The restaurant industry has been hit hard by COVID-19 with impacts of safety guidelines, food and employee shortages, and unfortunately, bad customer behavior.
Last summer, Apt Cape Cod closed for a day of kindness after a customer was told, “I hope you get hit by a car,” among other negative treatment. And Apt was not alone, as another restaurant posted asking for customers to have “common sense and empathy.”
More recently, Richard Gordon the owner of the South End Buttery in Boston posted to Facebook with similar concerns around customer behavior after an incident on Saturday.
The post had a picture that read, “Keep calm and come inside,” followed by a caption saying, “But not if you’re going to be obnoxious, abusive or rude to our hard-working staff.”
“In that case, keep calm and stay away. Like all eating establishments, we are experiencing staffing shortages on some shifts and trying to provide the best service with the shortest wait times possible,” the post continued. “We appreciate our amazing customers and apologize for any potential delays in the preparation of food orders. If you don’t think you can have a pleasant, non-confrontational conversation when placing your order, consider instead using online ordering through our website and then pick up your food order inside on the right-hand side of the café. No interpersonal communication required!”
The post followed an incident on Saturday when a customer who was tired of waiting for his drink asked to be served before people who ordered before him.
“When the barista, who’s been with us for two years, responded politely that he would have to wait his turn behind the other people who had ordered ahead of him, [the customer] knocked hot beverages [on the counter] towards the barista,” Gordon told Boston.com. “Then he took a handful of coffee cup lids and coffee sleeves that were on top of the espresso machine and threw them at the barista.”
Before the staff had time to address the incident, the customer and the barista left the restaurant, according to Boston.com
“He was one of my best employees and he hasn’t been back,” Gordon reportedly said. “He was scheduled for other shifts and got in touch and said he wasn’t comfortable coming back in.”
Now Buttery, like other restaurants, is facing a worsening employee shortage.
“A lot of people who used to be in this business don’t want to anymore because of the way people are treated by some customers,” Gordon told the news website.
A recent survey on the pandemic’s impact on the restaurant industry by the National Restaurant Association suggested that 71% of restaurants are understaffed.
At Buttery, Gordon said he is looking to host another training for staff on de-escalating difficult situations.
“We had a policy around deescalating difficult situations with customers, and we are revisiting that policy to make it a little bit clearer about what to do,” he said.
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