Cracker Barrel Boycott

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Depending on the community sending the needy to rear of the restaurant may not be good business practice. Word can get around among the needy folks and they may start loitering around the establishment.
 
roadfix said:
Depending on the community sending the needy to rear of the restaurant may not be good business practice. Word can get around among the needy folks and they may start loitering around the establishment.
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Agreed. If I was an Owner or manager, I would not want to encourage loitering around my establishment. I would be willing to provide donations to a homeless shelter or kitchen, but I better not catch my employees giving away MY product.
 
PrincessFiona60 said:
Agreed. If I was an Owner or manager, I would not want to encourage loitering around my establishment. I would be willing to provide donations to a homeless shelter or kitchen, but I better not catch my employees giving away MY product.
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We have that problem here with a lot of the Dunkin' Donuts. It is all old men, they get a cup of coffee, take up what few tables there are and then when management says something to them, they go outside and sit on the side of the building drinking their coffee. We call them the coffee brigade. The one down the square has a worse problem. Druggies hang out there. Every morning around eight a.m. the cops come and arrest them all. Just in time for them to appear in court and spend a few days in the hoosegow. Then they are back. DD now has a cop stationed inside the store and stops them even before they get in the door. There is a park across the street where they used to sleep at night. My part of Boston is not the only place with this problem. DD seems to draw all the undesirables. The drive-thrus' don't seem to have this problem. No parking, no inside service.
 
Okay, I hadn't considered the problems of giving food at the back entrance. It's just really sad that this is how people/companies have to deal with the inconvenience of hunger and homelessness.
 
I read through all the replies here, and thank you for saying I was kind.

Maybe it was theft, and I am sure many of you are right about it being theft. I'm also a veteran, retired Army, but my veteran status had nothing to do with helping that little lady.

She could be me someday. You never know what life will throw at you, know what I mean?

I hope Joe has learned a lesson and I'm sure he'll find another job and take this lesson with him. Next time, he should tell the person he wants to help what time he gets off and arrange a meeting place. Then he should buy that person what he needs, and there wouldn't be a problem.
 
Addie said:
We have that problem here with a lot of the Dunkin' Donuts. It is all old men, they get a cup of coffee, take up what few tables there are and then when management says something to them, they go outside and sit on the side of the building drinking their coffee. We call them the coffee brigade. The one down the square has a worse problem. Druggies hang out there. Every morning around eight a.m. the cops come and arrest them all. Just in time for them to appear in court and spend a few days in the hoosegow. Then they are back. DD now has a cop stationed inside the store and stops them even before they get in the door. There is a park across the street where they used to sleep at night. My part of Boston is not the only place with this problem. DD seems to draw all the undesirables. The drive-thrus' don't seem to have this problem. No parking, no inside service.
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We had similar problems with a couple of fast food restaurants where you bought a cup and then served your own unlimited ice and soda. Both restaurants eventually removed the self serve dispensers to discourage the "squatters".
 
taxlady said:
Okay, I hadn't considered the problems of giving food at the back entrance. It's just really sad that this is how people/companies have to deal with the inconvenience of hunger and homelessness.
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We have food banks and soup kitchens that provide food for the needy, as well as government programs and non-profit organizations that try to deal with homelessness. It's an ongoing problem.
 
GotGarlic said:
We have food banks and soup kitchens that provide food for the needy, as well as government programs and non-profit organizations that try to deal with homelessness. It's an ongoing problem.
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Yes, we have ways that we try to alleviate hunger and homelessness, but most of them aren't working all that well. I was talking about how we deal with the inconvenience to the rest of us. I personally don't enjoy having to walk around a bunch of smelly homeless people when I'm trying to go into a store or resto or walk past some slightly out of the way place that stinks of urine. It's unpleasant and inconvenient.

Not giving handouts at a resto is not the worst way I've heard of to deal with that inconvenience. There are places where they put spikes in places the homeless want to sit or sleep. In the Montreal Metro (subway) stations, most of the benches are designed to be impossible to sleep on.

Here's an interesting solution to homelessness that seems to be working: The Most Unlikely State in America Is On Track to Eradicate Homelessness By 2015 - Mic
 
And then there is the problem of the chronic homeless folks. They don't want to sleep inside. Even in the dead of winter when the temps are below 0ºF. We have what we call the "Waffle People." They find grates that are over the release valves of the underground steam pipes. They sleep on them in the winter to stay warm. When they get up, the grate is imprinted on their face. Some of the chronic folks will go down into the subway and find their way down where only the workers go to get supplies, etc. Or the trains go for their turnaround. They actually live there. Around the clock. I can't describe what it is like. It would make you sick. :angel:
 
CharlieD said:
The sad thing is that all these restaurants/bakeries always have leftovers that are usually donated to charities or worse yet dumped into garbage.
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I heard the Panera Bread removes all left over bread EVERY night and gives it to the needy. Actually its in their commercial on TV.
Great idea and more restaurants should do the same thing!
I gotta try PB.

Kayelle said:
Who cares about this guys age or background, he simply gave away something that wasn't his to give, apparently on several occasions after being warned. Done deal, you loose your job.
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I agree.
Much is made about veterans, that is not deserved. I do appreciate the job they did or are doing for the country. Buts lets be honest. The US military is 100% voluntary. Not like it was during the Vietnam war.
The folks serving today have made this choice, just like I made the choice to work in my industry over 40 years ago. My job was dangerous too. Maybe not "war like" dangerous, but dangerous none the less.
Sometimes I think we put to much emphasis on the hero role.
Seems a guy cannot come home from the military without a news story about it.
Just because you picked a military career or served in the military does not make you any more of an American than the guy picking up the trash.
 
Roll_Bones said:
I heard the Panera Bread removes all left over bread EVERY night and gives it to the needy. Actually its in their commercial on TV.
Great idea and more restaurants should do the same thing!
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Yes they do, and not just bread. I know that for fact.
 
Roll_Bones said:
I heard the Panera Bread removes all left over bread EVERY night and gives it to the needy. Actually its in their commercial on TV.
Great idea and more restaurants should do the same thing!
I gotta try PB.
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The hard part is finding an organization to pick it up on a regular basis. This is something that we have issues with in the grocery store that I work in. Most of these are staffed by volunteers and it can be back breaking work picking up all of this food, and on a day like today with heat index over 100, it has to be a miserable job. These people that do this job are amazing and I have a huge amount of respect for them. Right now our pickups are very inconsistent with Wednesdays being the only day that we know that it will be picked up. We usually hang on to it until noon, or longer if they give us a call. We have limited space to work so having this food hanging around is kind of a pain. These organizations are very understaffed and just getting out there to pick stuff up is quite a trick (we have a TON of grocery stores in this area).
 
bakechef said:
The hard part is finding an organization to pick it up on a regular basis. This is something that we have issues with in the grocery store that I work in. Most of these are staffed by volunteers and it can be back breaking work picking up all of this food, and on a day like today with heat index over 100, it has to be a miserable job. These people that do this job are amazing and I have a huge amount of respect for them. Right now our pickups are very inconsistent with Wednesdays being the only day that we know that it will be picked up. We usually hang on to it until noon, or longer if they give us a call. We have limited space to work so having this food hanging around is kind of a pain. These organizations are very understaffed and just getting out there to pick stuff up is quite a trick (we have a TON of grocery stores in this area).
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At least, your company is trying. More than most can say. I thank you on behalf of all those folks that might go hungry!
 
A friend of mine breeds sulcata tortoises. I met him to pick up feeders once and he had several boxes of vegis in the back of his truck. Thinking he might belong to a combine, I inquired about it. He said that the vegis weren't from a combine but some of the leftovers he picked up from a produce packer. These were bound for the sulcatas, but they were the quality of which I would take home. He said he would call and ask if they had any leftovers. They usually had several hundred pounds of perfectly good produce leftover each day during the harvest. His only expense was going and picking them up. The rest were bound for the trash/compost pile. When he asked about food banks/soup kitchens, they told him they are welcome to them, but can't be bothered to pick them up. The only condition to get these quality, fresh vegis, they must pick them up. It burns me up when I here these groups asking for money to feed people.:mad:
 
CrazyCatLady said:
I read through all the replies here, and thank you for saying I was kind.

Maybe it was theft, and I am sure many of you are right about it being theft. I'm also a veteran, retired Army, but my veteran status had nothing to do with helping that little lady.

She could be me someday. You never know what life will throw at you, know what I mean?

I hope Joe has learned a lesson and I'm sure he'll find another job and take this lesson with him. Next time, he should tell the person he wants to help what time he gets off and arrange a meeting place. Then he should buy that person what he needs, and there wouldn't be a problem.
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He could have rung it up as a sale and put the money in out of his pocket. I doubt if the company would have found fault with that.
 
We should all give when and where we can but it should be clear that it is ours to give. I'm not going to boycott Cracker Barrel because they employed a thief. No veteran that I know wants "thief" added to their resume.
 
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