Tears on the menu
Salty patrons force Cape eatery to close for ‘day of kindness’
Tears shouldn’t be on the menu at Apt Cape Cod.
Restaurant owners closed for breakfast and posted signs on their front gate on Main Street in Brewster and on their Facebook page to drive home that message. They instead treated their staff to a “day of kindness” after “an astronomical influx daily” of abusive behavior by customers.
Maybe it was the woman who said, “I hope you get hit by a car,” because she showed up at the farm-to-table restaurant, expecting to be served after it had closed; or the person who threatened to sue because a table wasn’t available; or the man who yelled so loudly, using such foul language, that he was finally asked to leave.
The restaurant’s owners — Brandi Felt Castellano and Regina Castellano — had had enough.
Part of the problem is that, like many other restaurants, Apt is short-staffed because young people from Europe are not coming to the Cape to work this summer due to the pandemic, said Regina Castellano. That sometimes means longer waits to be seated or served meals at the small restaurant known for its eclectic menu, she said.
“But I love my staff ” of 24, who range in age from 14 to 60, Felt Castellano said. “We decided, let’s show them that we care for them because it’s just been getting progressively worse — people not just being rude, but abusive. No one should have to put up with that.”
So they gave patrons a time out last week.
They’ve since taken down the sign on their gate and replaced it with one saying, “If you cannot be kind, you cannot dine!” Their Facebook post, meanwhile, has gone viral.
Castellano said that as of early Wednesday afternoon, she had received more than 200 emails and instant messages of support from people across the country, with thus far only one outlier: a person named “Jason” who wrote, “You should close for good. Sounds like ur not cut out for service industry. What a joke.”
But that’s not the way locals see it. They’ve dropped by with bouquets of flowers and donations — money that Castellano has told people instead to send to the Family Table Collaborative, a South Yarmouth nonprofit that feeds the hungry.
Even as Castellano sat at a table in the restaurant’s outdoor dining area, The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” playing in the background, a bicyclist she knows rode by, yelling, “Congratulations!”
“There’s been a great outpouring of kindness,” said Nancy Sheridan, 64, of Brewster, who eats at Apt Cape Cod three to four times a week. “The food’s fantastic. And these are our friends and neighbors.”
Bob Luz, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, said he thinks the abusive behavior Apt’s staff has experienced is the exception, not the rule.
“By and large, most of our guests understand there are significant challenges, like staffing shortages, and are reacting reasonably,” Luz said. “Every once in a while, you have a guest that gets frustrated, just like before the pandemic.”
But Apt’s customers have become very protective of the staff.
“As locals, we are not all right with people coming down to the Cape and abusing the staff,” said Sherrill Crowell, 66, of Brewster.
“Be nice,” she grinned and told a reporter, “or we will hunt you down.”