Super Bowl Meltdown

I wasn’t quite referring to anything that happen in Super Bowl XLII but more so the event that was unraveling before my eyes on Super Bowl Sunday.

So, I’m at the Lighthouse Tavern in Brooklyn with my friends and we’re enjoying Super Bowl XLII on the big screen.

Enter the cook of the establishment.

The cook (a short white woman) was upset that a patron (a black woman sitting next to me) had left the establishment and bought some Indian food and brought it back into the bar and ate it. Now, the black woman’s contention (I wasn’t there for the whole thing to take sides) is that she ordered food from the bar at 5:30 p.m. when she arrived and it was close to 7 p.m. and her food still didn’t arrive at her table yet. She said she went to speak with someone at the bar and someone at the bar gave her a refund. However, she was still hungry and decided to get food.

The cook wasn’t having any of that explanation. She told the black woman it was rude and blatantly disrespectful to bring outside food into someone’s establishment. She asked the black woman if she was finished with her food yet (so she could throw it away) and the black woman said no I’m not finished (with a slight attitude).

The cook gives her the evil eye and snatches some other trash from the table. She goes over to another table to clean up and then disappeared. About five minutes later, a white guy (a server at the restaurant) comes over to the table and all hell almost broke loose.

The server comes out and said the manager said that the black woman had to leave if she wasn’t going to throw out her food or if she wasn’t going to buy any more drinks or food from the establishment. Somehow the argument (which went on for almost 20 minutes) escalated to the server saying EVERYONE at this woman’s table now had to leave…no matter if they were still ordering food or drinks.

Now, I got up from the table after he uttered those words and moved to the next table. I wasn’t leaving because I did nothing wrong and I already bought two drinks and some chicken fingers and french fries. I was driving home and I never have more than two alcoholic drinks when I’m driving. Throughout this ordeal, the server was blocking my view of the big screen and I couldn’t take any more yelling from him in my left ear and the woman next to me in my right ear. I didn’t really know these people and I didn’t know if punches would be thrown and didn’t have enough cash on me for bail money. So, I wasn’t getting involved in any pending melee.

The standoff began. The guy demanded the woman leave. The woman said she wasn’t leaving. The organizer of the party, a woman, and some other woman intervened like they were peacekeepers on a United Nations tour in a war ravaged country. I rolled my eyes and said under my breath “that this will not end well.”

Well, I was wrong. The organizer and the other woman somehow talked the server out of kicking the woman out. The woman apologized and server apologized and “all was good in the hood again.”

Now, when the whole situation started the Patriots were winning and when it ended the Giants were winning. Now, I’m not one to invoke conspiracy theories but this whole situation slightly tainted what was an enjoyable experience.

The server did come back out with several bottles of champagne once the Giants had won and started pouring freely to anyone that wanted a sip. It was a nice goodwill gesture to make sure no one went home unhappy. However, it was too late for me even though I wasn’t directly involved in the argument. The damage was already done. I will never visit the Lighthouse Tavern in Brooklyn again.