Apart from having horrendously overpriced 6-packs, gimmicky garbage like the Voodoo beers or the beard beer, and a well-documented anti-labor streak, I guess we can add just plain racist to the list. Short story from the link: Asian customer received a set of chopsticks with her hamburger, Rogue wrote it off as "their sense of humor", then corporate doubled down on that when she complained. Rogue is the worst.
Oh man much ado about nothing. I had chopsticks handed to me to with my Kobe burger. Some people.... And yes Rogue suck..but this is just childish.
Do they hand chopsticks to everyone who orders a burger? I am guessing no. Thus it is clearly a horrible, and racist, attempt at humor.
I remember ordering the kobe and had chopsticks given. No use of course. But why would Rogue have some chopsticks stored just to give this person a racist joke moment? Jesus Christ the amount of sh*t ive taken in various brewpubs for being Scottish..i could be rich with lawsuits by now.
Ahh so at rogue the served them when chopsticks? So kobe burger equals chopsticks and is a nod in a sense to it being from japan. Gotcha. It sounded as if the person was given chopsticks because they were Asian and that was the rogue "humor".
You know maybe they were. I don't know. But as a Scot ive taken many "jokes" and just got on with it. It makes you stronger.
While it sounds like it was really just a misunderstanding, Rogue definitely handled this the wrong way. Maybe this illustrates that perhaps they should think twice when considering concepts such as this? It's all about context sure, but if you're Asian and you sit down to a burger and are served chopsticks why wouldn't you assume the worst? Let's keep in mind it was less than 100 years ago that Japanese Americans were imprisoned in internment camps. Personally, as a person from a racially mixed background, I sympathize with the customer. I'm not sure if this customer was Japanese (it only says Asian) or not but I don't blame them for not wanting to just get "on with it".
I do not know if there was a possible language issue as well with this. The service person at Rogue should have explained that the chopsticks were given to everyone who orders a Kobe burger, as Kobe beef is from Japan and its part of their presentation. Knowing the customer was Asian it would have been wise to be sensitive that they thought it was poking fun at their ethnicity. With that said, I also think the customer is overreacting. There are plenty of food & drink names\presentations that would be offensive if someone took them personally.
2 ?s, did she order the Kobe burger and what did she want from writing a letter? Seems that chopsticks are given when you get the Kobe and then there is the letter. Not sure what she expected from a response. Maybe a apology but if it's part of the burger not sure that else they could say. People are way too sensitive anymore.
not my favorite brewery or anything, but i think we can safely delete any threads that try to claim Rogue is 'terrible'.
I haven't been to the Rogue Alehouse in the Pearl in some time (I assume that's what we're talking about), but I recall reading sometime back about this mild attempt at humor on their part. My understanding is that they always provide chopsticks for Kobe burgers; there's no expectation that customers actually use them, it's simply a reference to where the beef comes from. I'm not the biggest fan of Rogue either, but IMHO, this is all much ado about nothing.
It looked to me that the server did a bad job explaining the context of the chopsticks. The customer, naturally upset as she likely didn't know that every customer is served chopsticks with this burger and not just Asians, contacts Rogue to let them know of the perceived slight. Rogue follows up the server's poor explanation with a flippant response and an offer of drink coupons. Not a huge surprise from a company that has a said some of the ridiculous things that they have.
We ordered the "Kobe" burger when we visited the Pearl location a couple years back and were not given chopsticks that my wife and I can recall. She's Japanese, I'm not. Then again, their "Kobe" comes from Snake River Farms. It's not Japanese, so it's not Kobe. That's like calling my sparkling wine from the Willamette Valley "champagne" or the brandy from California "cognac" - it's simply not. Their "joke" doesn't even work.
I got the Kobe burger last month in Newport. No chopsticks. I like that true to form, the pale folk see nothing wrong. Weirdly predictable.
A local food magazine mentioned this gimmick, which is the only reason I know anything about it. The magazine article seemed to think it was another example of the "whimsical" nature of Rogue. I don't see anything on the menu that might even remotely be considered asian cuisine, so unless the OP thinks the staff keep chopsticks around for the sole purpose of antagonizing asian patrons, I don't think I'd read too much into this. I know a lot of folks have issues with Rogue over some of their labor and business practices (myself included), but purposely trying to ridicule a customer, just because they're asian, is a little hard for me to swallow (pun intended). I'm not even going to comment on the observation made by zestd.
@John_M, can we lock this down? This has the potential to quickly devolve, similar to the FB page the OB linked to. This isn't even really about beer.
