Restaurant Takes Day Off After Customers Make Staff Cry

It’s not news that people sometimes aren’t at their best at a restaurant. But telling a server you hope they get hit by a car is a special level of unkind. That sort of behavior—things that made the staff cry—is why a Massachusetts restaurant shut down for most of a day to give everyone a break from customers, Mass Live reports. Brandi Felt Castellano, who owns Apt Cape Cod with her spouse, Regina Felt Castellano, said the restaurant would close for most of the day so they could deep clean, and so the employees could enjoy a “day of kindness," the New York Times reports.

A post on the restaurant’s Facebook page pointed out that while some customers were always kind, there had been an uptick in incivility. "Please remember that many of my staff are young, this is their first job, or summer job to help pay for college," the post read, noting that pandemic-related shortages were still in effect and the business was adjusting to the change in business. It’s not the first restaurant in coastal New England to point out the increase in rudeness. Brickley’s, a popular Rhode Island ice cream shop, shut down for the season after customers berated teen employees, WPRI reports. (More restaurant industry stories.)