Weekly protest at Charlotte diner after cold pancakes dispute, police called
A dispute over cold pancakes resulted in the Landmark Diner on Central Avenue calling the police on a customer. Now, every Tuesday, protesters gather outside the building.
Doris Boyd, 78, is a Charlotte native who has been to nearly 100 civil rights marches and demonstrations since she was a Johnson C. Smith University student in the 1960s. She is a mother and grandmother, a former teacher, and a volunteer with her church, Charlotte Freedom School, and the Harvey B. Gantt Center.
Boyd went to dinner at the diner on Feb. 28. She was celebrating her birthday with two other people.
Boyd ordered a pancake roll, which was brought to the table several minutes after the other guests at her table had already received their food. It was “ice cold,” Boyd said, so she asked that it be reheated. Wait staff told her they couldn’t do that, so she asked to order a new item.
They told her that she could not do that either, and told her that the pancakes had been thrown out so she could not have them back. Boyd and Shamaiye Haynes — her friend who was eating with her during the incident — asked to speak with the manager, and he refused to come out, Boyd said. When it was time to pay the bill, Boyd and Haynes said they wanted to speak with a manager before paying, then the restaurant called the police.
Now, Boyd is taking her years of experience as an activist and is once again organizing and protesting to demand an apology.
“I was humiliated, and really disrespected,” Boyd said.
The Observer’s news partner WSOC first reported on the incident last week.
Every Tuesday morning since the pancake debacle, Boyd and Haynes have led other community activists gathered outside of the diner with signs, megaphones, and a mission. They aren’t stopping until management apologizes for their treatment of Boyd, they say.
This week The Charlotte Observer spoke with the group outside of the restaurant and met Boyd for an interview. She stands just over five feet tall, wears large framed glasses, and has white hair.
Boyd said the elderly are the most marginalized group in society, and as an elderly person she isn’t taking the incident lightly or simply walking away.
“Take responsibility for your actions, you mistreated a person,” Boyd said. ”There were ways that they could have fixed it right then and there but they chose not to respond.”
The Observer attempted to speak with management at the diner on Tuesday. Shortly after leaving a phone number with staff, someone claiming to be a manager called an Observer reporter. He refused to give his last name and only identified himself as “John.” He said wasn’t at the restaurant when the incident happened, but that police were called because Boyd and Haynes refused to pay the bill.
He said they were ultimately not charged for the pancakes. He would not say whether the restaurant is planning to apologize and said it is standard to call police when someone won’t pay their bill.
CMPD has been called to the restaurant at least 40 times in the last year, according to CMPD’s records. Some of these calls are related to customer disputes, others are unrelated to the restaurant at all.
“What I hope to see change is that they see their customers, for people who do build their establishment, and that you know, black, white, red, purple, rainbow, you treat your customers with decency and respect,” Haynes said.
CMPD called over cold pancakes
In a video Haynes recorded and shared with the Observer, the two women are seen and heard interacting with Landmark employees during part of the incident. Haynes told staff that because of the long wait, the cold pancakes, and their treatment by management the entire meal should be voided.
Restaurant staff called 911. Three CMPD officers responded and spoke with with the manager.
The manager argued that the pancakes were cold because Boyd let them sit at the table too long. Boyd and Haynes said the food sat at the serving window for too long because their server did not bring them out.
The police officers asked Boyd and Haynes to pay for the meals they did eat and the restaurant took the pancakes off of the bill. The officers advised Boyd and Haynes not to eat at the restaurant again because of the treatment they experienced. No police report was filed after the incident.
Boyd and Haynes have each spent hundreds of dollars at the restaurant over the years and said this has never happened to them before.
“It’s very difficult to understand how something like this could happen,” Haynes said. “... Why didn’t you just reheat her pancakes and apologize? Why didn’t the manager just simply come out and address the concern rather than call the police?”
This story was originally published April 5, 2023 at 3:57 PM.
