Another reason for brownbagging

In the first place, before we get to the "meat" of this story, I have to say that of all the fast food joints that dot the nation's highways and boulevards, I have to rank Arby's down toward the bottom, and Five Guys at the top, for taste and snappy serving.  Five Guys cooks each burger to order, and Arby's might have slapped together that Chicken Bacon Swiss yesterday morning, for all you know. 

And another reason not to like Arby's so much is the way they refused to sell dinner to a police officer in Pembroke Pines, FL last week. Sgt. Jennifer Martin says she ordered up at Arby's drive-thru on Tuesday night. Windowman Kenneth Davenport, 19, took her credit card, but restaurant manager Angel Mirabal, 22, stuck his head out of the window without a bag of food in his hand, saying, "[Davenport] doesn't want to serve you because you are a police officer." 

So the police officer, whose only offense was ordering meals from these goons, went back inside to get the refund on her card and ask for the employees' contact information. She says that Mirabal laughed, and said Davenport was allowed to refuse her service. He gave her back her money and his contact info, but Davenport refused to give his name.

Remember this, if you plan to invest a million bucks into a franchise selling roast beef loaf and reconstituted chicken sandwiches:  all that money, all that marketing and promotion and work to build up a business, can be undone by turning over the keys to some 22-year-old whose main qualification for the job is being able to clean out the grease trap in the Fry-O-Lator.

Sgt Martin reported it to her chief, the local news got involved, and the HMFIC* of Arby's, one Paul Brown, wrote a corporate PR statement of apology, and offered a free combo meal to any officer in the area last Friday.

Wow!  A free combo meal! You could get a Grand Turkey Club AND a small fries AND a small drink just to make Paul Brown feel the sweet satisfaction of expiation!

Yuck-o

Oh, and they fired the manager but "as a company that highly values trust and fairness, we ultimately found that the crew member (Davenport) was not involved other than to attempt to remedy the situation," the corporate geniuses said.

Davenport's grandfather told a local TV news station that the whole thing was a joke, and that young Kenneth's words were "taken out of context and blown into something much bigger than what it should be."

Ha ha.  What a hilarious remark!  You can't have the dinner you just paid for because you're a police officer!  

As Homer Simpson would say, "Be more funny!"

And as I would say, you're a part of the reason your grandson is a jerk, gramps.

*Head Man For Internal Correspondence