For their anniversary, Chris and Andrea Moreno went out to eat at Prestige Plates, an upscale restaurant known for its “classy atmosphere”. When Mr. Moreno requested a table for two, the hostess shot him a familiar look.
“I’ve gotten that look hundreds of times,” Chris told us in an interview. “People are annoyed that someone in a wheelchair would want to eat at a restaurant – how dare I!”
“There’s a ramp in the back for the trashcans,” she said.
This wasn’t the first time Chris entered a restaurant this way – and he knew it wouldn’t be the last. But, the Morenos expected a “classy” dining experience, and for a restaurant with a plate of three mozzarella sticks at $18 – he wasn’t going to accept any less than classy. Chris asked to speak to Brad Bernard, the owner of Prestige Plates.
“We’re paying good money to eat here, and I expect a classy dining experience,” Mr. Moreno told Bernard. “I’m supposed to go all the way around the corner to the back of the building because you’ll build a ramp for trash cans before you’ll build one for people? How can I call that ‘classy’?”
“Wow,” Brad said. “I never thought about it that way…” To the surprise of Mr. Moreno, it seemed like Bernard was genuinely contemplating what he said.
“I just figured that since you can’t even walk – how could you possibly give a crap about anything else? We’re accommodating you! You’re the person who unreasonably expects to be able to eat at a restaurant in a wheelchair!” Bernard shook his head.
“This is accommodating me?” Mr. Moreno asked, appalled by Bernard’s audacity.
“I’m letting you dine here in the first place! The dining experience at Prestige Plates is stylish and sophisticated. But, this big, bulky… piece of machinery?” Bernard said as he looked at Mr. Moreno’s wheelchair as if he’d never seen one before. “It’s a huge eye sore!”
The Morenos went home after they bought a family-size bag of (reasonably) priced mozzarella sticks from a local bodega, and spent the rest of their evening making fake Yelp accounts to write as many bad reviews of Prestige Plates as they could. Now that’s classy.