What’s a restauranteur to do when faced with blatant sexism? Fight back, in the classiest way possible.
That’s what one restaurant owner in Portland did after a horribly demeaning and sexist review of public house EastBurn appeared on the restaurant’s Yelp page.
The since-deleted five star review from Lee M. read:
My friend and I picked up some hot girls here, but he got his pregnant. But she was Canadian so she went home and got a free abortion so it’s all cool now. You can get grilled cheeses here for $5.
After the review was picked up on Reddit, the restaurant owner, Mike Bender, responded himself, vowing to donate proceeds of any grilled cheeses sold throughout August to the 24-hour women’s support resource, Portland Women’s Crisis Line.
5 stars to you Lee M. for making an example of how this kind of disrespect towards women is shameful and not at all funny. Yes, our grilled cheese is only $5 and was kindly listed as one of the top 25 in the country by Food and Wine Magazine.
As a thank you for spotlighting this kind of behavior, all proceeds through August from the sale of EastBurn’s Grilled Cheeses will go to the Portland’s Women’s Crisis Line. – Cheers!
Bender told the Oregon newspaper that disrespectful behaviour towards women is particularly pervasive in the restaurant industry, which led him to creating the fundraiser.
“It just seemed like a good thing to do,” Bender said. “We do a lot of benefits here and thought it was a good opportunity to give back.”
And Bender isn’t alone as a restaurant owner fighting back against sexism with popular results. Here’s what a few more restaurants have done:
In May we wrote about a family-run cafe in West Virginia that took a review from a customer asking for the female servers to show a little more skin, not quite so literally.
In response the restaurant owner decided to offer a potato skin special for $7, with all proceeds going directly to the West Virginia Foundation for Rape Information Services. The response triggered a “tremendous” wave of positive support for the restaurant.
In June, Australian women’s publication CLEO partnered up with a number of retailers and cafes to offer a 17.5% discount to women, prompted by a change.org petition to ‘Ditch the Pay Gap’, in a bid to fight back against the gender pay gap.
And while we’ve all heard plenty of local stories about restaurant owners who make breastfeeding mums feel unwelcome, over in the UK, one restaurant went the extra mile to open its door to such mums.
The Brasserie Blanc, located in Cheltenham, hung a chalkboard on an umbrella outside its establishment which read: “Breastfeeding mums – Pop in & have a free cup of tea if you need a pit stop… no need to eat, no need to ask – please relax :)”
Restauranteurs fighting back against sexism is great for their PR, and for all of us.
Have you seen any examples or restaurants stepping up to support women? Let us know below.