Hmm… undecided now on the Cracker Barrel thing. The activist in me wants to continue to boycott, even though they appear to have learned their lesson, because no one should have to learn that lesson.
The rest of me is torn between thinking, “Your activist brain has kicked into overdrive and now you’re just being stupidly stubborn” and “mmmm…pancakes…”
I have a feeling I know who’s gonna win this one.
Bob Evans has better pancakes:). Especially the cinnamon ones…yum. I don’t know if they have them in Chicago, but they kick IHOP’s ass.
Ava
Ignore all the incorrect words in my above post (like for some reason I substituted ‘question’ for ‘occasion’) I appearently haven’t been thinking right lately.
Las Vegas…but I confess, my reason is probably laughable… It’s because of the organized crime influence in Las Vegas 40 years ago…the whole Sinatra era thing…
So…am I living in the past? Is Las Vegas mostly legit these days? Or is it still a mafia hell-hole?
Speaking of living in the past, I’m also still mad at several southern states for refusing to ratify the ERA…
Trinopus (votin’ for Humphrey and rootin’ for Koufax…)
Me too, Life. My take on it is, bad food insults me more than being anti-gay. (If I were gay I might feel differently about it.)
But last time I was in a CB, they took 10 minutes to even take my order! I only got my order taken my dangling my keys near my table as if I were ready to leave. This was at around 4:00 pm and the place was rather uncrowded. So now they have that against them as well.
Think about it for a second: boycotts work because companies think, “Damn! Look at all the business we’re losing because of our sucky policies! Maybe we should change our policies so we can get that business.”
And this only works if, once they change the sucky policies, the boycotters patronize their business. If a boycott is irreversible, the company will think, “Damn! Those bastards are never giving us their business again! Well, fuck 'em and their politics, at least we don’t have to care what they want any more.”
The stick is more obvious, but the carrot is essential. You gotta honor your end of the boycott by lifting it once they do what you want.
Plus, warm buttery pancakes.
Daniel
I’ll just say that the only way I will ever step foot in the Richard Nixon Memorial Library is if I have a large bag of salt with me, so I can rightly purify the unholy ground it sits on. 
Let me not get into Bob Evans. 'Twas at a Bob Evans in Ohio that I had the single worst restaurant experience of my entire life. We’re talking seriously horrifyingly bad service, and not-good food. In fact, somewhere around here there’s a Pit rant on that very experience, if you’re feeling up to searching out the details.
Granted, that was one particular instance in one particular restaurant, but it was sufficiently awful for me to automatically refuse to grant any and all second chances.
I am now seriously considering Cracker Barrel’s chicken & dumplings with a side of peppery, greasy green beans for dinner.
Never doubted that. (As I’m sure Gundy knows, but which might not be realized by everyone reading this, I was kidding in the second part of my post.)
Still curious, though. Any theories on what caused the hostess to act so oddly? (It’s not exactly a sedate place, and large groups aren’t uncommon.)
Once, at an Olive Garden.
I am eating my Zuppa Toscana. It is hot and yummy. I like the broth best, so I suck the broth from the soup and leave lots of potato-sausage sludge in the bowl.
Service is slow. I am almost done with my soup by the time the soup arrives for the person next to me. I indicate to the server that I would like my bowl removed.
She takes my bowl, and puts it on her tray next to my friend’s Zuppa Toscana. She refills a few waters. Then she puts, in front of my friend, my bowl of cold potato-sausage sludge.
I point out the error.
She insists that such a thing could never happen, and that my friend has a fresh bowl of soup.
I insist that she is mistaken.
She insists that she is not.
My friend (who does not have a lot of faith in me) decides that I must be mistaken, and eats a heaping spoonful of my potato-sausage sludge.
She makes a horrified face.
She insists that she has been served in error.
The waitress says she hasn’t.
She demands a bowl of fresh soup from the kitchen.
The waitress sighs and fetches one, with the air of someone who is deeply put-upon and humoring an idiot.
I am now afraid to eat at Olive Garden.
Really? I’m sorry - I hate bad service. I waited tables at a Bob Evans in VA for four years in college, and I worked with pretty good servers - we very rarely had any complaints. I’ve always found them pretty decent (however, I blame them and their rolls and pancakes for the 20 lbs I put on in college). However, I can understand not wanting to go back because of a bad experience. I have yet to return to TK Tripps after nearly getting food poisoning. However, if you’re ever in VA, come to my Bob Evans - I promise it will be a good experience. I still know some of the servers there and the food is excellent (well, not Taver on the Green excellent, but excellent for the kind of restaurant it is.)
I’ll search out that Pit rant - I’m curious to see what happened now:). And where in Ohio? I’m moving there next month and I’d like to stay away from that particular restaurant.
Ava
My list…
IHOP - terrible service. A few times I went there, the waitresses were rude and slow in taking our orders or asking for a refill. The last straw was the morning after grad when a bunch of us went there and they sat us and plain out ignored us. We sat there for half an hour, asking for service many times, getting ignored. We were a bunch of hungry kids. We just wanted food. My friends and I got so frustrated we just got up and left. I believe a few drunk ones poured syrup over the tables before leaving. Heh.
McDonalds - I have yet to read Fast Food Nation that everyone is raving about, but I know enough not to eat there anymore. Whenever I have a longing for a burger, I just snatch one from work.
Gap, Old Navy, Amerian Eagle, ect. - No moral reason, just don’t like the style of clothes they sell.
Nike - Child labour thing, plus, who would pay $200 for a pair of shoes that was made for about $1? The last pair of shoes I got where $12, and they the most comfortable pair I’ve ever had.
Walmart - Just a plain bad bad bad place to shop. I have no idea if the US Walmarts are the same as the Canadian Walmarts (they probably are) but the last time I went into one, the case of “stuff scattered everywhere, rude employees, and shotty stuff” fits the description perfectly. The closest Walmart to me is in the next suburb, but there’s talk of building one here, and I hope, nay, PRAY, that it doesn’t happen.
avabeth - I thought I’d be helpful and look the thread up for you, but I can’t find it. I did find another horrible-restaurant-service thread I started, but my Bob Evans rant may have been in my mind. Anyhow, it’s the one in Piketon, OH (just outside Cincinnati) and I’ll email you the gory details so as not to further hijack this thread.
I used to boycott Washington Mutual because of a commercial they aired (10 years ago?) that I found insulting - it featured stagecoaches coming up empty and going back to California full of cash, and I’m from California. They also had the horribly annoying “rodeo grandma” commercials. But I figure it’s been long enough since then.
Wal Mart for their labor practices, treatment of local business and the destruction of all that is good and pure.
Disneyworld…I’d actually like to go there- the place facinates me. But when I sit down and think of where in the world I want to go, dropping a couple thousand for a carefully engineered themed experience is at the bottom of my list. I’d much rather go someplace real.
Then there are two restaurants- El Palomar in Santa Cruz and Figaro in San Francisco. I was a pretty big fan of both of these places. Both provided exceptional service and I’ve spent lots of money there. But I’m a punk rocker at heart, and when I’m not looking for jobs, I’m likely in tattered fishnets, boots, miniskirts and the like with skull necklaces and spikes. Depending on what I’m wearing I can look anywhere from 25-16. And both of these places gave me beyond atrocious service when I resembled a young punk rocker instead of a young adult career woman.
El Palomar refused to let me use their bathroom- assumeing I was some kind of vagrant- after my party spend seventy bucks on margaritas and bar snacks. Figaro actually withheld the change (as in the coins) when I paid my bill under the assumption that I wasn’t going to tip so they might as well get what they can (I’m a 20-50% tipper, and even after a night of horrible service I wasn’t gonna stiff them on tip). I refuse to go anywhere that treats me different based on my attire or percieved age. I spent too much time being discriminated against as an actual teenager to put up with it at this age.
Finally, there are places that I just plain try not to go. These encompass most all chain restaurants, fast food, chain clothing and books stores, and other fixtures of Generica. I don’t approve of most of their labor practices. I don’t like what they have to offer. And most of all I hate the idea that you can go from sea to shining sea without ever having to eat something or buy something new.
I also refuse to use Friendster because they demand to know your gender when it is completly irrelevent. It may sound silly, but it can cause a lot of distress for trans (gendered, sexual) and intersex people and I support their causes and want to show solidarity with them in this case.
Walmart for all the previously mentioned reasons. Drives me mental to hear (predominantly) old people talk about how much they shop there because it’s so cheap, but in the next sentence they’re complaining about the loss of American jobs. Without ever connecting the two.
Gap, Old Navy, etc Basically any of the supposedly “hip” clothing stores.
Dead…er, RED Lobster, Chi chi’s, Applebees
New Garden restaraunt in Robbinsdale, MN. After getting food poisoning (over 10 years ago, but remembering it vividly) and spending the night on the floor vomiting over 30 times, I don’t even like to drive past the place.
I found something here concerning Chick-fil-A. Nothing to do with being anti-gay, but just as bad, in my opinion.
Midnight, do remember that the mere filing of a lawsuit by a former (and presumably disgruntled) employee is not tantamount to proof. There is no way for us to evaluate, short of waiting to for the case to settle or go to trial, whether the lawsuit has merit or is frivolous.
Shoul’ve insisted the waitress try the soup.
She spit in it, you know.