It is incredibly irresponsible to remain open during a state of emergency. And websites / twitter accounts like Foobooz, etc. are only encouraging this with its incessant #openinphl celebratory tweets. Nothing is more important than people’s safety. I encourage every restaurant / bar to close and for websites to stop tracking every move and glamorizing the so-called heroes (more like morons) who choose to put everyone in imminent danger by keeping their restaurant open. And let’s get real – anyone who knows anything about the restaurant industry knows there’s no “voluntary” come to work. You either show up to work when your restaurant is open or risk losing your job.

My first thought was to answer this: “Yes. But only if they make it voluntary for employees to come to work.” But “voluntary” in the work place is always full of guilt. If your boss is saying it’s voluntary, she is saying “let’s see who cares about their job the most.”

I have worked front of the house, not in a kitchen. You are certainly more of an expert in this field than I. (I was playing devil’s advocate more than anything, to be honest. My default setting is “debate”.) That said, I don’t see why anything should be closed today for lunch. As tonight approaches, and this thing gets more and more serious, I understand the concern.

Most of the small businesses in my neighborhood are open today – and, for the most part, they are staffed by the owners or managers. I think there is a huge difference between a large restaurant or business forcing employees to come in and small business owners’ willingness to stay open to serve the neighborhood and try to limit the financial hit – especially if power outages force them to be closed in coming days.

As a bar owner, when I say that it’s voluntary to come to work, I truly mean it. I will work on my own. My concern is more for the customers who choose to come in and drink. I don’t really like the idea of setting drunk people out on the street in the thick of the storm. It is irresponsible and potentially dangerous. Personally, I think if you stay open past 10pm tonight, you are putting profits before people.

The reason why people are urged to stay home is to not put emergency personnel in more danger should they need to rescue your butt. Use your brain.

Johnny is right about lunch -at the time there was light rain and little wind.

The right way for the neighborhood pub to do it today is open for lunch, put on a special Sandy happy hour right about now and close the doors by 6pm.

As others on here have said, it’s extremely f— up for any restaurant to stay open when public transit has been shut down and the streets are unsafe– you’re forcing your kitchen staff to put themselves at risk. You, foobooz, are complicit in this exploitation. Please stop promoting these abusive employers with your constant #openinphl promotional posts and retweets.

I’ve worked as a cook and sous-chef and from what I saw in the business I can’t imagine a ‘voluntary’ come in to work policy, under any conditions. If you don’t come in when told to, you are fired immediately.

My impetus for posting this was the fact that most foobooz readers don’t know what a silly fantasy the “Yes. But only if they make it voluntary for employees to come to work” option is.

I’d like to point out the pieces of sh*t who go to a restaurant during a state of emergency because they can’t feed their own face hole for one day. Then they shrug and smile at staff and say “Well you’re open, its not MY problem you’re here!!1″. These jackasses with no lives or cares for others are a big part of the problem.

Went to our neighborhood bar last night and they were more than happy to serve the neighborhood, earn money/tips and enjoy some good company during what turned out to be a glorified rain storm in Center City Philadelphia. My heart goes out to those in the suburbs and the shore who experienced real damage, but let’s all be honest here…..walking a few blocks in a rain storm in the city where flooding was not imminent and wind gusts were much less than expected is hardly irresponsible. I’d love to see how many of you hypocrites were at the bars in the city that were open two years ago when we got slammed with snow and had arguably much more dangerous conditions than yesterday. Just sayin….

i think a face hole is what the kids used to call a pie hole

I wonder if all of the people who think it was so irresponsible to stay open are from Center City. I stayed home all day on Monday, only to see light rain and gentle breezes most of the day. I easily could have gone to work myself, with no danger whatsoever, and I don’t think it was irresponsible for restaurants to open and monitor the situation during the day. Fortunately, Sandy was a non-event in Center City.

I think it’s almost impossible to say. In retrospect, it seems fine, because CC was largely unaffected. But if/when that was uncertain, I hope owners that choose to stay open make DAMN certain that they could protect and shelter all of those people (employees, especially) in the worst case scenario. Because otherwise, first responders are going to be stretched beyond their limits trying to help people who didn’t heed the warnings to stay somewhere safe.

But ultimately, whether or not it’s ok is sort of a case-by-case basis thing. If you have a place that’s in a very low-risk area, and the decision to stay open was made only after considering whether or not employees could safely get there and back and didn’t feel coerced into coming in, then I don’t see the harm.

Personally, though, I would really appreciate it if my employer just bit the bullet and closed up shop through the worst of it. I’d hate not to be at home with my loved ones if the worst happened.