Thrown out of Vegetarian restaurant

[KateW]

Whenever we used to go out to eat when I was little, my parents would bring a baggie of Cheerios and order me a Shirley Temple and I'd be happy for hours. Especially if the drink came with one of those garnish swords and then I would stack Cheerios on it and eat them one by one.

[wesza]

An article in Foodservice Industry News describes how a patron at a Vegetarian restaurant was asked to leave after trying to feed her 11 month old with a jar of baby food that contained chicken.

Tana or anyone else: There was nothing in my response that wasn't called for, especially if you take the article under consideration together with the restaurant's response as posted previously.

My reality check has taken into consideration the in America we have become a ligacious society, taking incidients similar to this into the courts. In "England", where this occured this is not the situation as it is in the USA. Courts don't award high damages, nor would this be the kind of case you'd be able to bring to court. especially with a Barrister/Soliciter following this to trial.

I posted upon following responses that were using the "Ostrich Method", of burying your head in the sand, ignoring the specific situation. No poster has been sympathetic, only rationalizing and evading the actual occurance. This Woman thru her own complaining and bringing her parenting skills into the public eye, has lost any annominity she would be entitled to under normal circumstances. I'm not on a box top presenting my opinion, i'm only trying to prevent this from happening again because I'm concerened about all the kids. Irwin

[fresco]

There is an extremely popular greasy spoon/cheap steak place in Toronto called the Tulip. I've always suspected that brandishing a vegetable on the premises would get you thrown out.

[wesza]

There is an extremely popular greasy spoon/cheap steak place in Toronto called the Tulip. I've always suspected that brandishing a vegetable on the premises would get you thrown out.

Nah ! I've eaten there. They have Sauted Mushrooms and Potaoes. Real vegeterian options, Even serve salads. Irwin

[fresco]

There is an extremely popular greasy spoon/cheap steak place in Toronto called the Tulip. I've always suspected that brandishing a vegetable on the premises would get you thrown out.

Nah ! I've eaten there. They have Sauted Mushrooms and Potaoes. Real vegeterian options, Even serve salads. Irwin

The salads must have been added since the move to their larger and not so congenial new location. I knew it had gone downhill, but that is a steep drop.

[Carema]

This whole topic really broaches the subject of child food vs adult food. Except, when did this divisive versus start? Why are there children's menus and why are there two meals being prepared? It is just in countries of over abundance and surplus that these issues come into play really.

I have an eight year old boy. I have always brought him to restaurants and I have never brought baby food. the concept of baby food is gross to me. One can merely steam a variety of vegetables, poach fruit and fish/poultry/meat and baby will be fed. And do not tell me I have time to cook because I am a single working mother who barely has time to breath. But I make time to cook. Because it is fucking important.

My son doesnt like acid. So when I make polenta with tomato sauce, his is minus the sauce. It goes like that.

A restaurant can always simply pan fry a steak or a piece of fish for a child, or in the case of a vegetarian restaurant, boil some noodles with butter and add a plain veg or two.

Who the hell has time to short order cook several different meals? I do not. But asking to microwave a can of so called baby food is disgusting.

[alanamoana]

We make everything vegan now and have cheese as an option (although we tend to try and lower the reliance on cheese as we are very careful regarding dairy crossover as many of our customers are dairy intolerant).

roasted red pepper and sundried tomato tart, vegetable and hazlenut encroute (puff pastry filled with layers of spinach, carrots, hazlenuts etc

this is a little off topic, but in preparing your tart dough and puff pastry, do you use butter? does that go against being vegan?

to all the people who defend this woman, regardless of her maybe having had a bad day, i would just think that people would have the consideration of realizing where they're eating. she knowingly entered a vegan/vegetarian restaurant. it all comes down to choice. whenever i complain about my job or living conditions or basically anything that i have control over....that's what it returns to...the fact that i have control over what is happening in my life!

once again, humans show how little they appreciate the choices they have by relinquishing all responsibility or try to place the responsibility or blame on someone else.

[Pan]

I agree with most of the other posters: The woman was in the wrong, and had she shut up about it, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Having a bad day (which, in this case, means behaving like a jerk on a particular day) wouldn't be an issue if she hadn't subsequently contacted the press.

And the food the restaurant serves sounds interesting to me.

[tanabutler]

I'm not defending the mother, I am simply saying that discussing her parenting is not a good line of discussion. She may be completely clueless and insensitive, but as far as anything else goes, who gets to say she's got a screw loose? I am positing the idea that she may be been stressed out of her mind that day, and that perhaps a phone call to CPS (Child Protective Services, as it's called here) would be premature and unfounded.

I don't approve of what she did, and clearly the news story had a slant on it. If she's really crazy, she'll sue. No wait, she doesn't live in the United States. (heh)

On the other hand...maybe she is clueless, and clueless about how bringing an 8% solution of chicken into a vegetarian restaurant might not be welcome. None of us were there. It's a "she-said, she-said" thing. Perhaps the truth is somewhere between what Ms. Graham and Cotton stated. Maybe Ms. Graham felt defensive and ashamed, for not knowing the rules. (I'm not saying she did, because it certainly reads as though she took on entirely too much.) Nowhere are tones of voice indicated. We really don't have a clear picture.

I'm just saying. I could imagine this scene in any number of ways—as a very odd scene in a movie, for example. It's an entertaining concept.

It isn't clear whether Rendezvous is vegan or vegetarian. In my experience (coastal California, doncha know) that there is a vast difference. VAST. I cannot emphasize this enough. Vegetarians (many in my life, and me for quite a while) are, well, nicer. I don't want to go too much into detail, because I might get myself into trouble here. (On the other hand, I might tell a tale if I can figure out how to do it.) Um, read Anthony Bourdain's book, A Cook's Tour, for the chapter on the vegan pot luck in Berkeley. It made me laugh and cry.

For the record, I am on the side of the owners of Rendezvous for adhering to their moral standards; I only hope they did it in kindness and clarity. Because the only way to persuade people to be vegetarian is through kindness and compassion.

Neither of those is always my strong suit if, say, cigarettes are involved. Strident? Me?

Gulp. Busted.

Edited September 22, 2003 by tanabutler (log)

[Bux]

None of us were there.

Well actually the owners were there, but we really don't know all the facts. I'm surprised at the vehemance and the criticism of this woman's ability to rear a child all based on a single incident. I've seen the photo of the store front on the web, and it would be hard for this woman not to have realized she was in a vegetarian restaurant, though I can't say everyone always understands how vegetarians think. In fact I've found many vegetarians are not put off by eating in places that cater to omivores as long as they don't have to eat meat. It's quite possible she entered not realizing her tiny jar of chicken would be as offensive as it was. As to what happened, there are two sides to every story and just because the press got it wrong, doesn't mean the opposite is right.

We were conscientious parents. We did a fair amount of reading. We spent a lot of time in the pediatrician's office after every visit. We were reasonably confident we were doing the right thing pretty much all of the time. Over the years as a toddler, child, teenager and young adult, our daughter had a lot of friends and aquaintances whose parents had philosophies that were quite a bit different than ours, sometimes drastically different, and you know what, an awful lot of those kids grew up alright too. I would however like to know how the three year old who bounced off the walls in that playgroup turned out. I wonder if he still starts the day off with a cup of coffee.

[tanabutler]

That is a very eloquent post, Bux.

(I didn't mean to say that the owners weren't there. Just that none of the eGullet folk were—we'd been led in from the newspaper story.)

[FoodMan]

My 2 cents

1- Does she have the right to bring that jar of food (veg or otherwise) into the restaurant and feed her kid???? YES

2- Does she have the right to be pissed if they did not want to heat it it up for her??? NO

The only wrong thing she did was to get mad at the restaurant for not wanting to microwave her food, it's not like she asked them to make her some chicken tenders folks, she just brought a jar of baby food with her!!

FM

Edited September 22, 2003 by FoodMan (log)

[alanamoana]

foodman,

to the point

exactly right

good on you

[SobaAddict70]

The only wrong thing she did was to get mad at the restaurant for not wanting to microwave her food, it's not like she asked them to make her some chicken tenders folks, she just brought a jar of baby food with her!!

FM

If that's the case, why are people so eager to defend this woman?

Soba

[alanamoana]

i think it comes from an automatic defense mechanism where we know we've done silly stuff like that before. so in defending her, we're defending some stupid stuff we've done in our lives...but hey, let's not get freud involved.

[rendezvous]

The restaurant is vegetarian - we have milk and cheese as options and we carry dairy ice cream. The meals themselves are all initially made vegan though as doing that means maximum choice for vegan customers who generally get little choice even in vegetarian establishments.

As with all dairy, butter can't be used in vegan dishes, so our pastry doesn't contain it. There are a variety of vegan alternatives and oils that can be used in replacement.

I'm not surprised at the reactions to the articles as presented. There is the issue of the spin the media put on it when they rehashed the story (the baby food itself wasn't the reason she was asked to leave) and the mother/child image strikes a protective chord with many people (a cynic might suggest that is why the media ran with it in the first place). And then on the other side, you have people with a preference for a meat free environment when dining being told they shouldn't have the right to be catered for. It's emotive stuff.

Edited September 22, 2003 by rendezvous (log)

[claire797]

It's a very clear case of the woman being wrong. Parenting issues aside, she was wrong to take chicken into a vegetarian restaurant then ask that it be heated up in a vegetarian kitchen. Had it been my restaurant, I probably wouldn't have been quite so nice as the owners of Rendezvous, especially considering this woman's behavior.

Would we be having this debate (not that it's much of a debate) if she'd done this in a Kosher restaurant? No.

[Fat Guy]

Would we be having this debate . . . if she'd done this in a Kosher restaurant?

The answer is, without question, no.

Which raises the question, why?

And I think the answer is pretty simple: there is no lack of clarity, no reasonable lack of foreknowledge, regarding the rules of a kosher restaurant. Save for subtle distinctions regarding Chalav Yisroel dairy products and other technical issues that only matter at the far Orthodox end of the spectrum of observance, the rules are the rules in kosher restaurants.

Can the same be said of vegetarian restaurants? Absolutely not. If you went around to 100 vegetarian restaurants and asked the owners, "Would you mind if a mother brought in a jar of pork-based baby food and fed it to her baby?" what percentage would answer yes or no? Well, with respect to kosher restaurants, we know 100% of kosher restaurateurs would answer "You bet I'd mind." With respect to vegetarian restaurants, I'm certain you'd get a diversity of answers. So I don't think it would be reasonable to say that the woman had to know she was doing something wrong by bringing the food. In terms of asking the kitchen to heat it up, guess what people: most folks have no idea of what's involved in doing that in a restaurant kitchen. The average person on the street would think nothing of it. We're all pretty experienced diners here on eGullet so we know how obnoxious this request is, but most people don't. The restaurant would be totally within its rights to tell the woman "no" to either of the above, but I see no grounds for righteous indignation (not that there seems to have been any; indeed, the owners have presented themselves here and they sound extremely reasonable and level-headed, don't you all think?).

If there was a breach of the social contract here, it was when and if the woman became hostile when she was told "no." If the restaurant did its part and politely told her "no," and she reacted badly, she had to be shown the door. If the server or owner had been impolite about the incident from the get-go, the scenario would have to be judged another way I think.

[SethG]

I have to say that I'm a little shocked at the indignance with which many people on this thread have denounced this woman, both for her behavior and her parenting skills.

As far as her behavior is concerned, I think the restaurant was certainly within its rights to refuse to heat up a product containing chicken. But was it an outrageous request for this woman to have made? It may have been thoughtless when you consider that the restaurant wants to keep meat outside its doors. But it's hardly cause for the consternation we've seen from some of the posters here.

We have heard the restaurant claim that she became abusive when her request was denied, and that this is why she was asked to leave. Tanabutler is right-- we don't know what happened there. The restaurant has given its side of the story, but isn't this always the claim when it's a "he said, she said" sort of situation? Both sides claim the other was rude, raised his or her voice, and used offensive language. It's an easy way to avoid discussing whether one's position was actually correct on the merits. I'm not saying it didn't happen-- I'm just pointing out that it may or may not be true.

Even if she was rude, need she have been removed from the premises? It seems like a pretty harsh punishment to me, especially since it seems like everyone calmed down enough so that she could finish what was on her plate before she left.

As for her parenting, the critiques of this woman are, frankly, completely uncalled for. Many parents eschew jarred baby food under all circumstances, and bully for you if you are one of these parents, but the majority of parents make use of jars at one time or another, and at restaurants especially the jars come in pretty handy. It is neither outside the mainstream nor bad parenting to feed an 11-month old child chicken from a jar. Although most kids that age have some teeth, they still chew with their gums and are unable to break down chunks of meat. Many pediatricians advise parents to feed their kids of that age jarred meats or pureed meats, even if the kids are primarily eating finger foods, so that they will get the protein without risking a choking hazard.

[Basildog]

Seth G...word

[Rachel Perlow]

1- Does she have the right to bring that jar of food (veg or otherwise) into the restaurant and feed her kid???? YES

Actually, I disagree on this point. I don't think she should have opened a meat containing product in a veg restaurant (have it in your purse? OK. Open it and feed the kid? No. She could have ordered some mashed veggies for the baby). Nonetheless, if she had opened it and not asked the staff to touch it in any way, then, in all likelihood, there would never have been a newspaper piece.

[Fat Guy]

I don't think she should have opened a meat containing product in a veg restaurant.

If the restaurant has a rule against it, or a printed statement of principles that clearly goes against it, I agree. If the restaurant has a rule that says, "Go ahead and bring meat, we don't mind," then that's okay too. But if the restaurant has no rule -- and I imagine most restaurants don't -- then the restaurant has to create a rule on the spot to address an unanticipated situation. That's life -- we do it all the time here on eGullet when users present us with new challenges that we couldn't have anticipated in our wildest dreams. When you get hit with an unanticipated situation, you either need to create a rule, figure out a way to extend the logic of an existing rule, or allow the situation to happen that one time and then make and enforce the rule afterwards. Which one you choose depends very much on the significance of the infraction.

[claire797]

The restaurant would be totally within its rights to tell the woman "no" to either of the above, but I see no grounds for righteous indignation (not that there seems to have been any; indeed, the owners have presented themselves here and they sound extremely reasonable and level-headed, don't you all think?).

No righteous indignation here. However, I think had the owner observed a woman feeding her child chicken baby food in what is promoted as a meat-free environment, then it would not be unreasonable for the owner to ask the woman to discard the chicken baby food or leave. There are polite ways of doing this. Perhaps the owner could explain what "vegetarian" means in this particular environment and explain that other customers do not eat meat for religious reasons etc. The owner could go so far as to offer an alternative for the baby. Some tofu? Soymilk? Whatever. But the woman feeding her baby chicken in a vegetarian restaurant was wrong. Sure. Other vegetarian restaurants might have let her stay. But if you ask me, they'd me doing a disservice to some of their more staunch (and probably regular) vegetarian customers who prefer a meat free environment.

[tommy]

do we know how "politely" this was done? i did see much from the owner in that article. he-said-she-said. and what is an "eightyear-old". perhaps this isn't the finest source of news available.

Edited September 22, 2003 by tommy (log)

[Fat Guy]

I've never seen a vegetarian restaurant that advertises a "meat free environment." Maybe there are some out there, but I don't know of any. It's not the same as the promise of a kosher restaurant, which is that the restaurant will follow an established, codified set of rules and regulations of which most customers are aware. What vegetarian restaurants advertise, implicitly, is that they're going to serve you food that doesn't contain meat. That's all. Everything else about a vegetarian restaurant, you have to learn either by inquiring (Does the restaurant serve dairy at all? How about cheese with rennet? Etc.) or by being told explicitly in printed documents.