Restaurant shuts down for a 'day of kindness' after verbal abuse from customers makes staff cry
Editor's note: This article was originally published on July 19, 2021. It has since been updated.
The owners of a farm-to-table restaurant on Cape Cod sent a strong message to the local community after they noticed a worrying trend in customers' behavior. Ever since Massachusetts allowed restaurants to fully reopen on May 29, several of Apt Cape Cod's employees had been on the receiving end of verbal abuse from rude customers on a number of occasions. Speaking to The New York Times, Brandi Felt Castellano — the co-owner of the establishment — explained that the final straw was when a man lashed out at one of their young employees for simply informing him that they could not take his breakfast takeout order since the restaurant had not opened yet.
Restaurant shuts down for a 'day of kindness' after verbal abuse from customers makes staff cry
'People are always rude to restaurant workers, but this far exceeds anything I've seen in my 20 years,' the restaurant co-owner said.
Restaurant shuts down for a 'day of kindness' after verbal abuse from customers makes staff cry
Cover Image Source: Facebook/Apt Cape Cod
By Jisha Joseph
April 21, 2023
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Editor's note: This article was originally published on July 19, 2021. It has since been updated.
The owners of a farm-to-table restaurant on Cape Cod sent a strong message to the local community after they noticed a worrying trend in customers' behavior. Ever since Massachusetts allowed restaurants to fully reopen on May 29, several of Apt Cape Cod's employees had been on the receiving end of verbal abuse from rude customers on a number of occasions. Speaking to The New York Times, Brandi Felt Castellano — the co-owner of the establishment — explained that the final straw was when a man lashed out at one of their young employees for simply informing him that they could not take his breakfast takeout order since the restaurant had not opened yet.
"I never thought it would become this," she said. Determined to put a stop to such incidents and to give their staff a break, Felt Castellano and her spouse, Regina Felt Castellano — who is also the head chef and co-owner — announced on Facebook that the restaurant would not open for breakfast that same day. They would treat their employees to a "day of kindness" instead, they said. An "astronomical influx" of customers had been screaming at employees, threatening to sue, arguing, yelling, and making team members cry, the owners explained in their post.
"This is an unacceptable way to treat any human," they added. "We will be open again for breakfast tomorrow. Please remember that many of my staff are young, this is their first job or summer job to help pay for college. We have had to make adjustments due to the increase in business volume, size of the kitchen, product availability, and staffing availability, we are not trying to ruin anyone's vacation or day off." As the Felt Castellanos' decision drew widespread attention in the community, other restaurateurs took to social media to share similar anecdotes which they said demonstrated the strain that fully reopening has placed on an industry that's been battered by the pandemic.
"Many of us didn't survive the pandemic," Felt Castellano said of restaurants. "For people to be this aggressive towards the ones that have is disheartening." She explained that this wasn't always the case as in pre-pandemic days and even during the initial stage of the health crisis, customers overwhelmingly exhibited kindness to the staff. However, ever since the state fully reopened restaurants, indignity after indignity has allegedly plagued Apt Cape Cod's 24 employees, many of whom are young and also include the couple's two children. /snip
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