Stupid Restaurant Stunts??

 A few days ago, Governor Sarah Sanders of Arkansas was asked to leave The Croissanterie in Little rock because her presence was making the staff feel "uncomfortable". The story exploded on the news yesterday. Having spent more than fifty years of my life in the restaurant business, I am fascinated by the story.

It takes a special breed of dumbass to tell the governor of their state that they need to leave your restaurant. What the hell were they thinking? If, in fact they were actually thinking. 

Many years ago, US Senator Kay Hagan and a group of four or five other people came into Tex & Shirley's Restaurant at Friendly Center in Greensboro.  A waiter came back to the office and told me that Sen. Hagan was in the dining room. I walked out there and looked at the group. I nodded my head and said "okay" and walked back to the office to finish what I was doing. We didn't tell Senator Hagan to leave because I thought that she was some kind of leftist demon and would terrify the staff. I doubt that I or anyone on the staff could have picked Hagan out of a police lineup. It turned out that a customer who knew her actually told us who she was. We served the leftist demon anyway. We stayed out of the news.

There's an old story about someone asking Michael Jordan asking why he didn't endorse political candidates. He responded by saying, "The other party's people buy tennis shoes too." There's everything that the morons at The Croissanterie need to know. 

It's tough enough to make a living in the restaurant business without telling half of the population that you don't want their business. Do the schmucks at The Croissanterie think that conservatives are going to eat at their place while wondering when they will be asked to leave?

I checked the Facebook page for The Croissanterie yesterday and found a post talking about what great employees they have. If this is true, then it must be the ownership and management who are the morons. On what planet, do you tell the governor of your state that they need to leave because they make your employees feel uncomfortable?

If the presence of the governor makes you uncomfortable, wait until the health inspector shows up today. How about the fire marshal or the building inspector? Are you up for a sales tax audit? Have you heard of the IRS? You better pray that the person writing restaurant reviews for the newspaper is a liberal.

I am not a health inspector, nor do I play one on television. However, I have taken the ServSafe food handling course several times and had several perfect scores on the test. So, I will make some foodservice professional observations. Having blown my own horn on this issue, let's move on.

The picture on The Croissanterie Facebook post from a couple of days ago, is not one that I would have posted. Especially not with the massive attention coming from the national media. In the picture, one food handler is not wearing gloves. There is another food handler with a beard who is not wearing a beard guard to keep his whiskers out of your food. The most distressing safe food handling violation is the rack filled with sheet pans full of raw bacon on parchment paper waiting to be cooked. Raw meat MUST be held at a temperature of 40 degrees or lower, you can't store it at room temperature. It's dumb enough to ask the governor to leave your business, don't expose them to food poisoning on the way out. The alternative life stylers at The Croissanterie better be praying that Sanders didn't order anything with bacon.

Final point, we like to call the restaurant business the "Hospitality Business". The folks at The Croissanterie need to get the message!