one would think the nephew would have said " Listen, my aunt is 72 and she can’t stand up for long, etc ,etc " rather than telling the waitress who she was as if he expected that to make a difference.
Way back in my fast food working days customers would often order food to go and then eat in the dining room. Food to go was not taxed and they wanted to save a few pennies. (This was back when you got change back on your dollar and the milk shakes and fries were still real food).
IIRC we did nothing about it.
Now what did piss me off was the the fast food place by my high school had a rule that you couldn’t sit at a table unless you ordered at least $1 worth of food. There were 4 of us at our table but one of the guys had ordered only a coke. He was told he had to leave even though he wasn’t taking up any real space since nobody else was going to sit at our table anyway.
However, the older lady next to us who had ordered only a coffee and was taking up a table for 4 was allowed to stay.
Here’s a different perspective:
I used to run a pizza place in California, where we sold slices as well as whole pies. When a customer ordered a slice or two to go, we packed them up into very expensive slice boxes.
I don’t know if it’s still this way, but California had some law about when, or not, to charge sales tax on prepared foods. IIRC, if the food is cold, and you’re taking it to go, no sales tax. Otherwise, you pay the tax.
Now, there’s a sandwich chain called Togos that has very few heated sandwiches; most are prepared cold. So many people’s standard operating procedure is to order to go, even though they have every intention of eating in, just so they can save a few cents.
The myth that formed out of all of this is that in any restaurant, saying your food is to go means you don’t pay sales tax. So, in my restaurant, there were many regular customers who would say their food was to go, when they intended from the start to eat in the restaurant. What complicated matters was that our menu included tax on all of our prices, so I guess these people thought they were actually not paying the tax (even though the menu said “all prices include sales tax”).
It used to irritate the fuck out of me, because of the expense of the boxes. But I certainly never said anything. Well, there were a couple of times, with regular customers whom I knew, where I nicely asked why they did this, and got the above information.
First thing I thought of, too…
The only reason Aretha said she would eat her food there was that the employee told her should couldn’t wait at a table for take-out. She wasn’t looking to avoid paying the tax or tip - she was trying to find some way she could continue to sit there while waiting for her food.
[QUOTE=doreen]
I’m fairly sure a) there actually was a rule against it (owners/managers always throw the workers under the bus)
[/QUOTE]
If you’re referring to the question of whether someone is allowed to eat take-out in the restaurant, maybe. If you mean the question of whether a customer is allowed to sit at a table, almost certainly not. What Aretha did here was so common it must have happened thousands of times (maybe even millions of times). If there was such a rule, why had no one ever heard of it before? Why had Aretha Franklin not heard of it before despite the fact that she had been to Johnny Rocket’s many times?
[QUOTE=doreen]
I’ve seen plenty of people get take-out at restaurants that weren’t fast food- and I’ve never seen one go sit at an empty table to wait for it. I have seen people sit at the counter in a coffee shop to wait for a takeout order or at the bar in places that do takeout orders at the bar, but never at a table.
[/QUOTE]
I have done this myself many times. I have been invited to sit at a table or in a booth while waiting for take-out. I have seen other people do it. It’s as common as dirt.
BTW, if the rule were that the customer is supposed to wait at the counter, why wasn’t she told that?
The main reason I think it was a rule is because it’s oddly common for managers/owners to have rules and claim that the employee was in the wrong when someone complains about the employee who followed them.
Not saying that was the rule- only describing what I’ve seen. It’s apparently not as common as dirt in this area to sit at a table while waiting for takeout.
I just read the article. This happened in Niagara Falls Ontario, a heavily touristed area, where from my own experience, service and quality of product is sadly lacking just about everywhere you go. It is all about the bottom line there. Aretha Franklin did not deserve to be treated this way, and the restaurant should clean up its act, but all I could think when I realized this happened in Niagara Falls was, So what else is new? The place is nothing to write home about. It had one of the top attractions in the world, but its facilities, etc., are bush league.
This is specious reasoning. The fact that managers often fail to back up employees when a customer complains does not mean that when a customer complains the employee is right. In fact, if management never sided with the employee regardless of who was in the right, that fact that it didn’t happen in this case would provide zero evidence one way or the other.
How do you reach that conclusion? By the fact that one employee claimed there was a rule against it?
Sorry- I could have been clearer. By “this area”, I meant the area in which I normally go to restaurants and where I have never seen someone sit at a table waiting for a takeout order in a restaurant with table service. It’s not even all that common in restaurants without table service. In fact, it’s only somewhat common in places that have an almost entirely take-out business and have maybe two tables directly across from the counter. It may be common as dirt in your area to sit at a table waiting for takeout , but it’s not in mine.
I normally wouldn’t sit at a table with table service unless my order was dine in. I wouldn’t want to create extra work for the waitresses. I leave a tip if a waiter or waitress has to serve me.
One of the exceptions is my local pizza place. Its a very relaxed and casual place. I’m eating out of the box and there’s no mess at all. If the waiter comes by for any reason then I leave a tip.
I think part of the problem has been created by basically self serve restaurants. You order at the counter, carry it to the table, and even fill your own soda cup. People get used to self serve and it has changed our expectations in a fast food restaurants.
Maybe this is a “suburban” thing, but: most restaurants with take-out menus around here have a bench (or two) near the door. I can’t imagine going back to a wait-staff-served table and sitting down while waiting for the order to be ready, but possibly that’s because I’m used to seeing the benches.
I suppose that sort of thing might be less common in more space-challenged areas. In such cases it seems okay to go sit at a table if the restaurant is mostly empty, but not so much if the restaurant is busy. (But elderly people should be able to sit, no matter what.)
Aretha Franklin is an amazing singer, but also a known as a demanding diva, and not above leaving out details which might paint her in a less-than-perfect light. There may (or may not) have been more going on at the Johnny Rockets, but even if Franklin was in the wrong or just contributing to the wrong, JR is smart just to apologize and move on.
No, because they have areas for people to sit while they wait for a take-out order. I do not expect to stand while waiting for a take-out order. I see nothing in the article to suggest that she should have been seated in a different area. If there were a different area, the correct response is, “Ma’am, let me show you where the seating for take-out customers is.”