Early in her career in the restaurant and bar industry, Felicia Lundquist’s boss said something to her that — unlike his earlier rude comments — she just couldn’t brush off.
On that night, Lundquist and a few co-workers were wrapping up their shift. She went into the kitchen, where her boss was sipping a cocktail, to put some glasses in the dishwasher. As he stood by the sinks, she bent over to put a glass rack in the dishwasher. She heard him remark on her “sexy” behind.
Lundquist, now 36, said she turned around and asked, “What was that?” She told the supervisor she didn’t appreciate his comment and that she didn’t want that kind of attention from him. He insisted it was a compliment, she recalled.
“I felt really devalued that he saw me as a sex symbol instead of a valued employee,” Lundquist told the Advocate while tending bar at a Hadley restaurant and bar, The Quarters. She said at her current job, she hasn’t had any problems with sexual harassment. At the earlier job, she said she didn’t want to let the behavior go “uninterrupted” and filed a written complaint with restaurant management. Her boss stopped making inappropriate remarks.
Women working in the restaurant industry say such stories are all too common.
November was a big month for news of sexual harassment in the Valley’s service industry. The topic — which has historically been swept under the rug — reared its ugly head as a dozen former servers lambasted the Route 9 Diner in Hadley for poor handling of sexual harassment reports. Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed by former Club Castaway bartender Cara Lyn “Boo” Crnic alleging sexual harassment and assault by the Whately club’s owner had its day in court.
According to a survey conducted by the University of Massachusetts Amherst Labor Center, at least 15 percent of local restaurant workers — servers, bartenders, cooks, and counter staff — reported experiencing sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is just one of the topics the survey addresses.
Clare Hammonds, a UMass researcher on the project, said it was difficult to uncover incidents of harassment while conducting survey interviews. Many of the 200 people who participated initially said they weren’t ever harassed, Hammonds said. But when asked about whether they had experienced catcalling or other specific types of harassment on the job, many said that yes, they had experienced sexual harassment.
“It is such a power dynamic, which shapes the relationship between employers and workers,” Hammonds said. She added that sexual harassment was far more prominent among respondents who reported working for tips.
In the industry, people often refer to the “tough skin” necessary to survive. Servers who thrive in the industry and make a career of it learn how to deflect or outright shoot down unwanted sexual attention from customers and coworkers — the sooner the better. Iline Logan, a bartender at MRKT Restaurant in South Deerfield who has worked at a number of local restaurants, said the type of person who does well in the serving industry is brought up to be assertive, to take care of herself.
“I know how to say, ‘Hey you’ve crossed the line,’ but not everybody was raised like I was,” Logan said.
And not everyone recognizes when they’re being sexually degraded. As a longtime server and bartender myself, I remember when I first began working in restaurants at the tender age of 16, just about nine year ago. Early on, when I was working as a busser at an eclectic restaurant and music venue in the Berkshires, I was lovingly dubbed ATB by a customer at the bar. I was told the acronym stood for “Amanda the Busser.”
I, of course, believed that’s what it meant and was proud to have earned a nickname on the team. Years later, after the name had stuck, I was informed that the acronym had originally stood for “Amanda the Buster,” in reference to my bust size. Though I continued to accept my nickname as a show of affection — and some still use the name nine years later — I still think about that initiation into the highly sexualized restaurant world and how it has undoubtedly helped shape me into the person I am today. Being young and trusting, I’d get pushed around by kitchen staff and nearly dragged onto the tour buses of performing musicians. I always look for the good in people, but at that job my eyes opened to the not-so-rosy reality. Fortunately, the older women I worked with taught me how to guard myself from unwanted sexual attention. I left for college a couple years later significantly more street smart.
For many people in the industry, sexual harassment is simply considered part of the job — but it doesn’t have to be that way. Brook Frye, a server at Bistro Les Gras, said she has been working in restaurants on and off for 15 years and that her current job is one of the few places she has worked where management understands the difference between joking around and harassment.
“In most places I’ve worked at I’ve experienced it in some form,” Frye said.
Frye said the management sets the tone and that it happens less frequently in more professional establishments. Though she didn’t want to get specific because of the inherently humiliating nature of it, she recalled how one owner at a previous restaurant made a wildly inappropriate comment during the middle of a busy dinner service, causing her to force back tears at her tables.
“Inappropriate, disrespectful remarks create a demoralizing work environment,” Frye said. “And it’s a scary, unstable job inherently — you’re already at the liberty of what other people think you should get paid. You’re less protected.”
Frye said that she’s never addressed harassment as it happens. When owners and managers have been inappropriate, she said it’s been hard to acknowledge in the moment and afterward she never wanted to rock the boat. As far as customers being inappropriate, she said working for tips sometimes entails her compromising her sense of personal ethics and holding her tongue when she would rather not.
“It’s hard to draw the line,” Frye said. “Because of the ‘customer’s always right’ mentality, you’re always questioning — you sort of doubt yourself.”
Chef Dan Martinez, who owns Bistro Les Gras in Northampton with his wife, Beth Martinez, said that he and his wife work hard to cultivate a professional environment where harassment has no place.
“If people are proud of what they’re doing, that makes a big difference,” Dan said.
“There’s a level of respect for whatever everyone’s doing,” Beth added. “We all joke around but we make sure that everyone respects each other. When you all feel a shared responsibility and a mutual respect it makes it harder to make mistakes like that.”
Dan acknowledged that sometimes the banter needs to get reined in, but that he and Beth are there everyday to ensure things run smoothly. Beth has worked front of the house since she was a teenager and manages everything on the other side of the line. She said that even in a professional environment, customers can sometimes create problems.
“Incidents with customers are kind of par for the course … which kind of said something about how people treat servers,” she said.
One former server at Amherst Brewing Company, who requested not to be named, recalled a tense atmosphere when she worked there several years ago. She said the then-manager created an environment that enabled male staff members to harass their female coworkers. She said female staffers who flirted and became intimate with the manager and his friends would land the more lucrative shifts. She said the manager often propositioned her when they were closing down the bar at night and made crude remarks about female workers’ bodies.
The Advocate attempted to reach the former manager, but could not locate him through telephone and Internet listings. John Korpita, owner of Amherst Brewing, said he fired the manager as soon as he learned of his conduct.
“Everyone’s made to know when they get hired there’s a very low tolerance for sexual harassment,” Korpita said.
The two high-profile cases — the Route 9 Diner allegations and the Club Castaway lawsuit — have brought an increased level of awareness to these long-neglected issues.
On Oct. 27, Marie Billiel, 25, published a blog post entitled “Tales from the Diner.” In the post, she recalled being dragged toward Route 9 Diner’s walk-in refrigerator after enduring continuous remarks about her body, sexual propositions and even bites and licks from kitchen workers. Though she has not worked there for two years, she decided that, as her little sister’s 16th birthday fast approached, she wanted to stand up and be a role model for her sister and for women everywhere.
“I felt like I had to start talking about it, break the culture of silence,” Billiel said in an interview.
In response to the initial blog post, more than a dozen former Route 9 Diner servers blogged about their experiences of harassment. Chris Karabetsos, co-owner of the diner, declined to comment on the accuracy of the allegations but said he and partner Archie Sideris have implemented new policies surrounding sexual harassment, have brought in certified prevention trainers and have hired local lawyer Elizabeth Dineen to conduct an ongoing investigation of harassment at the diner. He said the negative publicity has hurt his current employees, who he refers to as their “biggest defenders.”
While Billiel has experienced a flood of support, another local woman found no such support in a court of law. Crnic’s legal claim of harassment by Castaway owner Demetrios “Jimmy the Greek” Konstantopoulos was denied in court last month.
In an interview, Crnic alleged that the club owner repeatedly grabbed her breasts, reached between her legs and grabbed her hard enough to leave bruises. She said he would become enraged when she told him to stop and would storm away, calling her a “stupid (expletive).”
A jury rejected the allegations againt Konstantopoulos after his attorney pointed out inconsistencies in Crnic’s account, claiming her lawsuit was financially motivated.
Crnic said the two weeks of court were brutal and she was crushed by the outcome. “They took my reputation,” said Crnic. “They took my sense of self. And Jimmy had already taken my dignity and self-respect.”
Konstantopoulos did not return calls requesting comment.
Barton Gage, 34, who works with Lundquist as The Quarters’ bar manager, said he’s glad more women are speaking up about harassment in the industry and he’s trying to be supportive. Gage grew up in restaurants — his father was a chef — and began working in them as a busser as soon as he was old enough. He said it’s crucial for servers like Lundquist to speak up when they are harassed.
Lundquist said the process was terrifying and emotionally draining. At the time, she was dependent on the income bartending provided and feared she could lose her job. Still, Lundquist said she didn’t want to let the behavior go on unchallenged. She was scared to talk about what happened with her manager then just as she is nervous talking about it now — worrying that other people will judge her.
“I don’t want to be ostracized for speaking my truth,” she said. “That fear hinders people from coming out and speaking about their experiences.”•
Amanda Drane can be contacted at adrane@valleyadvocate.com.
