Restaurant Owner Saved His Business... By Keeping Black Diners Away

[William Joyce]

Hell, we could save our COUNTRY by keeping blacks away.

 

[William Joyce]

This is why I understand what Rand Paul was talking about. Once people understand that the restaurant owner is a racist, they can proactively bankrupt his ass by boycotting his business.

If a restaurant was allowed to discriminate serving blacks it would be very successful. People would love to be able to go out and not have to think about having to deal blacks rude behaviour.

You, and your good for nothing racist friends, couldn't keep a restaurant afloat, Tank. You notice that the 'author' of this ridiculous story doesn't even have the courage to name his establishment. What does that tell you? It tells me that he knows damned well that most of his patrons would disappear if he openly admitted his policy. He'd go bankrupt in a week.

Nah.

People want nice experiences. Blacks are not a part f "nice experiences". That's why whites self-segregate whenever possible.

 

[Salt Jones]

If a restaurant was allowed to discriminate serving blacks it would be very successful. People would love to be able to go out and not have to think about having to deal blacks rude behaviour.

You, and your good for nothing racist friends, couldn't keep a restaurant afloat, Tank. You notice that the 'author' of this ridiculous story doesn't even have the courage to name his establishment. What does that tell you? It tells me that he knows damned well that most of his patrons would disappear if he openly admitted his policy. He'd go bankrupt in a week.

Nah.

People want nice experiences. Blacks are not a part f "nice experiences". That's why whites self-segregate whenever possible.

I thought it was because you were becoming outnumbered and it will be the only way you survive. Enjoy the frigid north

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

I only started feeling racist again in the past few years since more black people have been eating in the restaurant that I work at part time. Makes me feel sad, as my spouse is black and at least half of all of my friends are black. I worked at a restaurant many years back that was patronized by a large number of black people and quit the job as I found myself hating black people. Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury of quitting this part time job now as my spouse is disabled and I am the sole breadwinner. Black people need to understand tipping, and learn to be a bit nicer. Remember, we are handling your food and drinks.

Yep, unfortunately I have to agree with you. I have waited tables in the past and blacks are the absolute worst tippers there are and also the most demanding customers who will run you around. Anyone who has waited tables will tell you this and nobody wants to wait on them, even the black servers. If you even get as much as a 10% tip from most black customers you are grateful. There are occasional ones who will leave you 15% or more, but you can usually pick them out right from the get go because they are dressed nicely, are well mannered, and look middle class or above.

And you shouldn't feel racist about feeling this way. It's reality and it's their fault, not yours.

 

[Pheonixops]

I'll get it out of the way and admit that what I am doing is racist, I myself am (reluctantly!) a racist, and I'm not about to argue that. I'm not proud of this, but I did what I had to to stay afloat for the sake of my family and my employees and I would do it again.

I own a family restaurant that competes with large chains like Applebee's, Chili's, and other similarly awful places. I started this restaurant over 20 years ago, my wife is our manager, both of my kids work here when they're not in college. Our whole life is tied up in this place, and while it's a ton of hard work, we love it.

I've always prided myself that we serve food that's much fresher and better prepared than the franchise guys, and for years a steady flow of regular customers seemed to prove me right. We're the kind of place that has a huge wall of pictures of our happy customers we've known forever. However, our business was hit really hard after the market crashed, to the point where the place looked like a ghost town. A lot of the people I've known for years lost their jobs and either moved away or simply couldn't afford to eat out anymore.

To cut to the chase, we were sinking fast, and before long it was clear we would lose the restaurant before the year was out. The whole family got together and we decided we would try our best to ride it out, and my kids insisted they take a semester off and work full time to spare us the two salaries. I'm very proud of my family for the way they came together. We really worked our butts off trying to keep the place going with the reduced staff.

Well the whole racist thing started after my wife was being verbally abused by a black family. I came over to see what the problem was, and a teenage boy in their group actually said "This dumb bitch brought me the wrong drink. We want a different waitress that ain't a dumb bitch." His whole family roared with laughter at this, parents included!

We had had a lot more black diners since the downturn, and this kind of thing was actually depressingly common. Normally I would just lie down and take this, give them a different server, and apologize to their current one in back. But this was the last straw for me. No way was I going to send my daughter out to get the same abuse from these awful people. I threw the whole bunch out, even though other than the five of them, the place was completely dead.

I talked with my wife about it afterward, and we both decided that if we were going to lose the restaurant anyway, from now on we would run it OUR WAY. I empowered all of my employees to throw anyone who spoke to them that way out, and told them I would stand behind them 100%.

My wife, who has been a bleeding-heart liberal her whole life, told me in private that the absolute worst part of her job was dealing with black diners. Almost all of them were far noisier than our other customers, complained more, left huge messes and microscopic tips, when they tipped at all. She told me if we could just get rid of them, the place would actually be a joy to work at.

I've been in the restaurant business a long time, so this wasn't news to me, but to hear it from my wife, and later confirmed by my daughter... it had a big impact. I've never accepted any racial slurs in our household, and certainly not in my restaurant. I always taught my kids to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and tried to do the right thing in spite of the sometimes overwhelming evidence right in front of me. But right then and there, I and my wife started planning ways to keep black people from eating at our restaurant.

First, I raised my prices. It had been long in coming, prices had skyrocketed, and we'd been trying to keep things reasonable because people were hurting. But this had brought in a ton of blacks who had been priced out of the other restaurants nearby, and so I raised my prices even higher. It worked, they would scream bloody murder when they saw the new prices on the menu, and often storm out of the place, not knowing that this was pretty much our plan.

We took a lot of other steps, changing the music, we took fried chicken off the menu, added a dress code that forbade baggy pants and athletic gear. I put up a tiny sign by the register that said "15% gratuity added to all checks" but we only added this to groups of black diners, since almost universally everyone else understands that tipping is customary.

As business started to pick up, we would tell groups of blacks that there was a long wait for a table. Whenever they complained about other patrons getting seated first, I would calmly explain that the other group had a reservation, and without fail they would storm out screaming.

And it worked! We managed to hang in through the rough times. It's been almost two years since we started running the business this way, and we're doing great, even better than we were before! I noticed as soon as the blacks started to leave, our regulars started coming back. Complaints dropped to almost nothing, our staff were happier, and the online reviews have been very positive. My kids are back in school, and my wife seems ten years younger, she's proud of her work and comes in happy every day.

Of course, I did this by doing something I know to be ethically wrong. I did it by treating a whole group of people like pests and driving them away in a low and cowardly way. (though it's not as if I could have put a sign out). I can't help but feel like I've become part of the problem. At the same time, the rational part of me realizes that I did the right thing, but I don't like knowing that I'm a bigot.

IAMA: Restaurant owner who saved his business... by keeping black diners away :/ AMA : IAmA

Sounds like a bullshit story to me. Did the owner post the name of the restaurant?

 

[Rozman]

This reminds me of a something that happened a long time ago in a Deli
in lower Manhattan.
I was waiting behind a black girl one morning and she was ordering a bacon and egg with cheese on a roll
She wanted one half of the roll toasted first then add 1 slice of cheese then put back under the broiler
then she wanted the other roll toasted then the egg added then one piece of bacon put on top then one piece of cheese but she didn't want that put under the broiler and she wanted one half of the sandwich allowed to cool off before adding the other slice of cheese.....

The owner said look it's breakfast,I'm busy Do you want bacon and egg on a roll with cheese or not.

This girl was pissed that this guy disrespected her in such a fashion....

 

[Unkotare]

Hell, we could save our COUNTRY by keeping blacks away.

Or we could just kick your sorry ass out.

 

[Unkotare]

People want nice experiences. .

Is that why you're so lonely?

 

[Aristotle]

I'm fairly new, and after reading page after page I notice a few things:

1) The OP is obviously racist and is not reluctant in his/her racism

2) There is no name of the resturant so it leads me to think that the story was fake, as one forum member states "it was meant to justify segragation."

3) The OP is attributing a personality trait (such as rudness, failure to tip, noisy etc) to an entire ethnic group which on the basis of individual accounts which, is virtually impossible and invalid to do so since tens of millions of people do not act the same.


I, as an intelligent African-American with a post-graduate education finds such discussions quite comical. For one, Tank, you say "blacks are bad for business." Now, if such were the case I would like some statistical evidence that can prove whether it discusses demographics along with the socioeconomic status of the patrons that African-Americans do more harm than good. Simply citing an few accounts where resturant patrons were rude is not evidence that its a "African-American problem" nor does it justify discriminating blacks only.

If you plan on eliminating negative elements in a business especially customers of a particular demongraphic that are rude, then you change your policy. But simply associating individual accounts to everyone of that particular ethnic group is not only immoral, but its downright illogical. It is almost illogical as me hiring only babysitters who are of color due to high incidences of child abuse and molestation among whites of a given age.

Taking individual accounts to cast on an entire population is illogical and Tank, you should be ashamed to even justify this type of ignorance. If I were to notice this and me always travelling with a lot of cash on me I would certaintly pull out my money clip of $10k on the table and would kindly tell you "I will take my business elsewhere because this black man will tip for good service."

 

[Aristotle]

I don't know, you tell me.

Afterall it's your thread, your issue.

What's the real point you're desperately attempting to get across ? So what, you're a racist, big deal.

There's a lot of your type about,so what makes you special ?

Just pointing out some racial differences.

You know, what cracks me up about racist whites is their association of foods towards ethnic cultures.

"Blacks love fried chicken."

"Blacks love watermelon."

"Blacks love grape drink" (Actually its from a Dave Chappelle parody)

"Blacks love pigs feet"

Little do you racist know that there are whites, Asians, and especially latinos that love the aforementioned foods. So you saying "blacks have their own resturant" is null and void since all blacks don't like the same thing. Besides have you considered Afro-Latinos who although have African ancestry, predominantly only eat Latino cuisine? Oh wait, dont answer that, I think I know your answer.

 

[Pheonixops]

This reminds me of a something that happened a long time ago in a Deli
in lower Manhattan.
I was waiting behind a black girl one morning and she was ordering a bacon and egg with cheese on a roll
She wanted one half of the roll toasted first then add 1 slice of cheese then put back under the broiler
then she wanted the other roll toasted then the egg added then one piece of bacon put on top then one piece of cheese but she didn't want that put under the broiler and she wanted one half of the sandwich allowed to cool off before adding the other slice of cheese.....

The owner said look it's breakfast,I'm busy Do you want bacon and egg on a roll with cheese or not.

This girl was pissed that this guy disrespected her in such a fashion....

Translation: That INDIVIDUAL girl was very picky and the owner didn't feel like dealing with her picky self.

 

[Unkotare]

I'll get it out of the way and admit that what I am doing is racist, I myself am (reluctantly!) a racist, and I'm not about to argue that. I'm not proud of this, but I did what I had to to stay afloat for the sake of my family and my employees and I would do it again.

I own a family restaurant that competes with large chains like Applebee's, Chili's, and other similarly awful places. I started this restaurant over 20 years ago, my wife is our manager, both of my kids work here when they're not in college. Our whole life is tied up in this place, and while it's a ton of hard work, we love it.

I've always prided myself that we serve food that's much fresher and better prepared than the franchise guys, and for years a steady flow of regular customers seemed to prove me right. We're the kind of place that has a huge wall of pictures of our happy customers we've known forever. However, our business was hit really hard after the market crashed, to the point where the place looked like a ghost town. A lot of the people I've known for years lost their jobs and either moved away or simply couldn't afford to eat out anymore.

To cut to the chase, we were sinking fast, and before long it was clear we would lose the restaurant before the year was out. The whole family got together and we decided we would try our best to ride it out, and my kids insisted they take a semester off and work full time to spare us the two salaries. I'm very proud of my family for the way they came together. We really worked our butts off trying to keep the place going with the reduced staff.

Well the whole racist thing started after my wife was being verbally abused by a black family. I came over to see what the problem was, and a teenage boy in their group actually said "This dumb bitch brought me the wrong drink. We want a different waitress that ain't a dumb bitch." His whole family roared with laughter at this, parents included!

We had had a lot more black diners since the downturn, and this kind of thing was actually depressingly common. Normally I would just lie down and take this, give them a different server, and apologize to their current one in back. But this was the last straw for me. No way was I going to send my daughter out to get the same abuse from these awful people. I threw the whole bunch out, even though other than the five of them, the place was completely dead.

I talked with my wife about it afterward, and we both decided that if we were going to lose the restaurant anyway, from now on we would run it OUR WAY. I empowered all of my employees to throw anyone who spoke to them that way out, and told them I would stand behind them 100%.

My wife, who has been a bleeding-heart liberal her whole life, told me in private that the absolute worst part of her job was dealing with black diners. Almost all of them were far noisier than our other customers, complained more, left huge messes and microscopic tips, when they tipped at all. She told me if we could just get rid of them, the place would actually be a joy to work at.

I've been in the restaurant business a long time, so this wasn't news to me, but to hear it from my wife, and later confirmed by my daughter... it had a big impact. I've never accepted any racial slurs in our household, and certainly not in my restaurant. I always taught my kids to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and tried to do the right thing in spite of the sometimes overwhelming evidence right in front of me. But right then and there, I and my wife started planning ways to keep black people from eating at our restaurant.

First, I raised my prices. It had been long in coming, prices had skyrocketed, and we'd been trying to keep things reasonable because people were hurting. But this had brought in a ton of blacks who had been priced out of the other restaurants nearby, and so I raised my prices even higher. It worked, they would scream bloody murder when they saw the new prices on the menu, and often storm out of the place, not knowing that this was pretty much our plan.

We took a lot of other steps, changing the music, we took fried chicken off the menu, added a dress code that forbade baggy pants and athletic gear. I put up a tiny sign by the register that said "15% gratuity added to all checks" but we only added this to groups of black diners, since almost universally everyone else understands that tipping is customary.

As business started to pick up, we would tell groups of blacks that there was a long wait for a table. Whenever they complained about other patrons getting seated first, I would calmly explain that the other group had a reservation, and without fail they would storm out screaming.

And it worked! We managed to hang in through the rough times. It's been almost two years since we started running the business this way, and we're doing great, even better than we were before! I noticed as soon as the blacks started to leave, our regulars started coming back. Complaints dropped to almost nothing, our staff were happier, and the online reviews have been very positive. My kids are back in school, and my wife seems ten years younger, she's proud of her work and comes in happy every day.

Of course, I did this by doing something I know to be ethically wrong. I did it by treating a whole group of people like pests and driving them away in a low and cowardly way. (though it's not as if I could have put a sign out). I can't help but feel like I've become part of the problem. At the same time, the rational part of me realizes that I did the right thing, but I don't like knowing that I'm a bigot.



Sounds like a bullshit story to me. Did the owner post the name of the restaurant?

It's an entry from the stormfront creative writing club.

 

[BecauseIKnow]

All people can be rude like syrenn said, but if any person called my waiter a dumb bitch I'll beat his ass and dump his food

 

[BBCAmerica]

I heard a story quite like this one.This white guy went out to eat with this black guy at a black owned and mostly black patrons. The white guy having obviously never eaten around blacks before. He seemed to go into it expecting the worst. I mean how can you not when all you hears is this kind of stuff from people who have probably never eaten with a black person before? Any-who. The white guy goes to this soul food spot I think it was Sylvia's in Harlem and the place is just wall to wall black folks (it always is) and the white guy just knows this is going to be hell. The next day this white guy who by the way has this show on Fox. Well he says "couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." O'Reilly added: "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.' " Well let him tell it. here's the recording

O'Reilly surprised "there was no difference" between Harlem restaurant and other New York restaurants | Research | Media Matters for America

 

[Ariux]

Afros are worthless animals. But, driving them away is illegal. Why should anyone be allowed not to suffer their stench?

 

[Unkotare]

You can just remove yourself from the country and solve your 'problem' that way. But of course you won't, because you are nothing but another mouthy little nobody who spends his whole life cowering in fear. Pathetic.

 

[Aristotle]

Afros are worthless animals. But, driving them away is illegal. Why should anyone be allowed not to suffer their stench?

You're a very sad individual.

 

[Ariux]

You're a very sad individual.

Why would I be sad? It's not like a shit-colored creation of a lesser god, rising to nothing better than a worthless animal.

 

[Unkotare]

ariux could never hope to improve enough to reach the level of worthless animal.

 

[BBCAmerica]

I don't care how good of food you have. If I sit down for my meal, and I smell Laqueshia and her 5 kids and Tyrone hoopin' and hollerin' and acting like fools, I don't want to go back. I go out to eat to relax, not to deal with black trash. Sadly enough is that 90% of my experiences day to day with black people are with black trash.

Well man I'm black and I feel the same way. But I would also feel this way if it were JimBob and LueAnn and their 5 kids. I to go out to eat to relax and not to deal with trash of any color. This is why I frequent upscale establishments. If 90% of the trash you see is black folks then you should hang around better black folks. I feel ya though. 90% of my friends are black and nothing like the folks you describe. We all come from the ghetto. We all worked to get out of the ghetto and we left the ghetto in the ghetto. There are plenty of black folks with class just as there are many white folks with none. But if all you see is trash then maybe you should move.