In this weeks round of dumb restaurants doing dumb things, an IHOP is at the center of attention. For some reason one of their managers felt like he needed to stop a young boy with no arms from using his feet to feed himself.
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This happened to Alexis Bancroft and her three-year-old son William at an Arkansas IHOP. Born without arms, William has always eaten with his feet and had never encountered a problem till now. The General Manager at the IHOP in Hot Springs, Arkansas said that William was not allowed to sit on the table and touch the syrup because it was “unhygienic.”
Bancroft asked the manager according to Newsweek:
“I asked her what’s the difference between hands and feet?
I asked, ‘Do you ask all your customers if they’ve washed their hands before they touch the syrup dispensers fist?’”
She also had told the manager they had gone to the bathroom to wash his feet before they sat down. Of course the manager said the manager thing to say with a “Well I didn’t see that.”
The manager then came back to apologize, but the damage had been done. Alexis had already decided that her family wasn’t going to be eating there and began to leave.
She said:
“Everybody was staring at us and everything. They were going to give us our food, but we decided to leave because of the way he was treated. He was discriminated against for not having arms.”
One of the cooler parts of the story includes another family that witnessed the incident. They chose to also leave due to the manager’s actions. Way to stand together people of Hot Springs!
She continued on to say:
“We go to multiple restaurants around our area, and no one has ever said anything about him. Most people are just amazed that he can even feed himself with his feet.”
Not to make it even more creepy and awful but the manager tried to message Alexis on Facebook to try and save some face. Even employees reached out tried to reach out and tell her that they were “completely shocked” by their managers reactions.
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A statement was released to Newsweek stating that they, “do not tolerate actions that are or allude to discrimination of any type.” They also said that they would be retraining their staff “to ensure IHOP’s level of service, particularly regarding guests with disabilities, is provided to all.
The franchisee at this location has been in touch with the guest to express his sincerest apologies and will continue to be in communication with her to resolve the issue.”
