We had a bit of an experience eating at the Yard House restaurant near the Kansas Speedway last night.  The restaurant was negligent to the point that I wanted to share it for posterity here and for anyone else who might think of going there.

Below is the e-mail I sent to the restaurant, telling the whole story.

For any family that read this, a quick note…  I was following the storm closely with radar data and storm reports on my phone and strongly doubt the tornado sighting you will see in the following e-mail.  I was also watching the sky very, very closely.  If I had thought there were any real danger I would have spoken up and would not have left the restaurant (this will make more sense once you read the account below.)

Still, this does not change the fact that Yard House did a truly negligent job with the data they had to work with.  I would recommend avoiding them just for their demonstrated ethics…

I wanted to share an experience my friends and I had at your restaurant in Kansas City yesterday (12 June 2008).

As we were eating a tornado warning was issued for the area and the tornado sirens sounded outside.  Rather than taking us to shelter, since a tornado warning means either a tornado has been sighted nearby or one may develop at any instant, our waitress came by saying she had instructions from the manager to secure our payment for the meal.

After some table discussion about Yard House’s poor priorities and our plans for never eating there again, things got worse.  A man whom I assume is the manager announced on the far side of the room (we couldn’t hear, but a waitress told us a couple of minutes later what he had said) that a funnel cloud had been sighted “directly overhead” and began ushering the patrons out the door suggesting a long walk to the other side of the Legends complex to take shelter in the basement of the movie theater– a long, outside walk.

I recently changed careers, but I used to be (and technically still am) a meteorologist.  However, it doesn’t take a four-year college degree to know that if a funnel cloud has been sighted outside the restaurant, to send people outside is not only ignorant, but negligent.  Possibly even criminally negligent.  We weren’t given the option of taking shelter immediately in the restaurant, but were pushed out the door (after our payment was secured, of course…  Priorities…)

Fortunately, some kind employees of a sports apparel store saw the exodus of people coming from Yard House and hurriedly ushered us through their store into an access hallway with an interior stairwell (good, sound shelter, clearly part of a pre-determined plan) where we waited out the storm.  While there we received word from an officer that a tornado had indeed been sighted from the complex– by all reports, our lives had indeed been placed in grave danger when we were sent outside by your manager.

You should know that I will also be posting this on my blog in hopes that others may know the priorities and policies of Yard House.

Thank you,

Jeff Slater.