During a recent visit to 57th Fighter Group Restaurant our view of this place completed changed because our encounter with Ms. Clancy.
My son was looking at the model planes parked on the lawn and was herded away from there by Ms. Clancy like herding an animal, later she rudely demanded my son who was standing up looking at the fire pit to sit down; when I protested the manner of her speaking she told us to leave if we did not like their 'kids-remain-seated' policy.
I do not like the policy but they have the right to make whatever policy they see fit. My problem is with the messenger - Ms. Clancy, the General Manager, her tone of voice, facial and body gestures were condescending, to say the least. When I asked the name of the owner, she dismissed my question by waving her arms saying 'I have better things to do' and took off.
My 6-year-old son who was well behaved the whole time told me that the lady (Ms. Clancy) made him feel very bad. The customers surrounded us and the staff were quite sympathetic towards us. We got Ms. Clancy's full name, the owner's name from the staff and decided to leave. A staff requested another manager to speak to us and also suggested to seat us inside.
A manager came over to talk to us about the situation, since she was quite nice we were considering to be reseated until Ms. Clancy injected herself into our conversation; she shamefully accused my son running wildly on the runway, and me yelling at her. I told her she was unprofessional and disrespectful etc, and she tried to dismiss us by saying that we were making a scene. I only read about and saw on movie/TV of individuals smearing others with lies to justify their own faulty behaviors, to experience it personally is something heavy to take in, because it is not easy to explain to a 6-year old that a person with this type of quality can be 'the boss' of the place, and why she won even she was rude and lying and we had to leave with empty stomach.
We left and went somewhere pleasant to eat, and we taught our son that we left because we do not tolerate bullies, dishonesty will not prevail, we will share the bad experience with the owner and the rest of the world via Internet.
My family travels all over the world and we had never experienced this type of 'unkindness' from anybody at anywhere until this encounter at the hospitable south of United States of America. I wish the owner of this restaurant would work on improving the professionalism and communication skills of his staff.
more