The coronavirus pandemic has turned our world into chaos. After months of restaurants being closed to dining inside, they are opening again to the public in Wisconsin. However, there is one that likely won’t be open long if the attitude of at least one of its servers continues to be antagonistic.

My partner, Todd, and I have regularly been frequenting restaurants in Sturgeon Bay and other Door County communities on weekends the last couple of months whenever we could get free, and this weekend proved to be a little more challenging than usual, as some of the restaurants we went to were packed. Rainy weather likely caused folks wanting to enjoy some outdoor time to flee for cover.

One of the places we went to was the Brick Lot Pub and Grill, a place that Todd had introduced me to a few years ago. We’ve been there several times since that first time, but after what happened this weekend, we will not be darkening Brick Lot’s doorstep again.

Like the other places we’d been to, Brick Lot was packed with people for lunch, but we saw a table near an open air area and started to look over the menus. With it being so busy, we didn’t even mind that no one had come to our table and asked us what we wanted to drink, the usual greeting we get when we go into a restaurant.

After about five minutes, a female server finally came over. I was about to politely say hello and wait for the request for drinks when she grabbed a beer glass that was on the table and snapped at us for sitting at a dirty table, saying “Don’t you know customers aren’t supposed to sit at a dirty table?”

It’s probably a good thing Todd and I were both wearing masks because otherwise we would have seen the other’s jaw drop.  We both looked at each other after the server walked away, and I said, “Let’s get out of here.” About five seconds after we left, I turned to Todd and said, “I am never eating there again.”

It was that simple. A rude server turned me off to frequenting a restaurant. She could have asked us to step away while she cleaned off the table. Instead, she took the fact that she wasn’t keeping up on her job and decided to take it out on the customers.

You’re not likely to stay in business when you do that, or when you let your employees give customers an attitude.

For one thing, there are tons of restaurants in Sturgeon Bay for visitors to choose from. Brick Lot was not our first choice for lunch; we’d originally planned to dine at Sonny’s Pizzeria because we loved the pizza and pasta there. The main reason we didn’t was because we couldn’t find a parking space. If we couldn’t find a parking space, finding an open table would have been like finding a virgin in Caligula’s palace.

We couldn’t find a table at Cedar Crossing, either, as there was a 25-minute wait for the dining room. The hostess very politely told us this and offered to let us sit at the bar as we waited. However, I’d skipped breakfast and preferred not to wait close to an hour for lunch to be served, so we declined, but her good manners this weekend likely means we might try the restaurant again—when there’s a table to be had.

Not Brick Lot, though. If the server had taken a page from her neighbor down the street, Cedar Crossing, Todd and I would probably still be interested in dining there. All it took was one bad employee

We finally found a place to eat at the fourth restaurant we went to, the Red Room. We found a table, the server was polite and the food was excellent. I had a cheeseburger served on Texas toast, while Todd had the special. We dined on cheese curds and shared a basket of fries. It was nice to finally get a meal.

There are plenty of places Todd and I would recommend in Sturgeon Bay. Besides Sonny’s and the Red Room, there’s Scaturro’s, Greystone Castle, Fatzo’s Subs (which also serves good pizza), Betsy Ross and more.

However, Todd and I will never dine at Brick Lot again, and we don’t recommend anyone else go there, either. In my view, if servers are going to serve rudeness and attitude, they should be listed on the menu.