We’ve been discussing the rich wingnut assholes who promised to Go Galt or retaliate against their employees or customers in some way if President Obama was reelected. The ranks of these entitled pricks include Papa John (Romney bundler and maker of crappy pizza), that asshole coal company owner (who first forced his miners to appear at a Romney rally and then laid off a bunch of them after the election in a fit of pique), and the Florida timeshare mogul and personal palace builder who plagiarized a threatening anti-Obama chain letter and then failed to follow through on his mass layoff threat (so far).
But this John Metz character is arguably the biggest asshole of all because he’s leveling his fire at the most powerless employees in his personal fiefdom: servers at his Florida Dairy Queen, Denny’s and Hurricane Bar & Grill restaurants. Via Gawker by way of HuffPo:
John Metz said he will add a 5 percent surcharge to customers’ bills to offset what he said are the increased costs of Obamacare, along with reducing his employees’ hours.
“If I leave the prices the same, but say on the menu that there is a 5 percent surcharge for Obamacare, customers have two choices. They can either pay it and tip 15 or 20 percent, or if they really feel so inclined, they can reduce the amount of tip they give to the server, who is the primary beneficiary of Obamacare,” Metz told The Huffington Post.
Metz had plenty of choices if he wanted to express his displeasure with KenyanSocialistCare. He could have gone the Papa John route and announced in a huff that he would be raising prices on his crappy food. He could have threatened to lay people off but punked out after the election like the dodgy timeshare guy or actually followed through on the threat like the coal company asshole. But what Metz has done is perhaps even more despicable: He’s encouraging customers to lower the income of people who are probably already barely scraping by. What a dick!
Here’s the thing, though: While servers might seemingly have little power compared to muckety-mucks in the food service industry, they are frequently in control of the actual food, at least for brief periods of time. I used to be a server back in the day. I’m not proud of it, but I confess I horked a loogie on a plate or two. Always under extreme provocation, mind you.
I had server friends who did even worse. One young waiter of my acquaintance expressed his displeasure with a particularly irksome customer by removing her prime rib from the plate with a fork and dragging it around the rim of the horrendously dirty employee toilet while we, his coworkers, laughed and hooted. Then he placed it back on the plate next to the baked potato and sprig of parsley and served it.
I’m not saying this is right or proper. It’s just the way it is. The “powerless” find ways to strike back. I don’t know whether or not Metz eats at his own restaurants, but he might get more than Moons over his Hammy next time he’s at Denny’s. And it wouldn’t surprise me if wait staff at more upscale joints decided to shake a few drops in Metz’s bisque in solidarity should he seek sustenance elsewhere. It’s just a bad idea to fuck with servers.
[X-posted at Rumproast]
maurinsky
Seriously. Be good to the people who give you your food!
Rafer Janders
Or choice three: never eat at a Florida Dairy Queen, Denny’s, or Hurricane Bar & Grill again, and instead eat at one of his competitor’s. If Metz doesn’t want our money, I’m sure there are many of his rivals who will be more than happy to take it.
Business: how the fuck does it work?
Zifnab25
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we need Unions.
“Don’t worry, our laborers earn their money on tips. They don’t need a minimum wage.”
Mnemosyne
I’m not the only one noticing that he’s planning to simultaneously reduce hours (so he doesn’t have to provide healthcare) and add a 5% Obamacare fee, right? So … doesn’t that mean that he’s planning to just pocket that 5% since he’s going to make sure he doesn’t have to buy additional health insurance by cutting hours?
Personally, if I were one of his customers, I would be less worried about the servers screwing around with my food and more worried that there’s someone in the kitchen with the flu or hepatitis who can’t afford to see a doctor who’s getting their viruses all over my food. And I would also start to wonder what other “cost saving” corners he’s cutting in the name of increasing his profit. I really don’t want my pancakes with a side of salmonella or e. coli.
Rosalita
so there goes my lunch appetite
blingee
Once again progressives fall for it and give these assholes the attention they want which is the whole point of these temper tantrums of theirs.
And if you want to ask “what else are we supposed to do, we can’t let them get away with it”. Not my problem. You figure it out. If you want to be part of the problem just keep doing what you’re doing.
Keith
All he has to do is ask his server for *clean* food, right?
ron mcbee
I’m a regular reader but after your comment concerning your actions as a food server I’m going to move on to another blogger. That’s just the way it is…
Mnemosyne
Also, while we’re talking about corporate whiners, WTF is up with Hostess? Do they really think that their competitors are not lining up to buy their name and production facilities for a song?
KCIvey
Don’t franchise-based chains have rules to prevent franchise owners from launching public relations disasters like this and damaging their brands? It seems like I’ve read about crackdowns for lesser offenses than this. What does Dairy Queen or Denny’s have to say about this guy?
c u n d gulag
And may we suggest that with your Châteaubriand, Sir, that you get the Chef’s special smegma sauce?
Also too, as well as the wait staff, don’t feck with bartenders.
A little Visine will knock you on your ass, howling, and spewing fluid, from ever orifice.
Not that I ever did that…
Lurking Canadian
@Rafer Janders:
Exactly! Fuck these guys and their bullshit threats. I do not have the True and Worshipful Faith in the Free Market (PBUI) that the Republicans have, but I’m pretty sure that if Chain Restaurant A jacks its prices by 5% above market, the net outcome will be customers lining up at Chain Restaurant B, which has identical food and decor but charges 5% less for everything.
These guys are basically asking us to believe the only reason they haven’t raised their prices by 5% already is that they were doing us a favour because they didn’t want the extra profit. And the media believes it.
ppcli
I hope he isn’t also adding another surcharge in an attempt to recoup the money he is going to lose because people don’t want to patronize an establishment run by such an open, arrogant douche. Especially one who announces up front on the bill what an entitled, smug weasel he is, to make sure that every single customer becomes aware when they ask for an explanation. The Dairy Queen servers will suffer too, of course, at first, but soon enough they’ll be able to get jobs at the Icy King, or Kone Palace, or Dairy Treat store down the block, which will be hiring people to serve the new customers.
This guy really thinks that people coming in and giving him money is something he is entitled to. He is owed by divine right. Let’s hope he learns differently soon.
[I thought the same when Mr. Poppa John’s made a big point about “I will pass every cent of the cost of Obamacare on to the consumer”. I hope he does. Then he will learn an important lesson: businesses are successful when they price items to attract customers, not when they price them to make obnoxious political statements.]
Some Dude
My question is about Hostess, too. Is this shut down more going Galt? It seems that the bankruptcy judge sided with them. Did the union shoot themselves in the foot?
Bobby Thomson
Don’t feed the concern troll. Especially not with a Blizzard sold by this douche bag.
Joey Maloney
@Mnemosyne: the vulture funds that own it don’t care; they’ve already sucked it dry. Nothing left but aging plant and debt. And 18000 lives of course, but fuck them. Moochers.
Betty Cracker
@blingee:
Unbelievable as it may seem, it simply never once occurred to me to trouble you for your advice on this or any other dilemma! But since you’ve raised the point, I think these assholes SHOULD get plenty of attention so people who don’t agree with their asshole policies (which is greater than the number of people who do) can choose to eat elsewhere.
Elizabelle
I’m popping in with a story about chickens, which is more than John Metz deserves.
Betty Cracker: am sure you saw this already. Red Hook (NYC) humans were flooded out of their apartment by Hurricane Sandy, and so were four hens: “Chicki Minaj, Hillary Chicken, Black Betty and Salt Hen Peppa [aka] Cookie Dough.”
NYTimes story has link to chickens’ owner’s blogsite, Sweets and Bitters, which has some interesting recipes, etc. (Pimiento Cheese. Mmmmm.)
Per reader comment on the blog, the chickens are offered free housing in the country.
Which will prompt some to say: why are chickens getting a better deal than Staten Island people victims? (Albeit, chickens are offered a coop, folks, not a co-op apartment.)
But it’s all good in the end.
Lurking Canadian
@ppcli:
Maybe he’s counting on all the people who lined up to buy Homophobia on a Kaiser at Chick-Fil-A to start buying his pancakes just to stick it to the moochers.
Doesn’t sound like a very wise business plan to me, but I’m not the kind of person who suggests leaving a note saying “Here’s a tip? You shouldn’t have voted for OBAMA” instead of a gratuity after dinner.
KCIvey
@Mnemosyne, as I understand it, Hostess is owned by a private equity firm and two hedge funds, so presumably selling off the name and facilities to line the pockets of the ultrarich scum running the show is the whole idea.
Judas Escargot, Bringer of Loaves and Fish Sandwiches
IMO the equity firm is just using the union as an excuse.
Reorganizing a company takes work, brains and patience.
But if Hostess go into liquidation, the equity pirates can just quickly sell off equipment and brands/trademarks to make the proverbial Quick Buck.
“We had to destroy the business to save it.”
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
So why would a customer give a shit about Metz’s hissy fit and not go his 5% cheaper competition? Freemarkets, who do they work Metz?
hueyplong
It’s irksome to be unable to boycott businesses because I had already determined never again to buy their crappy products on the merits.
MattF
Metz might try contemplating the concept of ‘competition’. Difficult, I know, since he believes that the world owes him a living…
LD50
@blingee: So you’re proudly contributing nothing, but acting superior about it. Neat trick.
wasabi gasp
To offset the hippie boycott, wingnuts will line up around the block to pay the Obamacare surcharge.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I didn’t see it before, and thanks for sharing a great story! I love the people who rescued the chickens and hope their restaurant gets restored.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
I will predict this Metz guy and the mine owner are up to some scam and we will hear about them in a few years in front of a judge. Businessmen don’t risk loosing customers by grandstanding for failed political campaigns. These two are looking to blame someone else for something unethical they are doing.
cathyx
I wish Papa Murphy’s would advertise that they support the new healthcare rules.
Lojasmo
@Rafer Janders:
Gonna go one better. I will never go to florida again. On top of that, Denny’s, Poppajohns, and Applebees are all off my list (though in honesty, I can’t remember the last time I frequented one of their establishments, so my threat has few teeth)
shortstop
@Mnemosyne:
And he’s doing it a full year before the ACA provision even kicks in. Omigod LOOK AT ME I’M A CORPORATE DRAMA QUEEN WITH THE EMOTIONAL AGE OF TWO!
Roger Moore
@hueyplong:
You fool! If you had just kept your mouth shut, you could have rebranded your unwillingness to buy crap as a principled boycott against the wingnuts.
raven
I learned in boot camp in 1966. Don’t fuck with the Spoons.
shortstop
@Lojasmo: I actually ate at an Applebee’s last month for the first time in my life. We were canvassing in Ohio, and Maumee isn’t exactly a restaurant paradise. I was appalled by how few veg dishes were on the menu (Note to Bobo: THEY DON’T HAVE A SALAD BAR!) and even more by how every single dish was loaded with fat and salt. Nothing wrong with splurging on calories now and then, but for this bland-ass crap? It’s just gross food.
Marc
Bankruptcy lawyer here: Hostess owes more to its creditors then it will generate in a sale/liquidation and it’s the creditors committee and the secured lenders that are driving the show. The owners aren’t going to get anything save a release from liability, which is worth a lot. Unfortunately, the second Circuit (which is where the case is)has a fairly liberal standard for permitting termination of collective bargaining agreements as compared to other circuits, eg., 3rd or 6th. This seems a case of lose-lose becauuse the workers are out of a job abd creditors are going to get less than if was able to reorganize as a going concern. Also, if equity took money out of the company within 6 years of the bankruptcy filing, they find themselves the subject of claw-back suits. As a general rule, once a company files for bankruptcy these days, it’s the banks that call all the shots. In Hostess, for example, the lenders won’t finance the company’s reorganization without getting the union contract terminated.
Lurking Canadian
@shortstop: I am not a foodie. I do not object to formulaic, chain restaurants as a rule.
But Applebee’s is fucking terrible. That place has nothing to recommend it at all.
SlothropRedux
Let’s not forget that Robert Murray, the jerk who required his miners to show up for Romney rallies without pay and who has fired miners in Utah allegedly because of the election, is a serial mine safety violator, and was the owner of Utah’s Crandall Canyon Mine in 2008 when a mine collapse there killed 6 miners. The guy has been a colossal asshole on many levels for years. Our ability to boycott fast food joints is one thing, but we need thoroughly enforced safety and labor regulations to keep Mr. Murray in check.
300baud
Metz is such a fool. Any change in the marketplace is a chance to get ahead of the competition. The right answer here is what some other restaurants have done. Paraphrasing:
This is a great stick to beat competitors with. All he has to do is the legal minimum that he would be doing anyhow, but he could sell it as warm fuzzies for him while making people think the competition was up to something nefarious. Employees are happier, customers are happier, and he has done nothing but blow some hot air.
But of course, it’s not enough for him to win. If other people are getting something good, then he’ll throw a tantrum.
rikyrah
totally making a list of places I shall not be going to ever again
The Republic of Stupidity
@Judas Escargot, Bringer of Loaves and Fish Sandwiches:
Geez… does this mean Romney’s already back at work in the private sector?
That didn’t take long…
And apart from the jobs lost, it’s not like a Twinkie or a HoHo is actually a real ‘foodstuff’…
shortstop
@Lurking Canadian: Well, I’m not a foodie, either, but I’ve had better luck with inexpensive independent restaurants (especially when traveling and looking for local specialties) than I’ve had with any chain. Having said that, yes, Applebee’s is ridiculously bad.
Bubblegum Tate
The surest sign that somebody is a total fucking asshole is if they habitually treat servers like shit. Looking at you, John Metz. Go Galt already–you won’t be missed.
Lojasmo
@LD50:
Blingees gotta bling.
Citizen_X
@KCIvey:
Exactly what I was wondering. Customers aren’t going to keep track of precisely which Denny’s in Florida are owned by Metz, so those that don’t want to pay 5% more/think Metz needs a cock punch/fear food prepared by pissed-off staff are going to avoid all Denny’s in Florida.
Won’t Corporate Headquarters have something to say about that?
Anoniminous
GOS Alert:
Private equity-owned Hostess blames striking workers as it liquidates.
It’s another screw job by our Job Creators.
ETA: And this too.
shortstop
@Citizen_X: Right now Denny’s corporate HQ is begging Facebook users not to judge the company by one crazy franchisee. However, they fail to warm healthcare-loving hearts when they offer this limp assurance: “We will of course comply with the ACA.” Wow, thanks, Denny’s!
Betty Cracker
@Citizen_X: Great question. I think I’ll pose it to Denny’s HQ…
aimai
@Some Dude:
How does this make sense? Its like saying that the slaves shot themselves in the foot by refusing to stay and work for free. If the company can’t or won’t pay its work force for their work/productivity it isn’t some kind of weird short sightedness on the part of the workers that they won’t work for reduced wages. If the company is determined to take its earnings as pure profit and refuses to plow those earnings back into the community in the form of wages, good work hours, and production there is nothing the workers can do about it–other than get together and buy the company and run it as a cooperative.
aimai
SatanicPanic
@blingee: Yeah genius, let’s let unsuspecting restaurant goers find out about this policy after they’ve sat down in one of this guy’s restaurants.
shortstop
@shortstop: Okay, rereading it, I see it’s not quite as bad as I described it, but it’s still fairly weak: Denny’s official statement on Metz.
aimai
@Lurking Canadian:
I think I was in an applebees once or maybe it was a TGIF. What struck me was the amazing amounts of money that had gone into streamlining and corporatizing your experience, to plasticizing the menus, to blown up pictures of the food, to fake decorator shit, and how little was spent on the food or the plating or the experience of eating.
aimai
wenchacha
There really are two Americas: one with sentient beings and then one that is filled with this bunch.
blingee
@Betty Cracker: Then make a sign and go stand in front of one of his restaurants. That to me is going to accomplish more than pointing and saying, hey everyone look what this asshole is doing. All that does is make a bunch of wingnuts want to go to his restaurants. Don’t believe me? See Chick-Fil-A.
I’m guessing most on the left don’t eat at these places anyways because…you know…health facts so boycotting them isn’t going to accomplish much.
Don
Thankfully this bozo has given us a map so we don’t need to ever darken his door with our health-care-supporting asses again: the RREMC Restaurant Group location finder. If you want to know where to avoid because the employees are disgruntled and the last of the bunch who couldn’t get another job with a better boss – and likely have come to work when sick because they can’t get any support or care – there you go.
Spread the link far and wide. RREMC Restaurant Group restaurants, owned by Metz who will do everything in his power to provide as little as possible to his employees (including people to tip less).
butler
So isn’t he really admitting that this is all it would take? A piddling little 5% marginal charge (that’s a whole fucking dime on your $1.99 Denny’s Breakfast plate!) is all its going to take for him to provide his employees with actual healthcare?
That may be the best argument in favor of the ACA I’ve heard yet.
Raven
Oil rig blew up in LA.
300baud
@Mnemosyne:
This is a good history:
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/
My take is basically: historical factors. To my eye, it looks like they’ve been fucked for a decade or more. Declining revenues, unfashionable products, no ability to innovate, antiquated work rules baked into union contracts, large pension liabilities, idiot executives, neglectful conglomerates, massive debts, vulture capitalists, frequent changes in CEOs, and a history of bad labor/management relations.
If you were starting a baked goods company today, it would look nothing like the current Hostess. I don’t see how you could fix this mess without using a time machine to go back 30 or 40 years.
eric
OT : Fp’ers, given that the election is over and we need more infighting here and I want to buy a great tablet…can we have a thread” “The Best tablet to Buy”? thanks so much
better yet: “What tablet would Greenwald buy?”
shortstop
@aimai: Plus I was there during the World Series and I had to ask them to change one of the 37 TVs from football to baseball! WTF?!
Vodkamuppet
@wasabi gasp
And not a damn one of them will see the irony in that.
Soonergrunt
@Citizen_X: They are trying very hard to not have anything to say about it, at least, Applebees Brand owner is running that route WRT their NYC franchisee:
Raven
Because the rig was not producing oil, Gautier said the incident will not devolve into a major environmental disaster like BP’s Macondo well, which spewed for 86 days fouling a huge part of the Gulf and shorelines along several states.
hueyplong
@Roger Moore:
I’ve got lots of limitations.
In a long ago dead thread, you posted something that led me to believe you might have read one or more biographies of Gen. Sherman. Can you recommend one?
SatanicPanic
While we’re on the subject of wingnut businesses, what’s up with Chik-Fil-A?
different-church-lady
At some point we’re going to have to face down how screwed up our method of paying waitstaff in this country is. Maybe dopes like John Metz will unintentionally open up the dialog.
gwangung
@blingee: Not very bright, are you. These spurts are generally short and unsustainable.
Waldo
I’m picturing 5,000 hideous strip malls lined with Papa John’s, Denny’s and Chik-fil-A’s — each with a half dozen other cheap chain restaurant options nearby. Thanks for helping me decide, dicks.
Lahru
@ron mcbee:
Throw the stone if you are that pure!!!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@blingee:
You know, if it is that much of a burr in your saddle blanket, you could start up your own blog where you could spend all day not writing about the things you think nobody should be talking about. I’m sure it would be a big hit.
Bnad
Can we get a website set up to track all the businesses/franchises whose wingnut owners have come out with public statements against Obamacare?
Kristin
1) This would all be fixed by universal health care, which I’m sure this guy rails against.
2) Welp, I guess I’m never going to eat out at a restaurant ever again.
I mean, fuck this Denny’s guy, but also fuck anyone who thinks it’s acceptable to spit in my food.
someofparts
Maybe you’ve hit on something that explains the despicable behavior of these vermin. By now they have consumed so many boogers, jizz and other exotic ‘treats’, compliments of waitstaff, their DNA has probably been compromised.
Fwiffo
It’s totally a power thing. They’re just livid that their money doesn’t always buy the results they want. It has nothing to do with finding ways to pay for the changes required by new regulations. They actually want to make their customers’ and their employees’ lives worse just to prove they have the power.
If their employees have health insurance, it’s one less way that they’re superior. Their own quality of life is not measured in how much they have, it’s how much more they have than everyone else.
curiousleo
@eric:
Oooh, me wanna tech thread, too. looking for decent laptop for my dad (inexpensive but will do some stuff)
Soonergrunt
@eric: Anything Android 4.x
Raven
Oil Rig explosion
Cmm
The hissy fit by the Applebee’s guy really takes the whinge cake. Here he is saying, basically, one way I profited all along was by not providing health insurance to my employees. What did they do when they got sick? Who cares! Not my problem. But now the NANNY GOVERNMENT says I have to do this basic humane thing for the people who do the work that allows me to live my fabulous life, so in response I am going to cut hours and employees to avoid doing anything for the ones who are left, and let all my customers know that it is all the fault of the people making and serving their food that it costs more, so they should punish them.
Who the fuck do these people think footed the bill when their employees had health problems before Obamacare? They aren’t paying out of pocket on your crappy part time hourly wage plus tips. They are either racking up debt they can’t pay til they go bankrupt (and we all pay) or they, and any of their dependents are receiving Medicaid or SCHIP paid care (and we all pay). What a complete shitheel this guy is.
I LOVE the positive spin put on the same situation by the other employer cited above. That would totally give me a warm fuzzy as both an employee and a customer. Giving a damn about someone other than yourself, how does that work?
Citizen_X
Since people here are defending waitstaff, I thought might like this: Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert appeared in town together last weekend, and I had to appreciate one item about Ripert. Apparently, he once went “so far as to punch someone he encountered being rude to a server.” Good on him!
Soonergrunt
@Fwiffo:
THIS.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne:
Not bug, feature. Place is half owned by vulture capitalists.
Punchy
This cant possibly be labeled on the reciept as “Obamacare surcharge”, right? Cuz that looks like a personal tax, and I didn’t know that a business could dream up and institute their own taxes.
Raising his food prices by 5% is allowed, I get it. But can he really legally collect his own, personal tax?
KCIvey
@Vodkamuppet, except they’ll all just deduct the Obamacare surcharge from the tip, as Metz suggests they should.
gex
OT: Chris Christie slamming Romney for “gifts” accusation.
Kristin
@different-church-lady: California requires minimum wage for servers without tip offsets. It helps, but it’s probably still not enough.
Villago Delenda Est
Human sewage like Metz deserve this. They’ve earned it through their sheer assholishness.
Literalreddy
@different-church-lady: I vastly prefer the system where the server is paid an actual wage and the cost is included in the price of the food. That way when I give a tip it is for actual good service rather than making sure that the server gets a decent wage.
Maybe the cost of eating out will go ‘up’, but with actual healthcare and days off, I won’t have to worry that the server and cooks are working while ill and passing their illness on to me.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I’m trying to figure out how to make this fit on a bumper sticker/t-shirt/facebook post (the last will include some links): Now that they no longer have racism to divide the population, the class warfare they have been raging is out in the open.
aimai
@blingee:
What makes you think that Obama voters, democrats, or even “the left” have any option when it comes to fast food? Working class people have very few options. The left isn’t synonymous with “elite” or upper class or even educated (as to nutrition).
aimai
different-church-lady
Yeah, OK, I read the revenge stories on this thread and I think two things:
a) It’s a real illustration of how fucked up the power structure is in the restaurant “industry”. The system is set up to create adversarial situations where crappy diners play a game of “perform for me or no tip” and waitstaff is powerless to push back in any way except secret vengeance. And you know damn well ownership wants it to stay that way because they have all the power in that setup.
b) These tales of vengeance make me question whether I want to even go out anymore. Nice job, folks.
hep kitty
Everyone should have to be a server at some point in their lives.
Kristin
@Cmm: It’s kind of hilarious how these guys didn’t care about using Medicare (and still don’t care about using food stamps) as crutches for their crappy wages. Moochers, indeed.
hep kitty
@Punchy: Pulled it right out of his arse, which is where it needs to return
aimai
In re the tip issue: workers are taxed on their theoretical tips. Metz’s ploy is not illegal–a guy can raise his prices and he can call it what he wants. But as far as the IRS is concerned the increased income gets taxed like regular income and the decrease in tips caused by “spite tipping” by Metz’s customers comes doubly out of the server’s hides. This is a point I made in my letter to Denny’s headquarters: Metz is pitting his customer against his servers to make a political point. That’s bad corporate policy as well as bad customer service.
aimai
danimal
While we’re developing our boycott lists, please don’t forget Macy’s, which features Donald Trump in its ads. Anything Trump-related needs to be avoided, including his crappy tv show.
In a just world, an over-leveraged Trump would go bankrupt and become a homeless street-dweller, selling strands of hair for a dollar donation.
different-church-lady
@Literalreddy:
Agreed. The whole question in my mind is, “Who is the server performing the service for: me, or the restaurant?” I mean, imagine an auto parts store where there’s one charge for the part but a separate, insanely vague method through which you pay to have someone get the part out of the store room for you.
The only other place this happens is in the entertainment ticket industry, and almost everyone’s in agreement it’s abusive. Why we don’t see it this way for dining as well I don’t know.
Villago Delenda Est
@Vodkamuppet:
The cretinous natural serfs are utterly oblivious to irony.
It’s why I find them so pathetically wretched. They deserve to have a boot on their necks. They seem to enjoy it.
These maggots are utterly unworthy of the freedoms and rights so many fought, bled, and died for in the past, and in the present.
Culture of Truth
Have these people never heard of the French Revolution?
JoyfulA
@Lojasmo: Yes, it’s hard to really boycott Papa John’s, Denny’s, and Applebee’s when I’ve tried each once and never gone back to any of them.
hep kitty
Rich people, I never paid much attention to what you did. But you are forcing us, the middle class, to hear about your 50,000 sq ft houses while you stab your poverty-stricken workers in the back and even then, they can’t possibly bleed enough to suit your sick tastes.
You have done yourselves NO favors by behaving in this way. Yeh, my bf and I used to eat at Denny’s for a Sat. morning hangover meal. Not anymore. I guess I need to let them know exactly why that is.
Villago Delenda Est
@aimai:
It’s also the mark of a shitty businessman.
Lurking Canadian
@Literalreddy: I agree. I’ve thought for some time that tipping is a stupid custom, especially that we tip a percentage of the cost of the meal, rather than something related to the number of diners and the amount of time spent in the joint.
I’m not convinced that the guy who brings your $50 steak at Ruth’s Chris is worth five times the kid who brings your $10 chicken fingers at Chili’s, but that is what our civilization decrees.
Face
I cant see how this fuckstain is really all that affected. Most servers in most restaurant chains are ages 18-24ish, and covered by Mom/Dad’s insurance. Likely only a small percentage of his cooks and staff are old enough to even qualify for this insurance.
I think this guy just wants to be a dick. I bet his managers absolutely hate him, too. Can you imagine all the bullshit servers and managers will be getting, seeing a surcharge on their bill they weren’t expecting? I wouldn’t pay and tell them to fuck off.
Ksmiami
@Some Dude: bad horrible management of a great brand… Not the fault of the union
different-church-lady
@Lurking Canadian:
Especially if you specifically point out the fact that you’re charging 5% more.
Jamey
Fucks like Metz still don’t get it: Without us, they’re nothing. People who wait tables, take blood sample, read meters, fix potholes, fly planes? They eat in restaurants. By dicking servers and making a big fuss about doing it on “principle,” restaurant chain owners are pissing off everyone. That cannot be good for business.
Shit, Miguel Cabrera hit more homers, knocked in more runs, and batted for higher average than anyone else in the AL. More important, he led his team to a division championship. So when he was named Most Valuable Player, what was the first thing he did? Thanked the fans and people of Venezuela who made his success possible, rather than, say, blame the ball girls and bat boys for the cost of gas.
This is not hard to understand.
different-church-lady
@Lurking Canadian:
If demographics don’t get these guys, the cardiac events will eventually.
aimai
@Face:
This is totally wrong. Fast Food jobs, especially line jobs for cooks, are not held down by teenagers whose parents have health insurance plans they can keep them on. They are held down by part timers, adults, in two income/three and four job marriages who don’t have health care coverage at all. The income cut off for medicaid in Florida is 11,000 for a family of three. It is very likely that Metz’s workers are not covered by health insurance at all.
aimai
CDW
Had to stay in a motel for a week one time when a particularly bad ice storm came through and knocked out power. There was a Denny’s on a pod next to the motel and I had the displeasure of eating there – my first time (at a Dennys). For the life of me, I don’t know why anyone would eat at a Denny’s if s/he had a choice.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jamey:
It is if you’re a Galtian asswipe who is convinced, like Dubya Mitten Rmoney, that your farts do not stink.
Strandedvandal
If you really want to screw with this guy’s bottom line, give the customer’s extra stuff. More fries, 2 slices of cheese instead of 1, less ice, more soda, etc. The servers get bigger tips, and the food costs go up.
gex
@Citizen_X: I cannot for the life of me imagine being rude to wait staff. My big expression of displeasure is to tip only 15% if I am dissatisfied with the service. Probably not a great way to signal, but I can’t tip less.
Culture of Truth
Of course he has to prices. During the camapign Mitt Romney cornered the market on baloney.
? Martin
This came up at the barbershop this morning, along with Hostess closing. A bunch of old white men is about as conservative an audience as you’ll find here, and of course there was the usual whining of ‘how can these guys turn a profit!’
So I asked, what profit margin do you think they should expect? Most numbers offered up were around 15%, and the shop owner happened to be there (also conservative), and I asked him. He said 5% would be pretty good after he paid his own salary (he cuts hair too). He raised prices by $1 this summer, after about 3 years at the old price. He did a ‘remodel’ a few years ago out of his profits. Nothing fancy, basic modernizing and maintenance, really. He noted the other mens hair places that he competes with, and they’re all $20 and up for a cut and look fancy and shit and they last a few years and then go out of business. He’s been there 40 years – one of the oldest businesses in town (newish town) and charges $14 and has been able to pay himself and his staff a reasonable salary for almost all of that time (This is high rent OC – I’m guessing some of the guys there are making $60K cutting hair). Some of the guys working for him have been there for decades – most came to him right out of the military. They make acceptable money. Nobody is getting rich, but nobody is paycheck to paycheck either. He’s been covering healthcare that whole time for his employees. He said anyone expecting better than that was being greedy, and if you’re not greedy it’s not that hard to keep an established business running.
That mostly shut everyone up.
I mentioned that Hostess was just another venture capital churn, like most of the other bakeries and a lot of retail. These guys are house flippers, but with companies and by exploiting bankruptcy laws. Hostess has a lot of value in the brand, so you borrow against that, keep the money, fuck the workers, and if the company succeeds, great, and if not, you get the loans excused under bankruptcy protection, clean the balance sheets, and then sell the brand to the next VC firm for what you paid, and they just do the same thing. There’s various little tinkerings here and there, but in the end there’s a lot more money to be made by fucking over the investors than there is in selling ho-hos.
Lojasmo
@different-church-lady:
You don’t seem like a dickhead, so you should be fine.
In all my years as a server, and as badly as I have been treated in those years *only a couple occasions) I have never done such a thing.
I imagine it’s very rare, and reserved for totally assholish behavior.
WaterGirl
@JoyfulA: I’m thinking you could go in, give them your “to go” order, and once they’ve rung it up and it’s time for you to give them the money, you say: “oh wait, you guys are on the list of places to boycott because of ObamaCare”. We’ll go across the street and eat at xx”.
Frankensteinbeck
I want to extend my personal thanks to Mitt Romney, for convincing all of the plutocrat assholes that they should loudly declare how much they hate the poor and intend to screw them over, while blaming the Democrats for loving the poor too much. Reagan did much too good a job of hiding that, and it’s good to see the rich taking matters into their own hands.
mistermix
I’m late to this party but just want to say that the trolliest of all trolling arguments is that “giving publicity to X” is bad. This fucker wants attention, give it to him, good and hard.
There’s a BBQ place out here where the Galtian baby running the place replaced his front page with a comment on how taxes are making it impossible for him in his business. I decided to take my business elsewhere because fuck him, that’s why.
And, yeah, once in a while I’ll eat at a chain restaurant, and if I know that the guy running it is a jackass like this guy, I’ll choose to eat at one of the 20 other nearby chains.
Jewish Steel
@aimai: This is exactly right. Step outside college towns and places with middle class families and your pizza is delivered by an adult. Maybe with a family and another job during the day.
@mistermix:
This is FRED!’s One Great Thought. You’re not going to take this away from him forreals?
First hockey, now this.
JohnK
Damn, I ain’t messin with no cracker food servers. I wonder how many death threats Metz has received so far?
shortstop
@Lojasmo: I never did it, even with a few real assholes at my tables. However, I admit to having used the three-second rule in the kitchen when accidents happened. Since the floor of the kitchen is the cleanest place in most restaurants, I felt no guilt.
quannlace
Mark Twain is supposed to have said that ‘Yankee’s can’t make good fried chicken.”
Looks like Republicans can’t make decent pizza.
gwangung
If’n I recall right, these guys are looking for profits in the 20% range or higher—really high end stuff. That’s because they are charging the folks who invest with them a very pretty penny—1-2% of the money they invest, and 20% of the profit they make. It doesn’t pay for private equity or hedge funds to go for lower margins on companies (as opposed to currency arbitrage).
shortstop
@Jewish Steel: And this has become even truer as manufacturing jobs have disappeared: quite a lot of the people who held them have moved over to foodservice. The teenager-working-at-McDonald’s icon is about a generation out of date, and only applied to wealthy/university communities even when it wasn’t.
shortstop
@quannlace: Papa John’s, Godfather’s, Domino’s, Little Caesar’s…these are all hideously bad pizza brought to us by the GOP.
? Martin
@Face:
The health care law doesn’t give an exemption if you are covered by mom or dad. That’s part of the point – to get everyone individually covered. Otherwise the kid working at Denny’s is actually getting his health care paid for by Boeing where his dad works. Boeing would like out of that deal and have Denny’s pay their own fucking health care.
If you do that, you equalize the market. Industries that have been fucking workers in a cost race to the bottom (restaurants and retail are big culprits here) are forced to participate like the rest of the economy.
JoyfulA
@different-church-lady: In my long-ago, brief career as a server, I never did anything unpleasant to customers’ food, not even to the food of unpleasant customers.
However, I did have a friend who worked in a bread factory (I’d hesitate to call it a bakery because it produced only bread). She told me that management pissed off the workers, and the male workers retaliated by pissing in the bread mix. So you’re not safe, even if you never dine out again.
My friend left for a better job in a nursing home.
300baud
@WaterGirl:
Please don’t do this. It mainly fucks with the front-line staff, the people you are hoping to help, and it’s not like the word is going to get passed up to anybody who matters.
Send a note to the corporate headquarters if you want a quick action to take. Or if you want to make a big difference, organize some publicity stunt. But I promise you the guy at the cash register is not the one opposed to worker health care.
Sideshow bill
@shortstop: Yea Maumee!! I avoid that Applebee’s like the plague. Mostly because it’s Applebee’s. However, the UAW guys that I work with at a battery plant for a company (that shall be unnamed because of a corporate social media policy) were fired up. Thanks for helping canvass out there.
Anoniminous
@? Martin:
This. This. A thousand times this.
A functioning company producing goods or services will, if they are lucky, turn an 8% profit/year. Most however go chugging along at a lot less. Example, in 2011 IBM made $5.3 billion profit on gross sales of $106.9 billion or 4.96%.
In 2011 the Mortgage Sector made a measly 27% profit.
Betty Cracker
@Lojasmo: Yep. Like I said, I’m not proud of it, but the only time I ever horked a loogie on a plate was to get secret revenge on a racist shithead who was drunkenly slurring the n-word in the restaurant and to punish an asshole who was sexually harassing me. I’m not as sweet as I used to be. Today, I’d crack a beer pitcher over their heads…
Roger Moore
@eric:
I think the answer is going to depend on whether you already have a smart phone and have invested in one of the existing systems. If you do, you’ll probably want to get the tablet that matches your phone so you can use the same apps and have the same user experience on both. If you don’t, you need to decide if you want the more polished Apple products, the more open Android, or possibly a Windows 8 tablet. You’ll also need to think about getting a small tablet (lighter, more portable) or a full-sized one (better screen).
I’m already in with Android, so I figure my next tablet is going to be a Nexus 10. I really, really want that 2560×1600 screen, which is the same pixel dimensions as my 30″ desktop monitor and should be fantastic for showing pictures. OTOH, my boss loves his iPad mini, which is conveniently small and works with his existing iPhone apps.
trollhattan
Speaking of sad little men, the nation’s saddest little man has somehow become 50% more vile. Quite a trick, when you think about it.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/11/eric-dondero-boycott-update.html
nemesis
Not eating at Dennys, Applebees and Pappa Johns?
That means less obiesity, less diabeetus and healthier citizens (possibly).
Its a win for Obamacare! Yet another conspiracy.
If Bamz is soooo accomplished at conspiracies, and he has been accused of dozens, then why would he stumble with something as simple a conspiracy as Bengahzi?
Oh, Metz kinda sucks, too.
shortstop
@Sideshow bill: My pleasure. A lot of UFCW people were canvassing out of that same office. For some reason I was sent to real country out past Monrova, where I employed my best diplomatic skills with farmers’ watchdogs.
Jewish Steel
@shortstop: A friend from Duluth, a deteriorating sea port hipped me to this. It had never occurred to me before that jobs like that were any thing other than transitional stops for kids. Sheltered suburban twit that I was.
jibeaux
@Lurking Canadian: Exactly. If I’m traveling, for example, I look for Panera. (When I’m on the road, I mean, I’m not saying I go to New Orleans and at eat Panera.) The quality and price are quite decent. Applebee’s is the absolute pits.
Schlemizel
@Roger Moore:
I think you hit the key – if you already have the phone get the same pad. You already like the way it works & are familiar with the apps
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Martin:
And that right there, using the Willie Sutton principle of “because that’s where the money is”, tells us most of what we need to know about how structurally fucked up our economy is.
Sideshow bill
@Face: Having been a server in a Chili’s back in ’92-94, before going to high end waiting positions, I can assure you that most of the servers were definitely not on their parents insurance, and this was in an upper middle class area. Most didn’t live there because the kids from that area didn’t work. 1/2 of the servers were working through college, and the other 1/2 were just trying to keep above water. There were a ton of times when we’d pitch in to help someone out, because they couldn’t get help otherwise.
300baud
@Punchy:
Sure he can. As long as he’s honest up front, he can put whatever he wants on the bill. A common restaurant menu example is “15% gratuity will be charged for parties of 6 or more.” Many transport companies (e.g., UPS) put surcharges on when gas prices spike.
It’s just a way of raising prices and also explaining why prices are going up. Eventually everybody will chill the fuck out, roll the costs into normal prices, and move on. That, or it will become a standard sort of charge that people just shrug at.
PurpleGirl
@danimal: You might be interested in this — a petition to Macy’s to stop working with Trump.
http://signon.org/sign/urge-macys-to-dump-donald?source=mo&id=57565-18875997-bWn3tNx
Mnemosyne
Speaking of tipping, please tip your server in cash if you can manage it, especially if you’re forced to eat at one of this dickweed’s restaurants. It’s a lot harder for management to fuck around with tips if the server has the cash in hand than if they’re on the credit card slip.
(I don’t usually manage this, but I do overtip by a couple of percentage points to make up for the loss to the server of putting it on the credit card.)
shortstop
@Jewish Steel: I had to learn it as a grownup too — grew up in similar circumstances to yours.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
What I want to know is why anyone loans these people money for their second or third try. If a private equity company routinely screws bondholders by paying equity first, they should have a hard time getting people to buy their bonds. Who are the fools who keep loaning money to these people? Why aren’t they putting rules into their loans to prevent the company from paying equity before debt? How in hell can they get away with this shit time and time again?
Schlemizel
@Jewish Steel:
I have a McAwfuls about 2 blocks from me. I live in a pre-WWII suburb that is only plurality white & struggling to maintain middle-class. That McD is staffed by kids, mentally challenged and retirees. Some of the kids appear college age but I don’t go there so this is just my experience from walking through their lot on my way to, or home from, the bus.
eric
@Roger Moore: I have an oldish PC that i will use exclusively to run my recording software and I have an iphone with minimal apps. I will probably use the tablet for watching videos and some light out-of-office work. thanks for the info
Schlemizel
@Mnemosyne:
This is a left over from my travel on expense account days – I tip a small amount on the credit card & the rest in cash. Not only does this make it easier on the server it reduces the average tip calculations used for withholding.
Anoniminous
As far as the Food Industry goes it’s
assholesturtles all the way down.href=”http://fairreporters.net/2012/11/14/the-fairtrade-rip-off/”>The FAIRTRADE Chocolate Rip-off.
(WARNING: take your blood pressure medicine before reading.)
trollhattan
@nemesis:
Yup. My alternate headline is, “Obamacare results in unexpected improvement to Florida diets.”
Seldom travel so I have no use for chain restaurants–hard to boycott something you don’t already use. But I’ll drive past five Walmarts to shop at a Costco, instead. They treat their employees well and the CEO even spoke at the Democratic Convention.
PeakVT
@Bnad: antiobamacareassholes.tumblr.com is free. Have at it.
Roger Moore
@Schlemizel:
There’s still the question about the size and, with Android and Windows 8, the details of the model. I have to say that some of the transforming models look pretty slick. I don’t think I’m going to get one because I have a bluetooth keyboard I can use if I really need to type a bunch, but I could see getting one as a replacement for a full-on laptop.
Soonergrunt
@300baud: ” But I promise you the guy at the cash register is not the one opposed to worker health care.”
Come to Oklahoma, and you’ll meet some who are. But those such people tend to have one or two things in common:
The first is that they already have health coverage through some mechanism like Indian Health Service or Soonercare.*
The second is the general two-generations-inbred appearance.
I have actually had people on Soonercare (OK’s version of medicare) tell me that they wouldn’t get off Soonercare “because socialism is bad”. You know, because the pitiful care we give to a family of 4 with an annual income of $5,600 is EXACTLY what they deserve.
I pay more in health insurance premiums each year than that person makes in income, and I’m glad to be able to do it, and I just shake my head at the stupidity.
ShadeTail
@blingee:
You are so utterly full of shit, you elitist gasbag. Or have you really not noticed how spreading the word across blogs has pushed agendas like this before? And, you know, plenty of lefties *do* eat at those restaurants, and would probably appreciate the heads-up. And believe it or not, posting it to blogs across the internet will reach more of them than standing in front of a single location with a sign and accosting the people walking in.
And you’re whining about how the wingnuts will react to that? Seriously? No real leftist would give a shit about them. Also, this might be too strange a concept for you to grasp, but they’ll react that way whether the boycott is organized IRL or by blog. So let them waste their money with counter-protests that ultimately entail them cutting their own throats. Eventually they’ll give up on that and we’ll still win.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
People in my area of Los Angeles will always remember that when a commuter train crashed behind the Atwater Village store in 2005, Costco employees climbed the fence to help rescue the passengers and Costco managers closed down the store for the day so emergency services would have a place to triage the survivors.
Jewish Steel
@Schlemizel: My town has three colleges in it. Plus lots of wealthy middle class families. Plus an ass-ton of 2 star chain restaurants. I haven’t been in a fast food joint in a looong time but I remember that minorities were disproportionately represented at our local chains. Good for McD’s! But not so great for black folk who, given a choice, might prefer better work.
Ruckus
Those of you wondering about the extras in your food, if you act like a normal human being, that shit doesn’t happen. As Betty and others have stated it is about the real assholes, and they deserve it. Badly and hard. It isn’t that hard to act human towards servers, it’s a hard job with shit wages and that’s the least they deserve. For example I always pay tips in cash. As long as we are going to use those tips as a part of actual pay, I’m going to give servers as much help as I can. If they want to be brutally honest and claim all their tips, I say bravo. If not I’m not going to make it hard/impossible for them.
BTW I’ve never worked in a restaurant but I have had a job in the public eye where I’ve had to suck it up and not crack a head or two with a beer pitcher. (A few times that would have been a grand idea) A lot of us probably have had jobs like that at one time or another.
WereBear
All you folks fussing about what servers do to your food? Relax. That kind of behavior is reserved for flaming jerks… and nobody here falls in that category, are we?
Now, the teens in your local fast food place might need far less of an excuse, but for heaven’s sake, if you are eating there, you just aren’t that fussy.
eric
@Mnemosyne: WOW
Citizen Alan
@gex:
Same here. You have to give me aggressively bad service to not get a 20% tip out of me. As in “deliberately ignore me when I know perfectly well you saw me wave at you because you haven’t taken my drink order in nearly ten minutes because you are quite obviously flirting with that girl at the other end of the bar” bad.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Wow, that’s quite the story. I can imagine some employees having PTSD symptoms after that experience. Says something about them and the store that they automatically responded like that.
(Was that the crash when the operator was texting just beforehand?)
Mnemosyne
@Jewish Steel:
McD’s is pretty interesting because they have a strong corporate culture of promoting from within, which (generally speaking) is the best way to keep continuity and have executives who are more interested in keeping the company going than they are in cashing out.
Plus I remember a whole monologue on “Ace of Cakes” where Duff talked about how McDonald’s is the best possible place to start out if you think you’re interested in culinary work, because they give you a really solid grounding in the basics of sanitary food prep, keeping things clean, etc. “If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean.”
? Martin
@Roger Moore: I agree. Ecosystems are really where the value is developing.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
Luckily, Costco has (guess what?) health insurance for all of its employees and was able to get them counseling etc. to try and minimize the impact. But, as you could tell from the story, it was a really really big deal.
No, it was a jackass who wanted to try and commit suicide so he jammed his SUV onto the tracks and then jumped out before the train got there. He ended up getting life without parole.
max
I always tip. Heavily. In cash. Because I like (old-fashioned alert) waitresses. Keeping the minimum wage low for waitstaff is dickless.
Also, the guy has a Denny’s in Silver Springs, so I’ll avoid that one. Thanks Don!
@300baud: It’s just a way of raising prices and also explaining why prices are going up. Eventually everybody will chill the fuck out, roll the costs into normal prices, and move on. That, or it will become a standard sort of charge that people just shrug at.
Exactly. The guy is dumping in a price increase and blaming it on Obama. He gets some publicity, he trolls some wingnuts for support (since he looks to be in GA, FL and VA mostly), then he drops the whole charade later, and people wonder why this particular Denny’s has higher than usual prices. Eventually (slowly), the whole thing comes out in the wash due to actual inflation. Nothing much changes in the end, but he can kiss his coupla extra grand that the wingnuts donated to his uh, ’cause’.
The one I’m liking is the (former) topless car wash owner in Alabama who started the Alabama secession petition. I had not realized, but it so turns out that he doesn’t have a topless car wash anymore because he was busted for obscenity. Heh.
Like so:
If you have not been paying attention, the history is that there was a big anti-porn push starting in the Reagan administration. Part of that is that local Republicans began pushing hard against strip clubs, by effectively regulating them out of existence. The Supreme Court was holding them back initially, but as the Court went more to the right, they slowly allowed greater and greater leeway to the locals in circumventing the 1st Amendment.
In this guy’s case, Alabama (run by R’s) passed a anti-nude business law in 1998 and so our friend was arrested by local city officials on the obscenity charges, forcing him to close his business (evidently). So he’s complaining about excessive regulation by the Feds, when the excessive regulation that victimized his business was passed and supported and enforced by Republicans.
For some reason, he thinks seceding will reduce the amount of regulation that Alabama R’s will create.
{snicker}
max
[‘It’s Own Goal Week at Dumb Bunny Ranch!’]
? Martin
@trollhattan: No, different crash. This was a guy who drove his truck onto the tracks trying to commit suicide by train. He survived – got 11 life sentences.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Ugh, I remember that now.
? Martin
@max:
Should we tell him that public nudity is legal in San Francisco? He’s welcome to relocate and reopen.
Greyjoy
Uh, I hope you really didn’t ever do that, because you can kill somebody that way. Visine is quite poisonous.
Randy
@Kristin:
No kidding. I worked in several restaurants when I was younger, from bus-boy, to waiter, to night manager (cook with a tie) and it never, ever crossed my mind to do something to a customer’s food because they were mean to me.
How fucked up does one have to be to spit in someones food?
? Martin
One more Dem House seat. Brian Bilbray just conceded in CA-52. I think that leaves us with 39 dems, 14 Republicans, a 5 seat pickup just out of CA.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
@Lurking Canadian: The one virtue of Applebeas; you can always get seated there at even the peak hours.
My Truth Hurts
Punishing your employees for your politics does not make you a true American. It makes you a Soviet hack.
Greyjoy
Damn it, why are my blockquotes doing that? I fixed it before I saved, too.
SatanicPanic
@? Martin: About time we got rid of that phony. San Diego is looking more and more blue.
The prophet Nostradumbass
If you have eaten in a restaurant in San Francisco over the last couple of years, chances are excellent that you’ve already paid one of these surcharges.
Steeplejack
@Greyjoy:
If you have a multi-paragraph blockquote, you need to put two underscores on each blank line between the paragraphs, else only the first paragraph will be included in the blockquote. FYWP.
Ohio Mom
@shortstop: It’s Ruby Tuesday’s that has the salad bar, and even though it’s supposedly a salad bar, many of the offerings are things like pasta and potato salads and so are as loaded with fat and salt as anything else on the menu. That’s “American Pub Food” cuisine for you.
300baud
@Soonergrunt:
Whoa. I can’t fathom that.
ShadeTail
@Randy:
How fucked up does one have to be to piss off someone badly enough that they’ll do that to you? If you simply know how to be a decent human being, you don’t have to worry about this. And if you don’t know how to be a decent human being, then I have no pity for you if you earn this kind of treatment.
different-church-lady
@Frankensteinbeck:
And while we’re at it, let’s make sure we thank them for their exquisite sense of timing too, doing all that at a moment where the middle class identifies far more with the poor than the rich.
shortstop
@Ohio Mom: Right, but didn’t Bobo talk about the Applebee’s salad bar in his “I understand the true American voter” bullshitting?
JWL
Donald Rumsfeld re-located to Stanford’s Hoover Institution after being fired by Bush. I wonder if he ever reflects on just how despised he remains among Bay Area residents (and food servers!) when dining out around here.
JenJen
I second the notion “Don’t Fuck With Bartenders.” I’ve been in the bar & nightclub business for over 20 years now, and although I don’t tend bar much anymore and never, ever would have put something icky in a drink just because some asshole pissed me off, there are other ways to fuck with them. Like making yourself a shot and throwing it on their already big tab. Thanks, you non-tipping fuck!
I won’t give away my trade secrets for other methods of fuckery.
I am so disgusted with Metz and the Papa John’s of the world for being the dicks that they are. One of the main reasons I supported Obamacare so much was because in the industry I love, my employees rarely get health care, or any other kinds of benefits. It’s not just that you have to worry about your servers messing with your food; you should also worry about the fact that they don’t get sick days or paid vacations. If you’ve ever wondered how Norwalk Virus became so virulent, ponder the fact that if your server stays home ill, they don’t get paid.
Grrrrrrrr. We need less Metz and more SEIU, people.
trollhattan
@shortstop:
IIRC Since Friedman has the cabbie-as-porthole-view-into-the-mind-of-common-folk schtick copyrighted, Bobo went the the Applebee’s cohort for go-to insight. And in Bobo fashion, kinda blew it on details.
gogol's wife
@JoyfulA:
I’ve never set foot in any of them, except perhaps a Denny’s back when I was in high school many years ago. Luckily my town has plenty of locally owned restaurants and coffee shops that suit me just fine. Their employees don’t seem alienated, so I don’t feel too nervous about what they’re doing behind the scenes. (I just try never to think about that anyway!)
Darkrose
@gex:
This.
We eat out A LOT, and most of the places we go to regularly, we get excellent service because we almost never tip less than 20%. We joke that we’re single-handedly working to combat the stereotype of black folks, lesbians and women in general as being bad tippers. Partly we do it because we know the system is screwed up, but it’s also because we both know neither of us could do a waitperson’s job for more than a couple of hours.
kc
Well, I’m glad you’re not saying it’s right.
I worked in restaurants for years and it never ever occurred to me to fuck with anyone’s food or drink, not even someone who was being an asshole.
Dunking someone’s food in the toilet is just plain sociopathic.
ninja3000
@Bnad: I’m pretty sure there is one such website already, try googling relevant keywords.
Cassidy
Don’t knock Applebees too much. For waht it is, it does it well: relatively quick food, not overly expensive, and the drinks aren’t too overpriced. It’s a passable lunch.
Mnemosyne
@JenJen:
Norwalk Virus is probably what I had the last time I got food poisoning. I was worried enough that I actually called the health department in the county the restaurant was in (I had been on vacation) to report it, because I got it from a salad with no meat in it, so I knew I didn’t have something common like salmonella.
shortstop
@trollhattan: Because he’d never fucking been there! Dude is unbelievable–too elitist to visit the place he holds up as representing the common folk Dems are too elitist to understand.
Southern Beale
San Francisco restaurants tried that and guess what, it ended up being a scam:
Nobody could have anticipated!
/snark
Cassidy
Something else to consider when discussing Applebees, from a fitness perspective, their “healthy” menu is actually pretty decent and the 2 for $20 they do comes in small
normalportions. This isn’t to say that Applebees is amazingly healthy or anything, but if you’re considering a chain restaurant to go to and trying to no gorge on unhealthy stuff, I’d pick Applebees over the rest.shortstop
@Mnemosyne: Hard to say where you got it. Noroviruses are transmitted via aerosolization, surfaces, and human-to-human contact, as well as through food. Salads are common for food transmission of noroviruses, though.
ShadeTail
@kc:
Driving someone to the point where they’re furious enough to do that to you is sociopathic. Getting even against such sociopaths for their sociopathic ways? Arguable, perhaps, but I feel no pity for anyone who is that obnoxiously assholish to the people waiting on them.
Paul in KY
@ron mcbee: I can’t take the truth (and I guess you don’t tip either) so I’m leaving as I now suspect this has been done to me.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.
Wendy
And I’m guessing this is why Elizabeth Warren scares the everlovin’ crap out of the banks.
Mnemosyne
@shortstop:
We were pretty sure that I got it at that particular restaurant, because we had dinner there and then immediately drove home and didn’t go anywhere else. I woke up sick in the middle of the night.
The health department did have me detail all of the other places we’d been that day so they could check them as well, but they also seemed to feel that the one I suspected was probably the place I’d gotten it from. (I don’t know for sure that it was a norovirus, obviously — bad food prep could have contaminated the salad with salmonella or another food-borne nasty.)
Paul in KY
@butler: Good point.
shortstop
@Cassidy:
Normal by our American standards of massive overeating? The 2/$20 Southwestern Shrimp Fettucine I had–and ate a third of–had 1,050 calories and 45 grams of fat. Even most items on the “healthy” menu have large amounts of fat and massive amounts of sodium, although the calorie count is reasonable for these few items.
A little horror reading.
brantl
This is exactly “right”, I don’t know what is proper, Emily Post never seemed to write about what you should do to pompous, self-righteous douche-nozzles like this guy. Karma, it’s a wonderful thing, neh?
The Reverend Lowdown
15+ year veteran of the food and bar tending industry. I agree with the other comments about how a customer really has to cross a line to have their drinks or food messed with. I never did anything randomly. If you want respect, then treat me with a minimal amount of respect. Otherwise, the fact that I am handling your food/drinks/bill is going to work against you. On the bar side of things, getting messed with usually took the form of shorting the amount of booze or adding extra drinks on the bill. Ignoring works equally well, if it’s busy. I never messed with someone who didn’t tip. That is just something that is going to happen from time time to time. I did think of getting one of those honey bear bottles and filling it with urine and giving some bastard a little spritz but that did seem a bit much, even back in my twenties. On the kitchen side, well, that’s a different story. For the record, sending stuff back is not necessarily a bad thing. I make mistakes and have no problem correcting them. However, personally coming back to the kitchen and screaming obscenities at me is going to get you the bonus package. This happened at a pizza place where I worked in college. We took the slices of cheese that go on top of the crust and marinated them for a bit at the bottom of this refrigerator that didn’t drain well. It was a sort of a disgusting bilge puddle down there, very nasty. Then took them out and wiped the sludge off using the back of a filthy pizza pan. The finale though, was getting the fella who makes the dough to come over and lick every pepperoni as he put them on the pizza. I delivered it personally with a smile and fake heartfelt apology. If he had been decent, then he would have been eating a free “non-messed with” pizza and a bunch of free extras. It’s that simple. If you provoke some underpaid, most likely hung-over employee to get off their ass and mess with you, then you’ve probably earned it.
Cassidy
@shortstop: I’m just going by portion size, for instance the 4oz steak. I’m not saying it’s a mecca for health food enthusiasists. Just saying it’s a lot easier to eat a smaller portion there than places like Texas Roadhouse, etc.
robert green
when we were producing “Waiting…” the director and other producer and i SWEATED over the scene where ryan reynolds et al do terrible things to the food. and i knew the first time i saw the scene cut together that it was going to be the one that stuck, that lived in the trailer, that was going to have a story in DVD extras etc.
the funny thing is i pitched that movie as a working class comedy because food servers really are the working class in this economy in this era. they work hard, make shitty money (and depend on ass-kissing aka getting good tips) and there is no glamor at all. and yeah, if you fuck with your waitstaff they don’t feel solidarity with you, the customer, nor with the (often absentee) owner of the restaurant–they feel solidarity with each other. period.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=e0b93zOgkSE
befuggled
@shortstop: Right. “Applebee’s salad bar” is shorthand for “David Brooks is a dumbass.”
befuggled
@Cassidy: Since I’ve learned that I can’t eat gluten, chain restaurants have been better on average about having gluten-free menu items. Independent restaurants are more likely to be clueless, although some of the very best ones have also been independent.
owlbear1
Always a good idea to avoid chains anything.
Matt McIrvin
It amazes me how willing these guys are to express open, public contempt for their own employees.
I suppose the tight job market has something to do with it.
shortstop
@befuggled: Wait, this is getting too meta for me. All this time I thought the joke was that a) Brooks actually believes he understands Real Americans, and thinks he’s proving it by asking,”Will this go down well with the guy at the Applebee’s salad bar?” And now you guys are telling me the real joke was always that b) there’s no salad bar at Applebee’s, or c) a combination of a) and b)??!
JenJen
@Mnemosyne: It’s a sad reality, and one nobody ever, ever talks about. Servers, bartenders, bussers, housemen, dishwashers, hosts, etc. don’t usually get sick days, so if you’ve got some kind of gastro issue going on you’re probably going to go to work anyway so as not to miss a day’s pay, and handle some food and get more than a few people sick.
I did have one excellent GM who was Norwalk-aware when I was the Assistant F&B Director at a Hilton who insisted that if any F&B employee complained of gastro, they got two paid days off and were sent home immediately so as not to discourage them from telling management. He was one of the good ones. The vast majority of them really don’t give a rip about the health of their employees let alone their customers.
Kathy in St. Louis
A Bubba of the first magnitude. Doesn’t he look like what happens when cousins marry?
LanceThruster
@shortstop:
That wouldn’t be a bad thread in itself. Applebees is one of the places I only went to once because everything tasted exceptionally mediocre. I felt the same way about Outback Steakhouse. I saw some comments disparaging Chili’s, but for my 50th b-day, family and friends were treating me to dinner so often that to compare, I got the rib-eye from Sizzler, Tony Romas, Black Angus, and Chili’s and I remember sharing with the hostess to tell their manager that Chili’s was the best of the bunch (after getting that worried look when a statement starts, “Will you tell your manager…”). Sizzler was #2 partly because of value, and TR & BA were tied for 3rd. They were OK, but the Chili’s offering was delightful in every way. Our work does Papa John’s quite often for treating the office (and I enjoy the pie) but I will never buy there myself anymore. Through work I also got to try the new and improved Domino’s (I liked that too) but heard their owner is a schmoe.
I need to find a substitute warehouse construction supply place because Home Depot & Lowe’s both support Israeli aggression.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@c u n d gulag:
A little Visine will knock you on your ass, howling, and spewing fluid, from ever orifice. Not that I ever did that…
Uh-huh.
—-
Visine prank myth
A common urban legend is that a few drops of Visine in an unsuspecting victim’s drink will cause a harmless bout of diarrhea. This will not produce diarrhea, but oral administration of Visine can induce dangerous side effects related to Visine’s ingredient tetrahydrozoline hydrochloride such as:
Dangerously low body temperature (hypothermia)
Blurred vision
Nausea and vomiting
Difficulty in breathing or even a complete halt in breathing
Elevating (hypertension) then dropping (hypotension) blood pressure
Possible coma
Seizures and tremors
Pfizer recommends that anyone ingesting Visine get medical attention or contact a poison control center immediately.[2]
—-
hep kitty
@Matt McIrvin: Precisely, they do it because they can
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@hueyplong:
It’s irksome to be unable to boycott businesses because I had already determined never again to buy their crappy products on the merits.
Nothing to stop you walking in and wasting staff time and making an obnoxious asshole of yourself – without buying anything.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Soonergrunt:
Smith said the company has received a torrent of customer feedback on Tankel’s comments and noted that individual franchise owners do not speak for all of Applebee’s.
Too fucking bad. Boycott all the Applebees and all the Denny’s and make sure the local franchise owner knows that it is because of the remarks of these assholes. Let them scream to corporate, and let corporate police their franchisees.
JenJen
@Lurking Canadian: @shortstop:
Which is likely why just about everyone in the F&B industry refers to it as “Crapplebee’s.” Their beverage program is exceptionally awful.
Johnny Coelacanth
If you don’t like stories about servers farking with customer’s food, don’t visit The Stained Apron. I don’t think it’s updated anymore, but there are some harrowing stories of customers acting like super assholes and servers getting their revenge.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
And as an alternative to Visine, I’ll quote something I found elsewhere:
—-
It may be of some interest for you to know that sugar free candy with the ingredients sorbitol, maltitol, or xylitol can cause truly spectacular flatulance and uncontrollable diarrhea if eaten in large doses (say, 10-12 pieces). When I use the words “spectacular” and “uncontrollable”, I may be understating it a bit. Also helpful to point out that many popular candies (such as Reese’s cups) are exact replicas of their sugar free counterparts.
—-
AA+ Bonds
This is one of the best posts I’ve ever seen on here.
AA+ Bonds
@Mnemosyne:
Yes. This is always, always, always how this works.
Even if he doesn’t cut hours, he’ll still pocket all of it or almost all of it.
AA+ Bonds
@Phoenician in a time of Romans:
This isn’t a realistic goal.
AA+ Bonds
Clearly, John Metz plans to run for office soon. The question is which one.
JenJen
@AA+ Bonds:
It is. It’s so awesome to have Betty Cracker on board, and equally awesome to highlight and give us a chance to talk about service industry issues.
Tata
I’ll bet Bill O’Reilly hasn’t eaten a spit-free meal in decades.
A moocher
@CDW: it was 05h00 and I was just coming down from two hits of the baddest-ass white blotter I ever did do. But never since.
opie_jeanne
@different-church-lady: The entertainment ticket industry??? How does this work?
I assumed the lady at the movie theater ticket booth made at least minimum wage (have I been remiss in not tipping all these years?), and when I have bought tickets through a service for various live performances and sports, there is a fixed surcharge for the service.
opie_jeanne
@JoyfulA: I have been stuck in places where Denny’s and Applebees were the only things available or still open. Years ago we camped just outside Liberal, Kansas and on Sunday the only place that was open was the McDonalds.
opie_jeanne
@Jamey: Two words: Mike Trout.
But it was nice of Miggy to acknowledge the fans.
different-church-lady
@opie_jeanne: OK, clarification: it’s the only other industry I can think of where there’s one charge for the ticket itself, and a separate charge for actually extracting the damn ticket from their clutches. I’m always thinking, “Why are you charging me the service charge? You’re not providing a service to me. You’re providing a service to the venue.”
opie_jeanne
@kc: My dad was taken to a restaurant on his 94th birthday in July of this year, and one of his friends with got really sick, as in food poisoning sick, probably because the meatballs in his spaghetti hadn’t been cooked through.
Dad was diagnosed with Clostridium difficile two weeks later, and died on September 18. He was experiencing intestinal issues within a day of that meal even though he didn’t order the same thing as the friend. We don’t know if that’s where he got it or not, he could have caught it in the hospital, but the thought that such a thing could have been caused by someone in the restaurant absolutely sickens me; I mean, people do die of food poisoning.
opie_jeanne
@different-church-lady: Thanks. That always pisses me off, especially when I buy it from the venue’s own website.
My favorite AL baseball team charges a convenience fee for letting you print your ticket on your own printer, at home. I guess that stamp for email is really expensive.
sam
I really can’t believe any of you commenters can remark about anything except the bald-faced admission to spitting into food and approval of wiping a steak on a toilet? Are you people insane? Anybody who does that should go to jail and be removed as a blogger. Sorry, Betty Cracker, but you have made a permanent enemy in me today. You are sh*t.
wiley
I never retaliated against a customer, but I did give a customer his tip back once while telling him “It wasn’t worth it.” I could tell by the look on his face that it was quite a revelation for him.
Singularity Surfer
@Kristin: Treat your server in a decent manner and it will never be an issue.
Paul in KY
@sam: I guess you are another one who acts like a total ahole when they go out to week. You may leave with the other fainting petunias.