The Prime Rib is defending itself against the barrage of hate it has received. (iStock)
A fine dining restaurant in Washington D.C. is getting slammed with hate after a waiter took it upon himself to shame a gay couple dining there.
Last week, couple Ron Gage and Henry McKinnon went to The Prime Rib in Washington D.C. for dinner. The two were enjoying their meal at the romantic steak spot until they tried to order dessert – one sundae with “two spoons.”
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In a statement to The Washington Post, Gage said, “[The server] said he would bring [the dessert] in two separate dishes. He said, ‘It wouldn’t look right with two gentlemen eating out of the same sundae. It doesn’t go with the ambiance of the restaurant.’”
Taken aback, the couple said nothing and their dessert was delivered. After finishing, they tipped 15 percent (they usually tip 20) and left the restaurant without informing the manager.
“It just took us back to such a shameful place,” McKinnon told the Post.
But after sleeping on the matter, the men were still upset by the bigoted treatment they received and wrote about it on Facebook and Yelp, causing a media firestorm.
The restaurant was quick to respond to the outcry by firing the server. But, The Prime Rib is still getting slammed with attacks – some going as far as to request a boycott of the restaurant.
In a statement to Fox News, The Prime Rib spoke out about the treatment it has been receiving and defended both its practices and its reputation, declaring that the restaurant has always practiced respect for all and that the hostility is unwarranted.
“What he said was stupid and it’s not us,” Larry Bravman, The Prime Rib Washington D.C.’s maître d’, said. “We’ve been here for 40 years and if you look at the Yelp page the day before that and the day before that, it’s all good. This isn’t who we are.”
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When asked about the backlash, Bravman called the entire incident “a nightmare” and that “the act of that individual [server] does not even remotely show who we are [as a company].”
Bravman said he has been working there for 35 years and has never witnessed any kind of rude treatment to a patron.
However, that hasn’t kept people off of the restaurant chain’s social media – launching so many attacks at their Yelp page that Yelp has issued a “cleanup alert” and is removing all news-motivated content from the page.
James MacLeod, the general manager, spoke briefly with Fox News saying the entire thing has been “a mess.”
In a statement to the Post, MacLeod said the server in question “is Bulgarian, and he does speak four different languages.”
“I am not sure if he got confused as to what he was saying, or how he was saying it,” MacLeod added. “I cannot believe that a waiter would have ever said anything like that—There’s no way we would condone anything remotely like this.”
The manager told the Post he would be reaching out to the couple about the event.
Ron Gage and Henry McKinnon were not immediately available for comment.
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