Incident At Outback Steakhouse In Tarrytown, NY
I am posting this story about an incident experienced by a friend of mine mainly for comic value, because I am not sure there are any Outback Steakhouses in Montreal or even Canada. However this may serve as a warning to American posters and consumers who eat at and patronize Outback Steakhouse. I am curious about whether any of you have ever seen or experienced anything like this in a commercial eating establishment.
My friend and his wife went to dinner a few weeks ago at the Outback Steakhouse in Tarrytown, NY which is not far from the New York-Connecticut border. My friend is kind of a squeamish and high strung guy, so if you knew him it would make the story even funnier.
Evidently his wife treated him to dinner at Outback Steakhouse at my friend's request, after he had begged off the chance to eat at a much higher end restaurant which I have eaten at (Equus at the Castle on the Hudson, which is ranked the #26 restaurant in the USA by Zagat). They arrived at Outback at peak hour on a Saturday night and the place was packed. After they ordered dinner, my friend and his wife heard a commotion from another part of the restaurant. It was a kid who worked at Outback, whom my buddy described as "some zit faced 18 year old punk" that was running after someone or something. The kid yelled "I got him" as he ran in the direction of my friend's table. As my friend and his wife looked up, they saw that the kid was running after a mouse scurrying on the floor towards their table. With my friend and his wife looking on in horror, the kid caught up with the mouse, then furiously stomped his foot down on it, crushing the mouse, and splattering blood and mouse guts everywhere on the floor near their table, with mouse blood and guts just missing my friend's shoes. Both my friend and his wife were mortified! My friend told me he thought it was extremely cruel to kill the mouse in this manner, and he was disgusted by the sight of a crushed rodent near his dinner table. He and his wife eventually left the restaurant. Before they left, they were not offered an apology, a free dinner or even an explanation or acknowledgment of the grisly incident that unfolded right next to their dinner table.
I told another friend this story and he had a different take. He said that Outback should have done everything within its power to kill a mouse scurrying around the dining room for all customers to see, and disagreed with my friend that it was "cruel and unusual" punishment to have killed the mouse in this manner.
What is your take on this? Has anyone had anything like this happen to them in a resto in Montreal?