The following incident occurred at a popular Wilmington, North Carolina restaurant one block off the Cape Fear River.
My (then) wife and I were having a cocktail at a small table nearest the kitchen’s “food out only” door. There were maybe 7-10 other diners in-house. We were enjoying ourselves in conversation when I happened to see a cute little mouse scurry across the polished wood floor. Now, mind you, this was not a dirty place, nor was this little creature a rat. It was just a wee little mouse that wandered in, and neither my wife or I were the least bit weirded out by the visitor.
The wife and I decided to nonchalantly escort the little guy from the restaurant by way of the cloth napkins from our table. She shooed the mouse towards me as I, like a matador, crouched on one knee holding a napkin. I was to cover the critter with my napkin and scoop him up and take him out the door. Just as I was dropping the napkin, the manager startles me with, “Don’t worry about that sir. I’ll have someone clean that up.”
I’m guessing he thought I was cleaning up a spill. The distraction was just enough for the cornered critter to escape and make a beeline towards the bar area. As our eyes followed the escapee, the manager quickly caught on to the cause of my earlier action. He quickly turned to the kitchen’s “food out only” door and disappeared.
None of the other patrons seemed to notice my wife and I scrambling to and fro across the dining room on hands and knees. We had gotten the mouse to return back to the corner near our table when a large wooden headed push broom suddenly came down upon the animal, ejecting viscera through its mouth and nose. This was not the outcome we had expected.
The manager, wielding the deadly weapon, grabbed the blood dripping cadaver by the tip of its now lifeless tail and exited again through the kitchen door. Nice.
We were left quite shocked by the bloody spatter on the polished wooden floor, feeling sad and no longer hungry. We have never returned since. Shame, I really used to like the place.
– Michael
My blog: Restaurants by Design
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
well RIP mouse…
why didnt the manager did what you were trying to do and throw it out?
Gross to kill it in front of people eating their food…
Not to mention carrying the corpse into the kitchen.
Honestly, what else did you think he was going to do? It wouldn't have bothered me that much, but then I'm not that squeamish. If it was some larger animal then yeah it probably would've though.
That is very fucked up, how do people do that?
Had the mouse experience while on vacation back to my home province of Newfoundland. I have my diploma in Culinary Arts so I know what all can befall a dining establishment. This place was super clean. All of the diners saw this lil fellow.A staff member released him to the outside. When the waiter asked for our orders, my x asked for breaded mouse with a side of fries. lol