Pittsburgh restaurants ban diners but not for politics
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Do Pittsburgh restaurants ban diners? What does it take to get banned from a Pittsburgh restaurant?
Local chef owners weighed in following last week’s culture-war face-offs at D.C. and Virginia restaurants — and their answers were as varied as the dishes they’re serving.
Over the weekend White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen in Lexington, Va., in the middle of dinner: She made the staff uncomfortable, owner Stephanie Wilkinson told the media afterward.
Ms. Sanders’ restaurant visit followed a week of heightened protest over the administration’s decision to separate immigrant children from parents at the borders, housing kids in cages at facilities around the country, often in different states from where their parents have been detained. More than 2,700 children have been separated from a family member.
On June 19, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen was heckled by a crowd while she dined at a D.C. Mexican restaurant.
“How can you enjoy a Mexican dinner as you’re deporting and imprisoning tens of thousands of people who come here seeking asylum in the United States?” one of many hecklers shouted at Ms. Nielsen. And a few days earlier, White House policy adviser Stephen Miller — who orchestrated the child-separation policy — was called a fascist during his feast at a different Mexican restaurant.
On the decision by the Red Hen restaurateur regarding Ms. Sanders: “She did the right thing,” said Sonja Finn, chef/owner of Dinette in East Liberty. “In this darkest of times nationally and politically, we must live the resistance, fight with whatever little power we have,” she said. “That’s what Wilkinson did, knowing it could harm her business and livelihood and she would be under attack.”
President Donald Trump responded by lashing out over Twitter on Monday, calling the restaurant “filthy.” And Ms. Wilkinson has been doxxed, a form of cyberattack that entails passing around a person’s home address and phone number, social media info and more, so others can punish or shame someone for expressing her opinions.
The Washington Post editorial section condemned the action by the Red Hen restaurant to boot Ms. Sanders, while an Eater.com editor argued “Trump Officials Don’t Deserve Hospitality.”
In her own restaurant, Ms. Finn said she has banned three diners in 10 years due to their behavior in