This is Willie. I met him outside of Bankhead Fish and Soul back in November of 2012. As I walked in, he was outside the door and asked me for a handout. I told him I wouldn’t just give him money outright, but that if he wanted to come in with me that I would buy dinner for him. 

He took me up on the offer, and while waiting in line with him, I took this portrait of him with my iPhone, and learned that he was 52 years old and from Atlanta. He had previously worked as a construction worker until a fall from a ladder badly injured his leg, making it where he couldn’t stand on it for any length of time anymore. He told me his goal for the New Year – 2013 – was to quit drinking for his mom. He openly admitted to me that he drank too much. I told him that I had at times too, and that he needed to quit not so much for his mom, but himself. He thanked me for not acting judgmental towards him when I went on my way. To me, this interaction with him that day was better than the food was, and the food was pretty freakin’ good.

I have not shared this portrait or his story till today. It was brought to mind this morning by a woman that said in a friends post on Facebook, “I will tell you the truth, I would not frequent an estaishmebt that has homeless people hanging around asking for food. Thats what soup kitchens are for.”

That comment got under my skin due to how callous she sounded. Nobody should ever feel like they’re above having everything taking away from them in a flash – and ending up homeless themselves. Homeless people are human beings too, and if you give them a chance, you might learn something about life through being decent to them.

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To give this post more context, it was brought on by a friend posting a link to this story about Cracker Barrel online. One of her friends replied to her post by writing the following:

As much as it pains me to say this: 

Bottom line it’s stealing no matter what your personal opinion is. A business is a business.. If the vet purchased the muffin, different story.

People have to understand that businesses did not get where they are by giving things away. Most company’s managenent will make decisions on the who, what, when, where, why and how in regard to charity. The employee made a decsion that was not his to make. It may not seem fair but thats business. I would be upset too if my employees made decisions such as this without consulting me or management. This can lead to other things.. First a muffin, next a salad, later an entree. And then its one employee, then two, three and more from one store, then another etc.. Cracker Barrel has a right to run their business as they see fit and remove employees from their store that may compromise their business. Cracker Barrel has representatives that make decisions on charities, not a waiters responsibility nor is it at their discretion. He over stepped his authority.

(The waiter even stated it was AGAINST) their rules but still did it. You also have to consider the precedent that will be set… 

1. More employees will engage in this behavior costing CB money.

2. CB’s will no longer be a place people will want to eat at because word spreads and the homeless conmunity will frequent that establishment knowing they can get free food. Yes the are people, but having homeless people hanging arounsd CB’s porch is not good business. I will tell you the truth, I would not frequent an estaishmebt that has homeless people hanging around asking for food. Thats what soup kitchens are for.

Her last two sentences really got to me, so I wrote a lengthy response to her:

After having waited tables at Cracker Barrel in high school and college, as I mentioned in my previous post, I feel compelled to give some added insight into the inner workings of Cracker Barrel after reading your thoughts.

First every table has biscuits and muffins brought out to them no matter what they order. Along with this, we would bring them butter, jelly, or honey to go with them. If they ask for more, we would GIVE them more. We were not supposed to be charging them for it. There was no line item for it on their bill. Of course, the company did this assuming the customers were going to order a meal, but they didn’t have to. And the waiter was still expected to treat them as well as anybody else no matter what they ordered.

Imagine going in a restaurant and getting treated like a lower form of life than the table next to you because they were able to afford and order a steak dinner, and you were not. Maybe you were just able to order a coffee to get you out of the whether for a bit, knowing they would automatically bring you some biscuits and muffins too. Should Cracker Barrel make them feel unwelcome because of that? 

Should Cracker Barrel make a customer feel unwelcome because they may not be dressed as nicely as those that are sitting at the table next to them. Would you want to be treated that way? 

Another point is that Cracker Barrel throws away LOTS — LOTS — of muffins and biscuits everyday. Those that a table hasn’t even touched – or those that have set in the bread warmer too long that are no longer considered fresh enough to serve by the companies standards. The servers aren’t expected to ask permission from the managers when it’s okay to do this, they just know when they need to be tossed, and that’s what they do. This brings me to my next point:

Companies should empower their employee’s as much as possible when it comes to customer service – within reason. Meaning, when it comes to giving a server the okay to offer an unhappy table something like free fountain drinks, tea, coffee, or even a free dessert, to calm them down and keep them happy when it is truly needed, they should. Sometimes the managers are just as busy as the servers are during rushes at restaurants, and it doesn’t make sense for a server to have to make the situation worse by taking the time to get the manager over to the table to do something that the server can likely handle themselves and before the customer has the time to get even more upset over having to wait to speak to a manager. 

This actually leads to another point when it comes to Cracker Barrel in particular. Cracker Barrel has, or had, a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Not sure if they still do. This meant, if you went in there and were not happy with your meal for any reason, the manager was supposed to comp it. 

“Comp” = Free. 

Well, there were customers that would come in there knowing of this guarantee, planing on making the most of it. THOSE were the people that were stealing. They would come in, and eat the majority of their meal, and then find something to complain about to the manager. The manager would comp their tickets due to how unhappy they seemed, then, on one occasion in particular that I remember, the group wasn’t ten feet out the door good before they started looking at each other and laughing – knowing they had just gotten a free meal. 

I can go on and on about waiting tables at Cracker Barrel. It was a real learning experience. They don’t want to put the cashier for people to pay for their food at the entrance to the gift shop leading out of the dining room area, nor did they want to put a camera there, because the company felt it showed distrust to the customers. Well, the servers aren’t expected to take their tables payment either. So, once the server gave the customer the bill, they’re are depending on the customer being honest and walking up to the cahier in the gift shop and paying as they are supposed to. One time I had a table of nice people – that were great to me – walk out without paying. Both myself and the manager on duty that afternoon got written up for that one. We did nothing wrong, yet we both got written up over Cracker Barrel’s desire to not show distrust to the customer, in a world filled with people that can’t be trusted. 

And as far this statement of yours goes:

“I will tell you the truth, I would not frequent an estaishmebt that has homeless people hanging around asking for food. Thats what soup kitchens are for.”

You should watch what you say – you could be one of those homeless people one day. Never say never. Think of the people that have lost their homes due to fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, or just the loss of a job. Maybe mental illness set in on them. 

There aren’t soup kitchens everywhere there are homeless people. But there certainly seems to be heartless people everywhere.

Something that could be really eye opening for you would be to actually invite one of those homeless people outside a restaurant in to have dinner with you one day. Talk to them – listen to what they say – and you will realize they’re a human being too.

Cracker Barrel is a Christian based company. Well, a large part of the Bible revolves around how we should treat those that are down on their luck in life – those that are less fortunate than us. So, if Cracker Barrel is truly a Christian based company they should give that employee another star on his apron for showing compassion and leadership – in a reasonable way – not fire him for it.

To be fair to Cracker Barrel, they are the cleanest restaurant I ever waited tables at, and their food is consistently good. But hearing stories like this about employees getting fired for being decent to people, knowing how they operate makes me not want to eat there at all anymore. I’m sharing all this here on my blog in hopes that Cracker Barrel will see it and consider giving Mr. Koblenzer his job back – and another star to go on his apron.