http://shanghaiist.com/2020/04/29/ta...rom-dining-in/
Taipei restaurant exposed for banning foreigners from dining in
The restaurant has apologized for the sign and its "bad English" skills
by Alex Linder
A restaurant in Taipei is being bombarded with bad reviews after barring foreigners from entry because of the coronavirus.
Wake n’ Bake, an Italian restaurant and cat cafe in Taipei’s Xinyi district, recently posted a notice on its door declaring that foreigners were only permitted to take out and not dine in.
“Due to COVID19 impact, we don’t have choice to SERVICE FOREIGNER TAKE OUT ONLY. For LOCAL. Please make sure wear mask in public area,” reads the notice.
A photo of the sheet of paper was posted to a Facebook group for foreigners in Taiwan on Monday. The uploader explained that the image had been taken by a friend during his visit to the restaurant the previous day.
The friend reportedly threatened to call the police, resulting in workers instead calling the owner and letting him talk to the angry foreigner. In the end, the owner agreed to let the foreigner eat inside the restaurant.
In response to the resulting backlash, the restaurant issued an apology on Monday, blaming some foreign customers who had visited the restaurant before their 14-day quarantine was through and the management’s “bad English” for causing the unpleasantness.
“Please accept our sincere apologies. The old announcement was only being made because of weeks ago some of our guest back from aboard and come visit without 14 days quarantined, we made a strict rules for protecting the public health without comprehensive expression and bad English. We now have removed the announcement and hope to hear if anything can help to ease bad feelings we caused from you.”
Some have accepted this apology, others have not:
“By far most of the imported cases of Covid were Taiwanese coming home, not foreigners. The fact that you just assumed otherwise says what is truly in your heart. This isn’t an apology, it’s an excuse. An excuse is not welcome.”
“It isn’t bad English, you knew exactly what you were doing when that sign was posted. As pointed out by other people the vast majority of cases have been returning Taiwanese citizens. Pretty pathetic really trying to hide behind a translation excuse, If you actually held you hands up and admitted your mistake then I would give you credit. maybe try actually apologizing next time instead of pr spin.”
“It’s bullshit, if someone who were supposed to do quarantine cane to your restaurant, the government would force you to close for a bit , as it happened to OMNI nightclub.”
The restaurant issued a second apology on Tuesday, noting that the recent barrage of bad reviews has evidently caused Facebook to suspend reviews on the page. The same thing appears to have happened with Google.