Food industry workers are vowing to make any officials serving in President Donald Trump’s administration feel unwelcome when they dine out in Washington D.C. restaurants.
Industry veterans, bartenders, and servers pledged to refuse service and cause other inconveniences for Trump officials.
A group of food workers told the Washingtonian that resistance to the Republican figures is a matter of conscience.
They argue protesting Trump in the progressive city is inevitable.
Zac Hoffman, a DC restaurant veteran who is now a manager at the National Democratic Club, told the outlet:
“You expect the masses to just ignore RFK eating at Le Diplomate on a Sunday morning after a few mimosas and not to throw a drink in his face?”
Bartenders and servers promised to shun certain officials or employ other small acts of “resistance” against Trump officials to take their “power back.”
“This person theoretically has the power to take away your rights, but I have the power to make you wait 20 minutes to get your entrée,” Nancy, a fine-dining bartender, said.
“There’s a lot of opportunities for us as workers to feel like we’re taking our power back, while not necessarily ruining someone’s life,” she continued.
“Giving them a subtle inconvenience feels like a little bit of a win for us.”
Nancy also warns that she plans to refuse service to certain Trump officials.
She claimed she would quit “on the spot” if her employer tried to force her.
“There is power in making it known that you’re not comfortable with a situation, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be this big dramatic show,” she said.
“It’s just little bits of resistance that add up and little bits of resistance that other people will see and hopefully feel empowered to stand on those convictions as well.”
Suzannah Van Rooy, a server and manager at Beuchert’s Saloon on Capitol Hill, also pledged to refuse service to Trump officials.
She argues that people who hold moral views that oppose her own should be punished.
“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,” she said.
“It’s not, ‘Oh, we hate Republicans’,” Van Rooy added.
“It’s that this person has moral convictions that are strongly opposed to mine, and I don’t feel comfortable serving them.”
One anonymous host at a fine dining restaurant said she planned to look up every Trump administration figure online.
She explained that she wants to be able to identify all Trump officials so she can give them a bad table if they come in.
“I’ll only give them a bad table but will otherwise guarantee decent and polite service,” she went on.
“I feel like them getting a bad table is nothing compared to the harm they’ll be inflicting.”
However, not every liberal worker in the report planned to protest the incoming administration while doing their job.
A bartender named Joseph said that he was disappointed by the election results.
Nevertheless, he was looking forward to having more Republicans in Washington because he said conservatives always tip much better than liberals.
“I think my tip average from Republicans—at least ones that I or a coworker has recognized—is close to 30 percent,” he explained.
“With Dems, I’m surprised if it’s over 20.”
Joseph added that Republicans also tend to be lower maintenance patrons.
These comments beckon memories of Trump’s first time in office.
At the time, Republican Party figures were frequently harassed while dining at D.C.-area restaurants.
In 2018, then-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her family were kicked out of a Virginia restaurant.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was heckled and harassed at a Mexican Washington D.C. restaurant in 2018.
A few months later, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his wife were also chased out of a D.C. restaurant by aggressive left-wing protesters.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) encouraged supporters after the two incidents to fight back against the Trump administration.
She said at the time that administration officials who defend Trump “know what they’re doing is wrong.”
Waters said they soon won’t be able to peacefully appear in public without being harassed.
She later backed off from those remarks.
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