Wild Excuses Restaurant Owners Have Used To Toss Customers
It's not easy to get yourself thrown out of a restaurant. As a paying customer, restaurant owners tend to know that tossing out a customer usually ends up backfiring on them, especially once the righteously indignant social media machine starts up. Sure, there are certain times when a restaurant owner is completely justified in throwing a customer out; they usually involve the customer making such a scene that the entire restaurant is inconvenienced by them, generally due to drunkenness.
But occasionally, owners throw customers out of their restaurants for relatively minor reasons. Here are a few examples.
Google Glass
In November 2013, a Seattle man was kicked out of a restaurant after he refused to remove his Google Glass. Lost Lake Café owner David Meinert told KOMO News that "they're invasive and they make people uncomfortable. More than that they make me uncomfortable, and it's my place."
Complaining on Twitter
A customer at a Houston restaurant named Down House overheard a bartender making fun of another restaurant's owner, so she took to Twitter to complain about it before having "a good conversation" with the bartender about it. The restaurant's owner spotted the Tweet about half an hour later, however, and called the restaurant to have her thrown out.
Being Jewish
When Rabbi Ted Riter ordered his salad at a Jackson, Miss. restaurant called Wraps, he probably didn't expect to be asked by the owner if he wanted it "full size or Jewish size." When Riter asked him to elaborate, owner John Ellis replied that "Jews are cheap and small," and so is the salad. When Riter got angry and told Ellis that he was Jewish, Ellis threw him out.
Service Dog
In September, a disabled veteran was thrown out of a Paterson, NJ Subway because of his service dog. Even though the law allows service dogs to enter any establishment, including restaurants, owner Mitul Ahmed told veteran Richard Hunter that he "didn't care" about the law and demanded he leave.