Restaurant Blues

An illustration of three people sittingat a lunch counter/bar with a server standing behind it.

Levester Green

I thought we had moved beyond the stigma of judging people by the way they look and dress when they go to a restaurant. I thought it didn’t matter as long as you paid the bill.  

I was wrong. I learned we still have a very long way to go.   

I took two friends to Ocean Prime to celebrate one of their birthdays. Two of us wore jeans, the third wore slacks and a blouse.   

When we got to the door, the doorman looked away. We ignored that offense and walked in anyway. “Can I have a table?” I asked. No one answered. I asked twice more. Silence. Our presence was acknowledged only when our professionally dressed friend echoed my request.   

After we were finally seated, a man came to the table. I thought he was our server; he turned out to be the busboy.   

“Tap water or bottled?”

“Tap,” I said. We never saw him again.  

Then we waited for our server. And waited. And waited. Like the busboy, he never showed. Twenty-five minutes later, the bartender took our order.  

A bit later I started to ask the bartender where the restroom was. “Are you leaving?” she asked before I said two words.   

“No, I just want to use the restroom,” I replied.  

The food was good. But, no one came to the table and asked whether we were enjoying ourselves, whether we needed anything else — the usual questions attentive waiters ask customers in restaurants that care. I felt so strange. It seemed to me they wanted us to leave.   

And I almost did. What made me stay was to show them I had the money to eat there. I paid the bill with my credit card and left a cash tip for the bartender. “Is the cash part of the bill?” she asked.  

“No,” I said. “You saw me pay for it.”  

Will I go back there? Not likely. I’d rather go to a restaurant that doesn’t judge my friends and me by how we look or how we dress


Issues |Civil Rights

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