San Francisco Restaurant Apologizes for Asking 3 Police Officers to Leave

Three uniformed San Francisco constabulary officers sat down for a repast connected Friday astatine an all-day meal restaurant.

But it was not agelong earlier unit members of the restaurant, Hilda and Jesse, “felt uncomfortable with the beingness of their aggregate weapons” and “politely asked” the officers to leave, the edifice said connected Instagram connected Saturday.

That petition drew wide attention, with the San Francisco constabulary main criticizing the determination and hundreds of radical leaving antagonistic ratings connected the restaurant’s Yelp page.

The constabulary chief, William Scott, said successful a statement connected Twitter: “The San Francisco Police Department stands for information with respect, adjacent erstwhile it means respecting wishes that our officers and I find discouraging and personally disappointing.

In its connection connected Saturday, the edifice doubled down, saying that it would invited members of the Police Department “when they are disconnected duty, retired of uniform, and without their weapons.”

“This is not a governmental statement, we did what we thought was champion for our staff,” the edifice added.

In a separate statement, Rachel Sillcocks, 1 of the owners of Hilda and Jesse, said: “Our edifice is simply a harmless abstraction — peculiarly for queer and bipoc individuals. Furthermore, the information that they were successful azygous with aggregate weapons connected them made our unit uncomfortable, and perchance different guests.

“We’re atrocious that the determination upset you,” she continued. “We recognize your position and we anticipation you’ll see ours.”

On Sunday, the owners of the restaurant, Kristina Liedags Compton and Ms. Sillcocks, apologized connected Instagram.

“We anticipation this volition beryllium a teachable infinitesimal for america arsenic we repair and proceed to physique bridges with the SFPD,” the connection said, adding that “we handled this badly.”

The edifice and the Police Department did not respond to emails and telephone calls connected Sunday night.

However, Ms. Sillcocks told KGO-TV connected Sunday that the restaurant’s effect had “nothing to bash with the information that they were officers.”

“It is astir the information that we bash not let weapons successful our restaurant,” she said.

Dean Preston, a subordinate of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said connected Twitter connected Sunday that “armed constabulary marque immoderate folks consciousness safer and others consciousness little safe.”

“That’s conscionable a fact,” helium said.

The owners’ apology came excessively precocious to halt a torrent of aggravated Yelp reviewers, who near hundreds of one-star reviews connected the restaurant’s page. Many of the reviewers were not based successful San Francisco and had thing to accidental astir the restaurant’s enactment of breakfast foods, including pancakes and avocado connected saccharine potato.

Instead, immoderate of the reviewers criticized the restaurant’s determination to inquire the officers to permission and called for a boycott, portion others supported the request.

“I garbage to devour present again due to the fact that you refused to service on-duty constabulary officers,” 1 reviewer wrote successful a one-star review.

Another reviewer from San Francisco near a five-star review, writing, “Thanks but I don’t privation a weapon with my waffles,” and adding that “San Francisco is San Francisco for a reason!”

The edifice connected Sunday averaged a one-star rating, though Yelp “temporarily disabled” caller reviews connected the page.

What happened astatine Hilda and Jesse is not the archetypal clip restaurants person drawn attraction for asking officers to permission oregon refusing them service.

In 2019, six constabulary officers said they were asked to permission a Starbucks successful Tempe, Ariz., aft an “anxious, tense oregon uncomfortable” lawsuit asked a barista wherefore the officers were there. The java institution apologized connected Twitter and successful full-page paper ads, and the hashtag #BoycottStarbucks picked up steam connected societal media.

In 2015, wrong weeks of each other, 2 employees refused work to constabulary officers astatine fashionable chains successful 2 antithetic states, but past said they were joking.