The other side of the Sarah Sanders unethical whine
Jun 24, 2018 18:42:06 #
LEXINGTON, Va. - Stephanie Wilkinson was at home Friday evening - nearly 200 miles from the White House - when the choice presented itself.
Her phone rang about 8 p.m. It was the chef at the Red Hen, the tiny farm-to-table restaurant that she co-owned just off Main Street in this small city in the western part of the state.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders had just walked in and sat down, the chef informed her.
"He said the staff is a little concerned. What should we do?" Wilkinson told The Washington Post. "I said I'd be down to see if it's true."
It seemed unlikely to her that President Donald Trump's press secretary should be dining at a 26-seat restaurant in rural Virginia. But then, it was unlikely that her entire staff would have misidentified Sanders, who had arrived last to a table of eight booked under her husband's name.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Saturday she was booted from a Virginia restaurant because she works for President Donald Trump, becoming the latest administration official to experience a brusque reception in a public setting. (June 23 )
Media: Associated Press
As she made the short drive to the Red Hen, Wilkinson knew only this:
She knew Lexington, population 7,000, had voted overwhelmingly against Trump in a county that voted overwhelmingly for him. She knew the community was deeply divided over such issues as Confederate flags. She knew, she said, that her restaurant and its half-dozen servers and cooks had managed to stay in business for 10 years by keeping politics off the menu.
And she knew - she believed - that Sarah Huckabee Sanders worked in the service of an "inhumane and unethical" administration. That she publicly defended the president's cruelest policies, and that that could not stand.
"I'm not a huge fan of confrontation," Wilkinson said. "I have a business, and I want the business to thrive. This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals."
When she walked into the restaurant, Wilkinson saw that there had been no mistake. The Red Hen is no bigger than some apartments, and the group table was impossible to miss: Sanders in a black dress, her husband, three or four men and women of roughly similar ages, and an older couple.
"They had cheese boards in front of them," Wilkinson said. Like any other family. The kitchen was already preparing the party's main course. Wilkinson interrupted to huddle with her workers.
Several Red Hen employees are gay, she said. They knew Sanders had defended Trump's desire to bar transgender people from the military. This month, they had all watched her evade questions and defend a Trump policy that caused migrant children to be separated from their parents.
"Tell me what you want me to do. I can ask her to leave," Wilkinson told her staff, she said. "They said 'yes.' "
It was important to Wilkinson, she said, that Sanders had already been served - that her staff had not simply refused her on sight. And it was important to her that Sanders was a public official, not just a customer with whom she disagreed, many of whom were included in her regular clientele.
All the same, she was tense as she walked up to the press secretary's chair.
"I said, 'I'm the owner,' " she recalled, " 'I'd like you to come out to the patio with me for a word.' "
They stepped outside, into another small enclosure, but at least out of the crowded restaurant.
"I was babbling a little, but I got my point across in a polite and direct fashion," Wilkinson said. "I explained that the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation.
"I said, 'I'd like to ask you to leave.' "
Wilkinson didn't know how Sanders would react, or whether Trump's chief spokeswoman had been called out in a restaurant before - as the president's homeland security secretary had been days earlier.
Sanders' response was immediate, Wilkinson said: " 'That's fine. I'll go.' "
Sanders went back to the table, picked up her things and walked out. The others at her table had been welcome to stay, Wilkinson said. But they didn't, so the servers cleared away the cheese plates and glasses.
"They offered to pay," Wilkinson said. "I said, 'No. It's on the house.' "
At the end of the shift, Wilkinson said, staff members left the usual overnight note in the kitchen for the morning manager: a problem with the credit card machine. Restock vodka and tequila.
If you've ever heard the term "to 86 someone," it comes from the restaurant industry - code to refuse service, or alternatively to take an item off the menu.
"86 - Sara Huckabee Sanders," read the note, below the reminder to buy more Pellegrino.
One of the servers photographed the whiteboard before going home Friday. He had posted it to his public Facebook wall by the time Wilkinson woke up Saturday. For all the angst that evening, Wilkinson said, everything had taken place with decorum. She had been polite; Sanders had been polite; the press secretary's family had been polite as they followed her out the door.
Not so much the rest of the world, as it discovered Red Hen waiter Jaike Foley-Schultz's Facebook post: "I just served Sarah huckabee sanders for a total of 2 minutes before my owner asked her to leave."
A fountain of alternately celebratory and outraged comments gushed from Foley-Schultz's Facebook wall into the Red Hen's social media accounts, then its Yelp review page.
Five stars: "Thank you for refusing to serve a person who lies to the American people for a living."
One star: "They made some snide remark about a 'spit souffle' for the Florida nazi.' "
Between the fury and fawning of 2,000 people who almost certainly had not eaten at the restaurant, the Red Hen's Yelp reviews almost instantly averaged out to two-and-a-half stars. Another Red Hen in the District of Columbia was at pains to make clear that it had no affiliation with Wilkinson's place.
And that was before Sanders confirmed the story in a Saturday-morning tweet, including the restaurant's name and location.
"I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so," the press secretary wrote. "Her actions say far more about her than about me."
Wilkinson had no regrets about her decision.
"I would have done the same thing again," she said "We just felt there are moments in time when people need to live their convictions. This appeared to be one."
As she headed out the door to a weekend Main Street festival she had helped organize, she sounded hopeful that the Red Hen could open for business as usual Saturday night. Yes, she had seen calls for #MAGA protests on Facebook. "But this is a small enough town, and we're known," she said optimistically. "This is not going to be a giant surprise to anyone."
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Why-a-small-town-restaurant-owner-asked-Sarah-13020290.php?ipid=newsrecirc
Her phone rang about 8 p.m. It was the chef at the Red Hen, the tiny farm-to-table restaurant that she co-owned just off Main Street in this small city in the western part of the state.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders had just walked in and sat down, the chef informed her.
"He said the staff is a little concerned. What should we do?" Wilkinson told The Washington Post. "I said I'd be down to see if it's true."
It seemed unlikely to her that President Donald Trump's press secretary should be dining at a 26-seat restaurant in rural Virginia. But then, it was unlikely that her entire staff would have misidentified Sanders, who had arrived last to a table of eight booked under her husband's name.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Saturday she was booted from a Virginia restaurant because she works for President Donald Trump, becoming the latest administration official to experience a brusque reception in a public setting. (June 23 )
Media: Associated Press
As she made the short drive to the Red Hen, Wilkinson knew only this:
She knew Lexington, population 7,000, had voted overwhelmingly against Trump in a county that voted overwhelmingly for him. She knew the community was deeply divided over such issues as Confederate flags. She knew, she said, that her restaurant and its half-dozen servers and cooks had managed to stay in business for 10 years by keeping politics off the menu.
And she knew - she believed - that Sarah Huckabee Sanders worked in the service of an "inhumane and unethical" administration. That she publicly defended the president's cruelest policies, and that that could not stand.
"I'm not a huge fan of confrontation," Wilkinson said. "I have a business, and I want the business to thrive. This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals."
When she walked into the restaurant, Wilkinson saw that there had been no mistake. The Red Hen is no bigger than some apartments, and the group table was impossible to miss: Sanders in a black dress, her husband, three or four men and women of roughly similar ages, and an older couple.
"They had cheese boards in front of them," Wilkinson said. Like any other family. The kitchen was already preparing the party's main course. Wilkinson interrupted to huddle with her workers.
Several Red Hen employees are gay, she said. They knew Sanders had defended Trump's desire to bar transgender people from the military. This month, they had all watched her evade questions and defend a Trump policy that caused migrant children to be separated from their parents.
"Tell me what you want me to do. I can ask her to leave," Wilkinson told her staff, she said. "They said 'yes.' "
It was important to Wilkinson, she said, that Sanders had already been served - that her staff had not simply refused her on sight. And it was important to her that Sanders was a public official, not just a customer with whom she disagreed, many of whom were included in her regular clientele.
All the same, she was tense as she walked up to the press secretary's chair.
"I said, 'I'm the owner,' " she recalled, " 'I'd like you to come out to the patio with me for a word.' "
They stepped outside, into another small enclosure, but at least out of the crowded restaurant.
"I was babbling a little, but I got my point across in a polite and direct fashion," Wilkinson said. "I explained that the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation.
"I said, 'I'd like to ask you to leave.' "
Wilkinson didn't know how Sanders would react, or whether Trump's chief spokeswoman had been called out in a restaurant before - as the president's homeland security secretary had been days earlier.
Sanders' response was immediate, Wilkinson said: " 'That's fine. I'll go.' "
Sanders went back to the table, picked up her things and walked out. The others at her table had been welcome to stay, Wilkinson said. But they didn't, so the servers cleared away the cheese plates and glasses.
"They offered to pay," Wilkinson said. "I said, 'No. It's on the house.' "
At the end of the shift, Wilkinson said, staff members left the usual overnight note in the kitchen for the morning manager: a problem with the credit card machine. Restock vodka and tequila.
If you've ever heard the term "to 86 someone," it comes from the restaurant industry - code to refuse service, or alternatively to take an item off the menu.
"86 - Sara Huckabee Sanders," read the note, below the reminder to buy more Pellegrino.
One of the servers photographed the whiteboard before going home Friday. He had posted it to his public Facebook wall by the time Wilkinson woke up Saturday. For all the angst that evening, Wilkinson said, everything had taken place with decorum. She had been polite; Sanders had been polite; the press secretary's family had been polite as they followed her out the door.
Not so much the rest of the world, as it discovered Red Hen waiter Jaike Foley-Schultz's Facebook post: "I just served Sarah huckabee sanders for a total of 2 minutes before my owner asked her to leave."
A fountain of alternately celebratory and outraged comments gushed from Foley-Schultz's Facebook wall into the Red Hen's social media accounts, then its Yelp review page.
Five stars: "Thank you for refusing to serve a person who lies to the American people for a living."
One star: "They made some snide remark about a 'spit souffle' for the Florida nazi.' "
Between the fury and fawning of 2,000 people who almost certainly had not eaten at the restaurant, the Red Hen's Yelp reviews almost instantly averaged out to two-and-a-half stars. Another Red Hen in the District of Columbia was at pains to make clear that it had no affiliation with Wilkinson's place.
And that was before Sanders confirmed the story in a Saturday-morning tweet, including the restaurant's name and location.
"I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so," the press secretary wrote. "Her actions say far more about her than about me."
Wilkinson had no regrets about her decision.
"I would have done the same thing again," she said "We just felt there are moments in time when people need to live their convictions. This appeared to be one."
As she headed out the door to a weekend Main Street festival she had helped organize, she sounded hopeful that the Red Hen could open for business as usual Saturday night. Yes, she had seen calls for #MAGA protests on Facebook. "But this is a small enough town, and we're known," she said optimistically. "This is not going to be a giant surprise to anyone."
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Why-a-small-town-restaurant-owner-asked-Sarah-13020290.php?ipid=newsrecirc
Jun 24, 2018 18:51:18 #
proud republican
Loc: RED CALIFORNIA
rumitoid wrote:
LEXINGTON, Va. - Stephanie Wilkinson was at home F... (show quote)
I honestly hope that she loses her business....Political discrimination has no business in American Society....
Jun 24, 2018 18:59:00 #
Boo_Boo
Loc: Jellystone
If Ms. Sanders wanted to pursue this in court, she would win hands down. As for the franchise, I think it will be sold due to loss of business. Yelp has the rating now at under a one star...
proud republican wrote:
I honestly hope that she loses her business....Political discrimination has no business in American Society....
Jun 24, 2018 19:08:13 #
rumitoid wrote:
LEXINGTON, Va. - Stephanie Wilkinson was at home F... (show quote)
Your hate knows now bounds.
(Archie Bunker)
Jun 24, 2018 19:33:47 #
rumitoid wrote:
LEXINGTON, Va. - Stephanie Wilkinson was at home F... (show quote)
Title of the thread: The other side of the Sarah Sanders unethical whine
Show me where she whined you lying liar. She was very polite considering.
Jun 24, 2018 19:59:38 #
proud republican wrote:
I honestly hope that she loses her business....Political discrimination has no business in American Society....
If she does lose her business, Sarah Sanders may be prosecuted for an ethics violation. Careful what you wish for.
Jun 24, 2018 20:01:10 #
rumitoid wrote:
LEXINGTON, Va. - Stephanie Wilkinson was at home F... (show quote)
So the employees, which are members of the LGBTQ Community, have the right to deny service to customers that they refer to as Breeders.
The employees themselves are heterophobic, and this is the result of Fundamentally Changing The Culture of America.
Thank you Barack Obama.
Jun 24, 2018 20:02:27 #
proud republican
Loc: RED CALIFORNIA
rumitoid wrote:
If she does lose her business, Sarah Sanders may be prosecuted for an ethics violation. Careful what you wish for.
I hope Sara sues her ass off for discrimination.....And she will win...Ethics violation???Explain...
Jun 24, 2018 20:02:59 #
Jun 24, 2018 20:06:43 #
Pennylynn wrote:
If Ms. Sanders wanted to pursue this in court, she... (show quote)
Sorry, "pursue this in court, she would win hands down." Pursue what? Win what? The cake baker in the back of the restaurant said serving her violated his Buddhist principles. (Not really, but what if?)
If she loses her business because Sarah violated ethics law, if the restaurant did "pursue this in court, she would win hands down." Sarah unlawfully used her position to attack a business.
Jun 24, 2018 20:07:24 #
So the employees of the establishment, being members of the LGBTQ Community, have the right to refuse to serve people that they consider to be Breeders, because they themselves are heterophobic?
Thank you Barack Obama.
This is the result of the Fundamental Change of the American Culture.
Please get out and vote people.
Enough is Enough!
Thank you Barack Obama.
This is the result of the Fundamental Change of the American Culture.
Please get out and vote people.
Enough is Enough!
Jun 24, 2018 20:08:47 #
archie bunker wrote:
Your hate knows now bounds.
(Archie Bunker)
(Archie Bunker)
Sorry, my objective reasoning and clear perception knows "now bounds," what is before me in the moment and context.
Jun 24, 2018 20:10:26 #
mwdegutis wrote:
Title of the thread: The other side of the Sarah Sanders unethical whine
Show me where she whined you lying liar. She was very polite considering.
Show me where she whined you lying liar. She was very polite considering.
Follow her official twitter account. Polite, seemingly, at the restaurant, but a big baby on the internet.
Jun 24, 2018 20:11:45 #
Weasel wrote:
So the employees of the establishment, being members of the LGBTQ Community, have the right to refuse to serve people that they consider to be Breeders, because they themselves are heterophobic?
Thank you Barack Obama.
This is the result of the Fundamental Change of the American Culture.
Please get out and vote people.
Enough is Enough!
Thank you Barack Obama.
This is the result of the Fundamental Change of the American Culture.
Please get out and vote people.
Enough is Enough!
Wow, and this is what the Right has become.
Jun 24, 2018 20:15:53 #
rumitoid wrote:
Sorry, my objective reasoning and clear perception knows "now bounds," what is before me in the moment and context.
You are welcome at my place anytime. I am always happy to serve any who come. I don't always serve baby backs though. Some days it's high speed lead. Pick your day.
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