A number of restaurant owners and their employees in Washington, D.C. said they may refuse to serve to officials in the Trump administration.
Others said they plan to put officials at “bad tables.”
“I personally would refuse to serve any person in office who I know of as being a sex trafficker or trying to deport millions of people,” Suzannah Van Rooy, a server and manager at Beuchert’s Saloon in Capitol Hill, told The Washingtonian. “It’s not, ‘Oh, we hate Republicans.’ It’s that this person has moral convictions that are strongly opposed to mine, and I don’t feel comfortable serving them.”
One bartender said that while he is “dreading the incoming administration on a personal level,” Republicans tip more.
“I think my tip average from Republicans—at least ones that I or a coworker has recognized—is close to 30 percent. With Dems, I’m surprised if it’s over 20,” the bartender said. He added that it is “impossible to avoid dirty money.”
Another bartender said she has the “power to make you wait 20 minutes to get your entree.” The bartender, Nancy, explained there are “a lot of opportunities for us as workers to feel like we’re taking our power back, while not necessarily ruining someone’s life. Giving them a subtle inconvenience feels like a little bit of a win for us.”
A fine-dining restaurant host said she intends to give Trump officials “a bad table but will otherwise guarantee decent and polite service.”
“I feel like them getting a bad table is nothing compared to the harm they’ll be inflicting,” she said.
