Georgia Health Department Stops Restaurant from Selling Food Over Ridiculous Food Scale Technicality
Matt Travis
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Due to the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent actions by states and local municipalities, many restaurants have been greatly impacted. It’s estimated by the National Restaurant Association that 11% of restaurants will close their doors permanently.
Piedmont Brewery & Kitchen in Georgia is no exception to this economic impact, so they got creative at finding ways to maximize their sales during these uncertain times. But it didn’t take long for some disgruntled customer and the nanny state to ruin the fun.
Like pretty much all restaurants in Georgia, Piedmont Brewery & Kitchen is not allowed to open its doors for customers to dine in, but can do takeout and delivery.
Takeout and delivery orders help to keep some of their employees working, but they knew they could create more revenue (and help more of their employees) by offering additional services.
Having brainstormed, Piedmont Brewery & Kitchen came up with the idea to not only sell their menu items, but also sell unprepped food and other goods.
In an instagram post on March 25th, they explained the details:
We would like to let you know that our curbside delivery and home/office delivery sales allow for a portion of our staff to remain employed, which in turn allows them to take care of their families, as well….
In the mean time, we have continued to look for ways to maximize our sales while continuing to offer curbside and home/office delivery. Since we are already buying high quality food and disposable items we thought why not offer it to the public….
If you want to buy something this is what you will do:
#1- Call 478-254-BEER (2337) to place your order….
#2- when you arrive at your designated pick up time, please call us again to let us know you are out front.
#3- a server will bring you a receipt in order to collect payment.
#4- upon completion of payment the server will bring your order to you at curbside.
By Piedmont Brewery & Kitchen offering this service, they not only helps there employees, but also promote social distancing.
First, they’re giving detailed instructions to their customers, so as to not create confusion and ease anxiety. Second, and most importantly, they were telling customers to stay in there car.
Both of these create a safe enviornement for everyone in this time of uncertainty.
Unfortunately, just ten days later, they had to write another Instagram post informing customers that they had to stop the recently added service option.
Your daily Mercantile Update is a sad one. As of today the program is suspended.
You see, apparently someone here in town called the Department of Health to tell them that we were breaking rules because we were not using a “for legal trade” scale for the items that we were selling by the pound. That part is true, our scales are not for legal trade because we don’t need scales that are legal trade for our regular business model.
Well, rules are rules and we always do our best to comply. We looked into buying a “for legal trade” scale but the long and cumbersome process to get it certified didn’t make sense given the temporary nature of our Mercantile program….
This is a real shame because the program was promoting social distancing by helping people avoid the grocery stores. But most importantly, the PBK Mercantile program was providing 1-2 extra jobs for our employees during this tough time. So, congrats unhappy person…….you shut down a great program….
This is a perfect example of how the nanny state, combined with (as Piedmont Brewery says) an “unhappy person” or busybody actually make us less safe and cost people their jobs.
And, this is why we must stop reporting people for petty things like this or calling the police on someone fishing alone or taking a drive. It’s not only unhelpful, but can cost both the health and livelihoods of real people.
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