No Shoes, No Shirt, … No Common Sense

With Burger King promising its customers whoppers, maybe the public shouldn’t expect anything different. But one Burger King in St. Louis County, Missouri, is serving up whoppers that won’t win it any accolades from the Burger King corporation. In what has become the whopper of negative publicity, Burger King threatened to call the cops when Jennifer Frederich responded to an order to put shoes on her barefoot six month old by slipping socks on the baby. Barefoot baby Kaylin doesn’t crawl or walk and doesn’t even own a pair of shoes. Nevertheless, the Burger King in St. Louis County insisted that the barefoot baby wasn’t welcome under a “no shoes, no shirt, no service” policy.

A Different Kind of Whopper

Claiming to be enforcing a “no shoes, no shirt, no service” policy? Well, that’s another kind of whopper. Burger King was perfectly willing to serve Frederich, her mother, her church group, and the barefoot baby in the restaurant; Burger King simply objected to barefoot baby Kaylin and her party eating in the restaurant. In other words, Burger King will take their money, but…

And there’s yet another whopper looming in this Burger King barefoot baby ban story. The restaurant manager allegedly told Frederich that allowing the barefoot baby in the Burger King violated the health code. Today, Burger King corporate spokesperson Denise Wilson acknowledged that the barefoot bans are not health code requirements but company policy.

The publicity for Burger King over the banning of a barefoot baby has been overwhelmingly negative. CNN’s legal correspondent set forth both sides of the story by noting that there is only one side to this story, Frederich and her banned baby’s side.

Bolloxed Burger King corporate officials are backtracking after a day of silence over the banned barefoot baby incident. Fingerpointing at the franchise status of the Burger King, they promised retraining on the no shoes, no shirt, no service policy as well as apologies.