Should restaurants be relaxed, should they try to enforce dress codes, or is there room for both? That’s a question prompted by one reader’s recent experience at a Davidson restaurant. Also below, Campania Cafe now has a full liquor license and it’s celebrating with martini specials. Slow Food Charlotte has a soft-shell crab dinner in the works. And don’t forget the Soul Food Festival this weekend at Rural Hill.
DRESS CODE QUESTIONS
We had a note from an unhappy reader the other day who says she was given a hard time by a local restaurateur over her footwear. The name of the restaurant isn’t that important, but the question is: Should restaurants here try to enforce dress codes?
We live in an area where “lake living” is the rule, and shorts and flip flops are commonplace. For most restaurants, that’s not an issue. But some restaurants try to adhere to a few minimum standards. And when they try to enforce them, it can be jarring for diners.
The reader who raised this question was out with her husband went around 5:30 p.m. on a recent Saturday, both clad in shorts, she in a pair of pricey sandals. There were few diners in the restaurant. “The owner looked at me and said, ‘We are going to begin enforcing our no flip-flop policy.’ I guess my shoes flopped, but I don’t consider them 99-cent plastic flips.”
The restaurant owner “offered to let me get by this one time,” she wrote. But she said the couple’s romantic dinner was already ruined. They went to another nearby eatery, where they dined, no questions asked.
“My shoes are acceptable for River Run Country Club and every other Davidson restaurant … but not this one,” she wrote.
She admits the restaurant does have a no-flip-flops sign. But she wonders if the policy is being enforced too tightly?
What do you think about restaurant dress codes? Add a comment below.
NEWS AND NOTES
- Campania Cafe & Trattoria in South Main Square now has a full liquor license. They’re celebrating with $5 martinis on Tuesdays. (Regular prices are $7 to $9.) The menu ranges from the Blood Orange (orange vodka, Campari and orange juice) to Bellini (peach Bellini and vodka) to Che Parigi “French” martini (vanilla vodka, Chambord and pineapple juice). The restaurant, which also now has a small bar, also offers a variety of other cocktails, beers and wines. Campania also has Friday afternoon parties on the porch, with guitarists Scotti Benge (this Friday) and Clyde Derberry alternating weeks.
- Owners Chris and Christina Phillips of Restaurant X in South Main Square are taking the holiday weekend off. The restaurant will be closed Saturday to Monday, July 2-4.
- Slow Food Charlotte is hosting a “Soft Shell Crab Night” on Saturday, July 9, with chef Joe Bonaparte, featuring dozens of “North Carolina’s scantily clad and maddeningly delicious soft shell crabs.” The event is 7-10 p.m., and is limited to 25 people – with members first. If you’re a member, RSVP to thom@slowfoodcharlotte.org. If not, find out more about the organization and how to join at slowfoodcharlotte.org.
SOUL FOOD AT RURAL HILL
The seemingly never-ending parade of fun at Rural Hill in Huntersville continues Saturday, July 2, with the 2nd annual Soul Food Festival, an evening of soul food and soul music. Organizers describe it as “an inviting event that highlights the aroma of traditional soul food cooking in the air while bringing together families & friends in an outdoor social setting for a day of reunion, information and live national award winning entertainment.”
Performers include Cameo, Barkays, After 7, Dazz Band, SWV, and Confunkshun.
Gates open at 5 p.m., and the music begins at 7 p.m. Rural Hill is on Neck Road, off Beatties Ford Road, Huntersville. More info: ilovesoulfood.com or RuralHill.net. The event is organized by The Kinfolks Foundation, INC and Dayson Company, LLC.
HAVE NEWS?
Dining News appears Wednesdays on this page on both DavidsonNews.net and CorneliusNews.net. Have restaurant or dining news? Send it to editor@davidsonnews.net
It’s the restaurant’s business, and a marketing decision. Clearly, they lost a customer that night, but their sign was a hint. Personally, having gone to an upscale restaurant in Birkdale last week (entree prices $25+), only to be seated near one guy in sandals with his bottle of water lying on the carpet next to him, another in a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, I can appreciate that when you want to dress it up a notch, you prefer to be able to find a place where others do as well. I’ll be checking out restaurant windows locally and will patronize the place in this article, if I can identify it.
I don’t see why this should be ‘jarring’ for diners. The restaurant had a sign that said no flip flops. And what does the cost of the flip flops have to do with it? How is a restaurant supposed to police that? This was supposed to be a “romantic” dinner … at 5:30 in the afternoon … wearing shorts and flip flops?
As a long time member of River Run Country Club, I can say that there are many violations of any sense of appropriate dress that are not addressed for fear of offending the member.
In short, restaurants have a right to try to enforce a minimum level of appropriateness for dress in their business. Sounds like this restaurant was quite fair in simply mentioning it and not refusing them service.