Restaurant Panned Over Google Glass Ban

Google Glass is a polarizing technology. People either love it or hate it, and the people who love it really love it, as one New York restaurant discovered recently after a customer was asked to remove her Google Glass in the restaurant.

According to Gothamist, Google Glass-wearer Katy Kasmai was at Feast in the East Village at the end of April when a manager asked her to remove her fancy, high-tech eyewear because the restaurant had had complaints in the past from other diners who were concerned about being recorded without their knowledge. Kasmai declined to remove her Glass and left the restaurant instead. Afterwards, she complained on Google+, where other Google Glass fans rallied to her side.

Not long afterwards, Feast's manager noticed that its Google+ page had been overrun with single-star reviews calling the restaurant's staff, "trogolodytes with bad attitudes" and "ignorant bigots and hateful" for not welcoming Google Glass. Most of the one-star reviewers live in other states, and it seems unlikely that many if any of them had been to Feast at all.

"It's malicious and technically a violation of Google's own terms for leaving reviews," Feast's manager said to EV Grieve. "I can understand her leaving the one-star based on her experience, but 12 others with no experience on who we are or what we do is unfair."