A chain restaurant unlike any other

McMenamin’s defies the usual definition of a chain, as I explain in this short video.

I should note that, unlike at other McMenamin’s locations I’ve been to, the service here was terrible. The waiter brought only some of the drinks we ordered. Even after being reminded, some of the drinks simply never showed up. Ever. We had to get them taken off the bill.

Even worse, my vegetarian burger was not vegetarian. Since I’m flexible about my dietary preferences, I ate it anyway. However that can hardly be said for most vegetarians. Since I had gone out of my way to ask first whether a particular burger on the menu could be made vegetarian, one would expect that this was something the waiter and kitchen staff would have been mindful of. That too was taken off our bill.

So at least they didn’t ask us to pay for their own multitude of screw-ups.

There is one other thing. While it’s true that McMenamin’s helps to preserve historic buildings that might otherwise just be torn down to build condos, they fight tooth-and-nail against paying their employees a living wage. In fact, they actively lobby to get the minimum wage lowered! Not cool.