Blue Corn Cafe: Abusive Staff Does Not Earn Extra Stars
Irradiated by Stingray
Sunday, we got a call from Kang’s breeder. The shows were done and it was time to pick her up. Arrangements were made to meet in Santa Fe the next day in the evening, and given the time, LabRat and I decided to pick up dinner while we were there, try out one of the myriad places we’ve yet to test out. After a bit of digging, we found the Blue Corn Brewery in the right neck of the woods. Being brewers ourselves and thus easily tempted with beer, it seemed like a plan.
Unfortunately, the Blue Corn Cafe & Brewery is a giant pit of fail.
Shortly after being seated, our vacant-eyed waitress arrived to take drink orders. We both wanted beer. As one does in a brewpub. Being vacant-eyed and of usefulness marginally above that of a potato, this maybe-nineteen-year-old was unable to recognize us as obviously above the legal drinking age, and carded us. Not particularly bright, but thus far no actual problems either, right? Well, LabRat’s ID was expired, and thanks to the magical sands of time instantly reversing by several years, she was of course once again twenty years and 11 months old again. The manager arrived to explain that they don’t serve expired IDs, and generally acted as though he were doing us a favor even letting us remain in the establishment with such a cardinal sin upon the table. While annoying, this still hasn’t stirred any actual problem. As the law is spelled out, if they want to be pedantic about the expired ID of someone obviously of drinking age, that’s well within their right. Better safe than sorry, all that jazz, and still only a minor inconvenience, albeit an annoying one.
My beer arrives. I imbibe and comment. I pass to LabRat so she may sample. She consumes one swallow, and returns the beverage. At this point, we have unknowingly departed from the rails of civilized customer service.
Moments later, the manager reappears. I look up, possibly expecting something along the lines of “I’m sorry, you’re clearly of legal age, this has been a mistake,” or some similar act of positive public relations. Instead, our officious arbiter of all alcohol appears highly annoyed, and belligerently declares “You’re not allowed to consume alcohol here!”
Sitting in a brew pub, only a few feet from the equipment for the production of alcohol, I was a bit taken aback.
“Excuse me?”
“She cannot consume alcohol on these premises! Her ID is expired and it is illegal for her to consume alcohol*. The waitress saw her drinking from that beer!”
The beer was on my side of the table. Full, less the two swallows above mentioned.
“Yes. She had a swallow to taste it. She’s not drinking it, I am.”
“She was drinking that beer and she is not allowed to consume alcohol here. You are not allowed to share and she cannot drink here.”
“I can’t offer my wife a drink of beer to see what she thinks.”
“No! She is not allowed! VERBOTEN VERBOTEN VERBOTEN WOOP WOOP WOOP GET YOUR ELBOWS OFF THE TABLE! SIT UP STRAIGHT!”
I exaggerate only minimally.
After a bit of further less-than-friendly conversation on the topic, while the manager vacillated between whether it was state law that she had magically regressed in age, or merely local policy, I opined that either option was low on common sense, and attempted to point out that all this fuss was over one single swallow. Had his mother been so obliging, perhaps our evening would have not been so marred, but I managed to bite my tongue on that point.
Without any exaggeration, the amount of spectacle our little reject from the food court produced would have been more adequate if we had been caught red handed giving a case of beer to a kid on a bike. Even the barest shred of sanity would dictate watching the situation to see if she had continued drinking in her magically age-regressed state, rather than stamp over and behave as if she had been doing rails of coke off the table, but sanity was clearly in short supply for our tireless defender of Because I Said So.
To head off the obvious, protecting a liquor license is clearly well worth a restaurant’s energy. They’re difficult to come by, and the fines can be steep for infractions. And to that end, as I said, we had no objection that they declined to serve LabRat. However, when your zealousness extends to verbally berating a customer over one mouthful of liquid, you have somewhat departed the realm of reasonable protection of the license and landed very squarely in the realm of gigantic asshole with minimal power exerting it simply for the thrill of the thing.
With service that rates as openly abusive, and food that would be complimented to be described as mediocre**, the Blue Corn Cafe & Brewery is very firmly off the list of places that will see our dollars in the future.
*It’s not. I looked it up.
**Discussion after our pot-bellied liquor nanny departed, we unfortunately arrived at the conclusion that for the sake of scheduling it would be more convenient to finish the meal there anyway. I was all in favor of leaving, and the subsequent heartburn made us both wish we had.
May 26th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Not only that but in most states it is legal to provide your spouse alcohol regardless of their age if you are of legal age.
May 26th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
I’ve never understood why a recently expired ID suddenly ceases completely to be valid proof of age. Especially if the replacement ID is of the same general character.
I can understand not accepting a non-laminated non-picture 1967 Michigan drivers’ license, but if my ID expires last week, I shouldn’t suddenly cease to legally exist.
(A related question - why do we have to go through the formality of driver’s license renewal? Other than as a revenue stream. Occasional replacement for technological reasons is fine but to charge me $28 to replace it with something identical, but for “2015” instead of “2010” in one obscure corner is stupid.)
((And finally, given that out-of-state licenses are identically valid and accepted as proof of ID, and being allowed to drive, why do I need to get a new license each time I move out of state?))
May 26th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
What Matt said, at least in Texas your spouse can drink even if she’s underage as long as you are 21.
May 26th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
daddyquatro: but as a ptoof the beer-license nazi might request a marriage certificate!
May 26th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Just plain Massive Fail. It happens, but I am pretty sure that no owner is happy about this kind of negative publicity.
May 26th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
We stopped going to the Wild Oats in Albuquerque a couple of years ago when they carded Libby for wine (we are a little over 60 and we both have snow white hair- see recent photo here).
When I questioned the apparently anorexic veggie cashier she burst into tears and called the manager. He told us it was “discriminatory” not to card everyone if they had to card anyone. Very well, it was a private establishment and they have the right- as I have the right to discriminate too, and never to darken their doors again. They have been bought by Whole Foods since- wonder if the policy changed…
May 26th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Steve, Trader Joe’s had cheaper wine, and Whole Foods had better wine in my opinion (I only cook with it, though, so my opinion is pretty much worthless). I quit going to Wild Oats because it smelled like vitamin-soaked hippie despair, and it required me to drive up Menaul. Dang, y’all are making me homesick. I haven’t had any decent chile in two years.
My experience is that customer service is pretty terrible at just about every place in Santa Fe.
May 26th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
Ugh. Reminds me of the time a power-tripping cashier at the provincial liquor store (quaint up here in Canuckistan, aren’t we?) denied me a six-pack because my driver’s license was from a different province, and she “couldn’t guarantee its authenticity”. Well, okay; if you really want me to, I’ll go to the private store and get my booze at non-subsidized prices.
That liquor store shut its doors about two years ago. Perhaps the same will happen with the Blue Corn Cafe.
May 27th, 2010 at 12:03 am
bluntobject: also good are the provincial liquour stores; in base/military towns, yet; that won’t accept Canadian Forces ID as proof of age.
May 27th, 2010 at 7:11 am
Not taking expired ID doesn’t make any sense.
@Stingray: your choice to continue to eat there. You know the problem, of course, with it: you don’t give ‘em any financial reasons to revise their stupidity. I’d’ve gone to McDonalds, if necessary.
@Jake: I don’t think there IS a reason other than the revenue stream. Doesn’t AZ give 30-year licenses, for example?
@Steve: Yes, it sucks. You know why they do it? If you card everyone, then you head off the situation where someone underage without ID tries to buy beer by acting aggrieved that you asked him for ID when you failed to card Yoda, who was in line in front of him. It’s stupid and it’s obnoxious, but if you card EVERYONE, you cut off one line of argument for underage jerks. Me, I tried to apply a little sanity when I was in that line of work. People with white hair don’t get carded by me…unless there’s a belligerent-looking youngster behind them, in which case I might actually point out that I card everyone so youngsters can’t hassle me about being unfair. And if I recognize you, I won’t card you again.
@bluntobject: your cashier was a moron. Doesn’t Canada have those neat little books that show all currently-extant license types for all US and Canadian jurisdictions? She could’ve looked in there. (Me, about the only type of ID I used to refuse was the Matricula Consular.)
May 27th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Had the same thing happen. “Do you think that at some point after it expired that I… stopped being me? That… my birthday changed? What exactly is the concern?”
May 27th, 2010 at 11:35 am
Rick, I understand what you’re saying. I’ve taught high school, worked in retail and at a grocery store and I’m all for cutting off one line of argument. The only problem is the little jerk comes up with another line.
I decided a long time ago to never kowtow to someone just to shut them up. It’s been my experience that it never works. If they don’t like what’s going on in front of them, tough, they don’t have to come back, do they?
We (general we) are unfortunately becoming a society in which if someone throws a big enough fit they get what they want. Not by me they don’t. The store does not pay me anywhere enough money to put up with people’s hysterics. Let them bitch to the manager. He/She gets paid more than I do.
That said, I have an expired ID story to share.
I spent an extended amount of time in Massachusetts 3 years ago (well longer than intended) and by the time I was scheduled to return to Texas (where my license was issued), it had expired. Now, I could have renewed by mail but frankly, between the State of Texas and the USPS, I didn’t think I’d ever see it.
So, I’m at Logan International Airport (a place that deserves to be sucked into the 10th level of Hell) with my mother, who’s in her 80’s and in a wheelchair because she can’t walk long distances. We both check in at the Continental desk, the clerk looks at both licenses and sends us on our way.
We get to the metal detector area and have to show ids again. Mom goes through without a problem (although they do pull her aside for a ‘more through check’ but that’s a whole other rant). The TSA chick looks at my driver’s license and says ‘Your id’s expired.’
I reply that I know and just as soon as I get back to Texas, I will renew it.
The chick repeats herself and I say ‘What do you want me to do? I can’t exactly renew a TEXAS license in Massachusetts, now can I?’
She thinks about this for a moment, then tells me to go back to the check-in counter and have them okay me.
The clerk already did, I inform the chick, who is not moved.
Meanwhile, my mother is wondering what is taking so meepin’ long for me to come through.
I wind up having to shout across the opening that I’ll be back in a moment.
Go back to the check-in counter, tell the woman there, who is a bit surprised to see me, and she scribbles something on my ticket, which the satisfies the TSA chick and I am allowed through.
Oh, also because of the TSA that same day, I nearly lost my $3,000 laptop too!
I was so tempted to say “What, my license expires and it changes what I look like?? If I was Middle Eastern looking, would you be giving me this shit?” (No, I did not say it and no, the above statement is not nice or open-minded in the least and not how I normally think but boy I was pissed)
Some people get a little power and they think they’re God.
May 27th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Yeah, ok, the manager was probably a bit of a jerk, but since he’s getting stomped with a $10,000 fine if the Liquor Cheka catch you consuming alcohol in a place that serves it without “proper ID”, I’m somewhat inclined to cut him some slack.
May 27th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Like he said, it wasn’t that they wouldn’t serve me that we regarded as a problem. It was the over-the-top lecture that was entirely unnecessary.
Stupid rule- well, stupid state law. But berating your customers like children is bad policy.
May 27th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Seems like the Liquor Cheka needs to be re-examined for validity.
It’s not like when you’re 20 years, 364 days old you’re a babbling infant that should barely be trusted with water - but, miraculously, the next day you’re a full and responsible citizen.
There needs to be some common sense applied to alcohol sales. 99.9% of the time, a 19 year old drinking alcohol will not result in anything worse than a trip to the porcelain altar. And if something bad does happen, punish the crime, not the paper trail. You can be just as terrifying a drunk driver at age 22…
May 27th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
It’s “policy v. legality” and policy holds trumps. If you have to quote the law to them they won’t care. The law ALLOWS things (so they think). They’re a bunch of assholes who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes. And I’ll help you reload.
May 28th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
@Amy: I agree. But if you are working in a chain store, you can’t tell the kid to piss off if you value the job, or they’ll just complain to management and get you fired. I’ve found that derailing them at the beginning frequently confuses them enough that they don’t give you loads of crap. Also, I agree with you 100% about Logan, having flown in and out of there several times. I bet they’d’ve freaked out if I wore my flying shirt (ever since I got a Kalashnikitty tee, I make a point of wearing it to the airport.)
Jake: “There needs to be some common sense applied to alcohol sales. 99.9% of the time, a 19 year old drinking alcohol will not result in anything worse than a trip to the porcelain altar.” Are you willing to pay the $1000 fine? Cops LOVE to set up sting ops at convenience stores, and they WILL arrest you right there.