I had a terribly bad experience with this vineyard today. To the owners: even if it's a small blip in your experience running a business or in your personal life, I hope that it's enough to consider a change in habit, a change in perspective and careful consideration about how you treat others, especially your customers.
- Regardless of race, It's NOT okay to walk into a room and condescendingly approach your customers about what they should or should not be doing. It IS okay to ask them nicely.
- Regardless of race, It's NOT okay to walk away from your customers with a "you're taking up the whole place" comment and then claim it was not meant to be said negatively
- Regardless of race, it's NOT okay to tilt your head to the side, shrug your shoulders and throw your hands as if nothing was wrong when your customers are expressing how offended they feel about being treated
- Regardless of race, you shouldn't ever say out loud to your customers "We're happy to have you here BUT...." when you're embarrassed to finish that sentence
- Most importantly because of race and the fact that the color of our skin is different than yours, none of it was acceptable. And that "but" should never have been about how you judged my family when we first walked in or when you saw us from afar with our babies as you said, based on our race or the color of our skin.
- Saying "I'm sorry" and only after the fact isn't enough, even if you do truly mean it. Do better. We were happy to have visited your place at first BUT there won't be a next time. If you were truly happy to have us there today, I hope you DO BETTER next time for the next family.
Background: We reserved a 2p time slot with a very accommodating junior team member of the vineyard. We mentioned we had a large party with lots of kids. It was mentioned the restaurant was not open but we were welcome to bring our own food. All agreed.
We started with four orders of wine flights (4 wine types, $24 for the flight). The place was empty and it didn't look like many more were coming in so we took up three booths in the back area with food we brought in. Despite what was agreed upon, when the owner walked in, apparently we were still doing something wrong. Or not. And we no longer felt welcome. Hence all of the above.
Wine: not the best, but not the worst. There was one I did enjoy. Either way, I would have bought a bottle of each of the four to support local business had we not had this experience
Atmosphere: rustic on the inside. Patio / outdoor seating was available but it was too cold so we opted to stay inside. read more