October 22, 2003

Restaurant Can't Find Corkscrew for BYOB Customer

State Trooper's Years of Crisis Training Finally Pay Off

A Pennsylvania man says he was "real disappointed" when a restaurant couldn't find its corkscrew to open the bottle of wine he had brought along. John Landis of Gardenville isn't sure he wants to return to Minnie's Eat-In or Carry-Out in Lumberville.

Landis, 47, said he went to Minnie's last week after seeing an advertisement in a local publication that invited diners to "save all that money fancy restaurants charge and BYOB." Pennsylvania liquor laws allow restaurant goers to bring their own wine and beer.

"I went to the state liquor store and there was this bottle of wine. It was $2.75," Landis recalled. "I said to myself, I said, that ain't so much for a bottle like that. The clerk, you know, the tall bald guy, said it was pretty good wine and it come from one of them countries in South America. So I got it."

A clerk at the state-owned liquor store in Pipersville confirmed Landis' purchase.

"I do remember the guy," said Ed Rousseau, who works the afternoon and early evening shift Tuesday through Friday. "He was rummaging through the remainders bin and said he wanted a good wine for dinner. He came up with this bottle of El Gato Blanco."

Rosseau said the wine was a merlot from Chile, the last bottle of a case mistakenly shipped to the store in 1999.

"I want to say right up front that this customer came up with the bottle on his own," Rosseau said. "Nobody suggested it to him. So when he actually wanted to buy it and we'd finally be rid of it, for me it was one of those little triumphs that can add up to make your workday a success."

What Landis didn't notice or perhaps didn't understand was that the bottle had a cork. Rosseau, following state liquor store policy, didn't point out the cork.

"The bosses are always harping on treating all our customers with dignity, and I don't disagree with that," Rosseau said. "So you don't say to the customer, 'You realize, don't you, that the bottle has a cork?' No, we just don't say that. So out the door he went, pleased with himself. I remember thinking at the time that the wine might almost cost as much as the meal he was probably going to order."

At Minnie's, Landis took a booth near the door and proudly set the bottle on the table. Orvie Payne, 16, waited on him.
"When I wallked up to the table, this guy was like taking this like wrapper thingie off the bottle," Payne said. "Right away I could see he was like getting upset."

Landis said that he didn't realize the bottle had a cork and that he blamed the state liquor store clerk for not pointing it out.

"I drink a lot of wine, but I don't think I ever had a bottle with a cork in it," he said. "Usually, there's a top that screws off. A cork? I don't get it."
Landis' dilemma prompted a search for the restaurant corkscrew.

"When we started running the BYOB ads in the County Shopper we were hoping to attract a higher class of customer," said Cathy Morgenstern, who along with her husband Emit runs the restaurant. "So we went out and bought a corkscrew. But every last person who came in with a bottle of wine had a screw top bottle. Until this guy."

Emit Morgenstern recalled a determined search for the corkscrew. "I still think it's in here somewhere," he said during an interview in the kitchen. "I know when we bought it we put it in the utility drawer next to the cutlery. But then when nobody ever needed it..." He said the search threw off the entire evening routine. "Orders started backing up. The girls out front were in a tizzy. One of them rushed in and said the guy was starting to cry."

Pennsylvania State Trooper Robert Shaw, working the swing shift out of the Ferndale Barracks and taking his dinner break at Minnie's, had watched the saga unfold from his booth next to the kitchen door.

"I could see that this thing was about to get out of control," he said. "The customer would sort of babble and then he would yell and then cry. Emit had come out of the kitchen and was standing over him shouting."

Sergeant Shaw said he knew it was up to him to step in, and quickly.

"This is the kind of thing you train for over and over," he said. "So I got up walked to the booth and sat down across from Mr. Landis and talked slowly and quietly and got him soothed over some. Then I proposed a solution."

The trooper's solution was this: Landis would sign a brief statement of indemnification written on the back of a meal ticket absolving Minnie's of any liability, Emit would use a hammer to break the neck of the wine bottle and the wine would be poured through a strainer to remove any glass shards.

"Thanks God for Bobby Shaw," Mrs. Morgenstern said. "Emit used a big pair of pliers on the bottle and we strained the wine into a fruit jar. We offered the customer a glass, but he just drank it straight from the jar, all of it. Washed down a cheese burger, fries and onion rings."

Sergeant Shaw was getting into his patrol car when Landis emerged from the restaurant after his meal.

"He was happy as he could be,"the trooper said, "bragging that he'd had dinner with an imported wine for $7.57."

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