Parlor Pizza Bar Allegedly Denies Patron Entry For Wearing The Wrong Pants
By Anthony Todd in Food on Jun 16, 2016 8:48PM
Parlor Pizza Bar (whose tagline is, ironically, "We welcome guests from every walk of life") has been accused of discrimination by a guest who claims he was denied entrance to the restaurant, because he was wearing the wrong pants.
According to NBC Chicago, Antar Jackson filed a discrimination complaint against the restaurant on Monday. Parlor Pizza Bar has a dress code (published on their website) which requires business casual attire after 5 p.m. every day. It also specifically bans athletic wear and lounge wear. Guess we won't be going to Parlor Pizza Bar anytime soon, since we only eat pizza in PJs.
Anyway, Mr. Jackson claims he was wearing a $250 pair of Vince wool pants, and was denied entry because the restaurant called them "sweatpants" and said they were "too street." He also claims that other patrons were dressed far more casually. The restaurant denies any discrimination occurred and noted that the dress code was published on the website.
If anything, this is yet one more reason why these types of dress codes are somewhat ridiculous. At a very formal restaurant, while dress codes are still silly, at least they're easy to enforce: either you're wearing a tie and jacket or you aren't. But the various dress codes around town banning "athletic wear" are just inviting inconsistent enforcement. Let's not even talk about the codes banning "excessively baggy clothing."
The article has already provoked a small social media backlash, with some commenters noting that the same happened to them ("My family of 4 was turned away too on May 7th because my husband had on workout looking pants and gym shoes") and others complaining about racism ("Warning! This place is only for "nicely" dressed white people. I mean you can wear yoga pants too and probably look like shit, but as long as [you're] white! Fuck it's only pizza, why does someone have to dress nice for pizza? Racist ass fuckers.")