Tomorrow or Sunday Lunch/Dinner

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I'm going to be late. That seems to be the feeling I'm getting from a lot of the other people in the thread. We could do a dinner instead and call it at 5pm or 6pm... If you guys still want to do it at 3 that's fine, but I'll be about an hour, maybe an hour and a half late. If we wait until 5 or 6 maybe some of the seahawks fans can make it too.

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OK, you know, if this can't be figured out until the last minute, this is not going to work....we need to lock something down ahead of time, because now all the sudden, it has gone from 3 to 5 PM, which is just too late for me to drive all the way to Bellevue and back since I have to be at work tomorrow. It gets a little old to have plans all made and you plan your weekend around showing up, and then at the last second everything changes. People waste their time and money driving to the wrong place or showing at the wrong time. If we can't hammer these lunches down to a time and place at least by mid week before the lunch, then I don't think many people will be able to make it, because it just gets crazy trying to reschedule everything at the last minute. I know I won't, and I won't waste my time and money trying.

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compmanio365 wrote:

OK, you know, if this can't be figured out until the last minute, this is not going to work....we need to lock something down ahead of time, because now all the sudden, it has gone from 3 to 5 PM, which is just too late for me to drive all the way to Bellevue and back since I have to be at work tomorrow. It gets a little old to have plans all made and you plan your weekend around showing up, and then at the last second everything changes. People waste their time and money driving to the wrong place or showing at the wrong time. If we can't hammer these lunches down to a time and place at least by mid week before the lunch, then I don't think many people will be able to make it, because it just gets crazy trying to reschedule everything at the last minute. I know I won't, and I won't waste my time and money trying.

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That's a good point. Why don't we just keep it at 3 and if people are late, then people are late. It's not like they're going to kick us out of dennys. Next time we can have some more solid plans, but there's no point planning if the plan changes all the time, so let's just keep the 3:00 time and if people want to hang around for the late arrivals then it would be nice. Besides, I'm sure we'd all like to see you again

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I was unable to make it ( obviously ) how did it go?

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expvideo wrote:

compmanio365 wrote:

OK, you know, if this can't be figured out until the last minute, this is not going to work....we need to lock something down ahead of time, because now all the sudden, it has gone from 3 to 5 PM, which is just too late for me to drive all the way to Bellevue and back since I have to be at work tomorrow. It gets a little old to have plans all made and you plan your weekend around showing up, and then at the last second everything changes. People waste their time and money driving to the wrong place or showing at the wrong time. If we can't hammer these lunches down to a time and place at least by mid week before the lunch, then I don't think many people will be able to make it, because it just gets crazy trying to reschedule everything at the last minute. I know I won't, and I won't waste my time and money trying.

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That's a good point. Why don't we just keep it at 3 and if people are late, then people are late. It's not like they're going to kick us out of dennys. Next time we can have some more solid plans, but there's no point planning if the plan changes all the time, so let's just keep the 3:00 time and if people want to hang around for the late arrivals then it would be nice. Besides, I'm sure we'd all like to see you again

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Actually, we did, in fact, get "kicked out of Dennys".

We had all been there for about 2 hours and had finished meals (I arrived late at about 4pm) and one of the group had already departed. Then, Ryan, the manager came over andtoldLonnie (and just Lonnie, even though we were all carrying) that he had to take 'that' (indicating the pistol) out to his car. He said that a customer had complained and that "this is a family restaurant". The crappy thing is that I had been there the night before with him on as manager and he knows me well as an upstanding customer.

As we were leaving, the waitress, Sheri, who was very nice to us and gave good service apologized about us getting booted and said that Ryan wasn't even on the clock for another 15 minutes.

I am whole-heartily disappointed, as I've always had good relations with Ryan and have frequented that Denny's for months almost every Saturday evening/Sunday morning. I'm hoping that Lonnie's, my own, and any of the other gentlemen that send in complaints to the regional manager receive an apology or at the very least a retraction of the 'banning' of guns by the manager. As a side-note, there was no such signage to indicate such a policy at the entrance; I know, I've checked multiple times in the past.

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I have a funny story from that Denny's...

Several years ago a friend and I went there late one night after leaving a casino to grab a bite to eat. (1AM or so). We had a pleasant meal but his fries tasted like dirt--I tried them and agreed. We spoke to the manager who then spoke to the cook. When she came back, rather than offering to replace the fries or take them off the bill, she said that the cook says he did not put dirt in the fries! Of course, this was laughable as we never claimed he did--just that they were inedible because they tasted like dirt. She asked us what we wanted her to do and we said to take it off the bill or to replace the fries. She said that she was not going to do that and that we needed to immediately pay our bill or leave. As she was the night manager we asked to speak to her general manager as she was absolutely rude and wasn't addressing a legitimate guest complaint. We didn't feel we had any obligation to pay for inedible food and were not about to do so. Our waitress was profusely apoligizing for the rudeness of her manager.

At this point she states that she is going to call the police if we won't pay for the fries. We told her to go ahead and do so. She calls the police and reports that there is a violent customer threatening her and that they should bring an ambulance with them. (My friend and I were about 20 and 22 years old at the time, don't look violent, dressed nicely, sober, not threatening in any way and not even raising our voices or anything.) About 5 minutes later 6 officers (some saidswat on their jackets)come rushing in, 4 with pistols drawn, 2 with assault rifles. The first one through the door immediately yells "where is the violent customer." My friend raises his hand (we were sitting on the bench near the window) and says "I'm right over here sir." They all immediately put away their guns and, after a moment of initial shock wears off, they start screaming at the manager. They talk with us and her for a while and decide that it will be much easier if we just pay the 2 dollars for the fries and complain to corporate. The manger insisted they issue my friend a trespass notice. The cops were very polite to us, pissed at her and just shocked that she called and made such a patently false distress call.

The next day my friend wrote to Denny's corporate describing the above. As it turned out, that is not a franchise store and Denny's had just recently installed a security camera with audio! They watched the tape and determined that we had done nothing wrong. They wrote my friend a couple days later with an apology stating that he was welcome at any Denny's. Sent a letter to Bellevue PD undoing the trespass. Gave him 10 free dinners at any Denny's. Claimed to have written a formal mark in the manager's personnell file.

We have never seen her there since... but we did avoid that Denny's for a while just to make sure we didn't have to deal with her again.

Point is--it's Denny's... expect crappy management... but you can also expect corporate to have the whole thing on tape and to address the issue! Just make sure to write a bunch of letters... Wish I could have been there... but I've got a paper due in a couple of hours--which I have to get back to right now...


ETA: Neither of us were carrying any weapons during this encounter...

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I had an excellent meal at the new Roadhouse Grill in Everett Saturday evening. Amazing service and phenomenal food, A little expensive but well worth it. I was OC'ing my Sig and the only comment I got was from the waiter delivering my food who asked about ordering a 357 mag from my shop. (apparently recognised me ) They bring you a bucket of peanuts when you place you order and you get to toss the shells on the floor ( more fun than it wouldseem ) my meal arrived in record time and was one of the finest meals I have had in a while. May be a good location for the next lunch.

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You guys really need to take a group photo or something so I know these things really go on.

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Actually, we did, in fact, get "kicked out of Dennys".

[snippage] one of the group had already departed. Then, Ryan, the manager came over andtoldLonnie (and just Lonnie, even though we were all carrying) that he had to take 'that' (indicating the pistol) out to his car. He said that a customer had complained and that "this is a family restaurant".

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Dang, missed all the fun.

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just_a_car wrote:

expvideo wrote:

compmanio365 wrote:

OK, you know, if this can't be figured out until the last minute, this is not going to work....we need to lock something down ahead of time, because now all the sudden, it has gone from 3 to 5 PM, which is just too late for me to drive all the way to Bellevue and back since I have to be at work tomorrow. It gets a little old to have plans all made and you plan your weekend around showing up, and then at the last second everything changes. People waste their time and money driving to the wrong place or showing at the wrong time. If we can't hammer these lunches down to a time and place at least by mid week before the lunch, then I don't think many people will be able to make it, because it just gets crazy trying to reschedule everything at the last minute. I know I won't, and I won't waste my time and money trying.

Click to expand...

That's a good point. Why don't we just keep it at 3 and if people are late, then people are late. It's not like they're going to kick us out of dennys. Next time we can have some more solid plans, but there's no point planning if the plan changes all the time, so let's just keep the 3:00 time and if people want to hang around for the late arrivals then it would be nice. Besides, I'm sure we'd all like to see you again

Click to expand...

Actually, we did, in fact, get "kicked out of Dennys".

We had all been there for about 2 hours and had finished meals (I arrived late at about 4pm) and one of the group had already departed. Then, Ryan, the manager came over andtoldLonnie (and just Lonnie, even though we were all carrying) that he had to take 'that' (indicating the pistol) out to his car. He said that a customer had complained and that "this is a family restaurant". The crappy thing is that I had been there the night before with him on as manager and he knows me well as an upstanding customer.

As we were leaving, the waitress, Sheri, who was very nice to us and gave good service apologized about us getting booted and said that Ryan wasn't even on the clock for another 15 minutes.

I am whole-heartily disappointed, as I've always had good relations with Ryan and have frequented that Denny's for months almost every Saturday evening/Sunday morning. I'm hoping that Lonnie's, my own, and any of the other gentlemen that send in complaints to the regional manager receive an apology or at the very least a retraction of the 'banning' of guns by the manager. As a side-note, there was no such signage to indicate such a policy at the entrance; I know, I've checked multiple times in the past.

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So contact Ryan's boss and find out why he is taking action with customer when he's not on the clock. Since he would have no authority to do so and would beinterferring with the on duty managers job. Seems simple to me.

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I think a letter to the franchise owner, with copy to management staff is in order.

I would bring up the legality of OC along with the future lost business from several regular customers as opposed to the whim of a single customer wanting to deny legal rights.

Be polite and recognize the right of the property owner, but at the same time firm in asserting your right of patronage to another restaurant.

Jim

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Agent 47 wrote:

I had an excellent meal at the new Roadhouse Grill in Everett Saturday evening. Amazing service and phenomenal food, A little expensive but well worth it. I was OC'ing my Sig and the only comment I got was from the waiter delivering my food who asked about ordering a 357 mag from my shop. (apparently recognised me ) They bring you a bucket of peanuts when you place you order and you get to toss the shells on the floor ( more fun than it wouldseem ) my meal arrived in record time and was one of the finest meals I have had in a while. May be a good location for the next lunch.

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I too have OC'd there and CC'd there and had no issue. The food is dern good too! I love their Southwest Eggrolls; spicy, but very flavorful.

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G27 wrote:

You guys really need to take a group photo or something so I know these things really go on.

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Well, I brought my camera, but didn't take a photo as we pretty much dispersed after being booted.

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I have a more sinister theory to all of this: There was no complaint.

Why?

About two minutes before we were booted, we were being solicited by someone to buy fruit snacks. He basically placed it on our table. I handled it back to him, annoyed that we were being solicited like that while enjoying our meal. I went to our server, Shari, and I told her about the guy. She stated that a manager would be there in a moment.

Just as I thought he was going to apologize for not catching the guy doing it before (that is very annoying), he looked at me, he looked at my gun, and then looked at me again, and then told me that spiel.

I pretty much knew at that point that he was lying, and I demanded the district managers name and number. It was on the reciept.

At that point we had already ate, and I wasn't about to punish Shari for what Ryan did (apparently in that particular chain, if someone walks out, Shari as our server has to pay it out of pocket or be terminated).

I will be writing a letter to Paul, I'll post it on here, and I'll get everyones names who want to file a complaint. Probably may involve "expose" of Dennys, perhaps a review of any health inspection violations would do the trick.

To me, Ryan is a liar and he needs to be terminated from his job. Btw, because he is a management employee, he is on salary, and though there are "core hours" that he must be there, he is considered on the clock all of the time while on his company property.

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compmanio365 is correct, we need to be more on the ball about getting a place figured out as soon as possible.

For next month, I will not be in town the third saturday or sunday, so I have no particular preferences. I have some suggested places (Olympia or Bellingham considering the incidents there) but I leave that up the folks willing to make such a trip. Olympia has Cabelas opening up.

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Lonnie Wilson wrote:

At that point we had already ate, and I wasn't about to punish Shari for what Ryan did (apparently in that particular chain, if someone walks out, Shari as our server has to pay it out of pocket or be terminated).

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If this is the case, Denny's is violating State Law. I don't have a reference handy since it's been MANY years since I did any retail / food service work. I'll see if I can find it, but that may be difficult... as I beleive it's in a WAC and not a RCW.

If you work in a retail store and someone shoplifts, it isn't taken out of your paycheck (is it?). It's the same thing!


EDIT TO ADD

296-126-025 WAC

(3) An employer can deduct wages from an employee's final paycheck for the reasons in (a), (b), (c), and (d) of this subsection, but only when these incidents have occurred in the final pay period. An employer may not deduct wages from the final paycheck for incidents that occurred in previous pay periods under (a) through (d) of this subsection. None of the deductions contained in this subsection may reduce the employee's final gross wages below the state minimum wage that is in effect at the time the work is performed.

(a) For acceptance of a bad check or credit card, if it can be shown that the employee accepted the check or credit card in violation of procedures previously made known to the employee by the employer; or

(b) For any cash shortage from a cash register, drawer or portable depository provided for that purpose, if it can be shown that the employee has sole access to the cash and has participated in the cash accounting at the beginning of the employee's shift and again at the end of said shift; or

(c) For any cash shortage, walkout (failure of customer to pay), breakage, or loss of equipment, if it can be shown that the shortage, walkout, breakage or loss was caused by a dishonest or willful act of the employee; or

(d) Deductions taken due to alleged employee theft are permissible only if it can be shown that the employee's intent was to deprive and that the employer filed a police report.

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I was told by a friend last night that Ryan thought I was upset last he saw me (when we were there) and wanted to chat with me at my convenience.

I decided to take him up on his offer to talk and went over there as I would normally do (but had originally decided not to) on Saturday nights. I walked in and said hello and "So I heard you wanted to chat." and we stepped out to the lobby area.

He explained to me that he didn't intend to imply that he was kicking us or Lonnie out. I explained to him that the options that he gave of either concealing it or taking out to the car were unacceptable options to us, so we assumed that he meant we weren't welcome. He told me that he was a CPL-holder and that Bellevue police had told him that if you had a CPL that you were required to conceal. He said he spoke with the General Manager of the store, his boss, and said that the GM told him he would've just called the cops but that because he was a CPL-holder/gun-owner that he wanted to try to work it out.

After a long discussion he said that if we ever wanted to come back, he'd be willing to compromise and instead of putting us dead-center in the floor again, he could sit us over by the kitchen (which is where my other big group sometimes gets sat at) so that there's less chance of a complaint, but I got the impression that he still feels that complaints equait toasking to conceal or put in the car. He did also state that he thought that complaints from 5 families to other potential customers about guys with guns would hurt business more than complaints from a bunch of guys with guns and that the complaints from the guys with guns about getting kicked out would even potentially bring in people/business due to wanting to frequent somewhere that doesn't allow firearms.

I still intend on bringing him the RCW's and training bulletins (probably next Saturday evening) and talking with him a bit more about it. Thing is, he is a reasonable guy and always has been to me. Honestly, Lonnie, you kind of blew-up on him. I'm not sure if you were having a bad day, but the way you handled it wasn't the "diplomatic and polite" way that Dave Workman mentioned in his WAC article. I have to think you were tired or had something on your mind, because from what I know of you, it seemed a bit harsher than what I was used to from you; at least from my perspective.

Anyways, he did state we were welcome back, but I think it will take a little more chatting with him to bring him fully-over to being accepting of OC. I'll do my best, but after talking with him, I'm not going to place them on the Watch List.

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complaints from the guys with guns about getting kicked out would even potentially bring in people/business due to wanting to frequent somewhere that doesn't allow firearms.

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Wow--let's see, how did that work out for the folks in Luby's Restaurant?

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kparker wrote:

complaints from the guys with guns about getting kicked out would even potentially bring in people/business due to wanting to frequent somewhere that doesn't allow firearms.

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Wow--let's see, how did that work out for the folks in Luby's Restaurant?

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Oh, I forgot to mention he also said there had been quite a few shootings in Denny's restaurants (such as many in Ballard and one whereone cop shot someone in Totem Lake after his partner told him to put his gun on the table) and that it made people uneasy about guns in Denny's. I told him that was just the more reason why resposible gun owners should carry in a Denny's.

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More business from people who don't want to be around guns? And just how is he going to advertise that little tidbit? Is he going to put up a sign saying they're not a firearms friendly environment?

Hell's Bells™ I don't like being around drunken fools with car keys. But I still go to my local Denny's. And you'll find a lot more drunks with car keys there than you'll ever see people lawfully carrying.