Applebee's serves Margarita to 2-year old

Doctor Q · Jun 18, 2007

They start drinking at a rather young age in San Francisco these days.

Toddler Served Margarita in a Sippy Cup:

The restaurant staff accidentally gave Julian Mayorga a margarita Monday.

The apple juice and margarita mix were stored in identical plastic bottles, and the manager mistakenly grabbed the margarita container to pour the boy's drink.

That was an accident waiting to happen but I'm sure they won't make that mistake again. I'm glad the boy is OK now.

devilot · Jun 18, 2007

And all this time I thought I had such a high tolerance. J/K. I don't eat at Applebee's.

PlaceofDis · Jun 18, 2007

wow. same type of container. that definitely was an accident waiting to happen.

glad that the kid is okay now. and i'm glad that the restaurant is taking the appropriate steps. but thats a hellva mistake to make.

Doctor Q · Jun 18, 2007

...the manager mistakenly grabbed the margarita container...

Why was the manager preparing a drink for a toddler? Isn't the manager supposed to manage/supervise, while employees prepare the food and drinks?

iBlue · Jun 18, 2007

What's also odd about this is that instead of using decent margarita mix (no alcohol) and adding the tequila in the blender or in the mixer before they pour they must have used that uber-crappy pre-mix stuff. Twunts. No stupid mistakes for the nimrods to make if they'd have done it properly in the first place.

Glad the toddler is OK.

jeremy.king · Jun 18, 2007

Restaurant margarita mix contains alcohol?

Doctor Q · Jun 18, 2007

I knew a man who stored gasoline in a giant apple juice container in his garage. It was one of those multi-gallon institutional-size containers and it still had the juice label on it. How foolish was that? Yikes!

I guess some people need to keep gas around for the lawnmower, but it seems dangerous to have gasoline in the garage no matter what you store it in. And having it mislabeled gives you twice as many ways to invite disaster.

dmw007 · Jun 18, 2007

Doctor Q said:
I knew a man who stored gasoline in a giant apple juice container in his garage. It was one of those multi-gallon institutional-size containers and it still had the juice label on it. How foolish was that? Yikes!

I guess some people need to keep gas around for the lawnmower, but it seems dangerous to have gasoline in the garage no matter what you store it in. And having it mislabeled gives you twice as many ways to invite disaster.

Its good he never got thirsty for juice when he was working in the garage!

mkrishnan · Jun 18, 2007

kingjr3 said:
Restaurant margarita mix contains alcohol?

That's what I was thinking till I got to the part where Blue used the word twunt. Then I just giggled the rest of the way down.

Counterfit · Jun 18, 2007

Doctor Q said:
Why was the manager preparing a drink for a toddler? Isn't the manager supposed to manage/supervise, while employees prepare the food and drinks?

They were either busy, short-handed, or both.

miloblithe · Jun 18, 2007

In the restaurant I worked in, the mix did not contain alcohol (and even the triple sec in the mix was non-alcoholic). On the other hand, the frozen ones were pre-mixed. It all depends on what the restaurant is going for in terms of volume of customers and quality. No drink should be pre-mixed in principle, but if you want to serve as many drinks as quickly as possible, it's a good plan.

CanadaRAM · Jun 18, 2007

PlaceofDis said:
wow. same type of container. that definitely was an accident waiting to happen.

Happened to a friend of mine -- restaurant stored clear lamp oil (for the on table kerosene type lamps) in the same type of pitcher as the water. My friend swallowed half a glass of oil when he took a big swig out of his water glass. Had to spend a night in hospital getting his stomach pumped and under observation.

OutThere · Jun 18, 2007

Counterfit said:
Doctor Q said:

Why was the manager preparing a drink for a toddler? Isn't the manager supposed to manage/supervise, while employees prepare the food and drinks?

Click to expand...

They were either busy, short-handed, or both.

Yeah when we're understaffed or really busy at work, anybody affiliated with the café becomes a potential ice cream scooper/barista/drink maker.

That or the manager is covering for a good employee who may have gotten fired by upper management.

I'm also surprised that the 2 year old actually drank it...must not be a picky eater.

Doctor Q · Jun 19, 2007

How many Applebee's patrons ordered a margarita and got apple juice?

Gasu E. · Jun 19, 2007

I would have thought a salt rim on a sippy-cup would have been a dead give-away.

WillMak · Jun 19, 2007

Premade mixes are crap anyways. Better to just manually make margaritas every time. Only takes a minute or less for a bartender to make 4 of them manually.

Queso · Jun 20, 2007

CanadaRAM said:
Happened to a friend of mine -- restaurant stored clear lamp oil (for the on table kerosene type lamps) in the same type of pitcher as the water. My friend swallowed half a glass of oil when he took a big swig out of his water glass. Had to spend a night in hospital getting his stomach pumped and under observation.

I find that sort of thing far scarier. At least the kid swallowed something that was actually fit for human consumption. I just hope the restaurant don't also store cleaning products in the same type of container.

gkarris · Jun 20, 2007

Did the kid end up "looking for his lost shaker of salt"?

iBlue · Jun 20, 2007

gkarris said:
Did the kid end up "looking for his lost shaker of salt"?

some people claim that there's a manager to blame, but I know, it's Applebee's fault.

*

iKwick7 · Jun 20, 2007

Let me explain this a little more detailed for everyone- I bartended at an Applebee's for 7 years.

-No, there is no margarita "mix" (i.e. purchased, pre-made margartia mix with alcohol already in it). Some Applebee's make house Margarita mix in the mornings and store them in plastic containers. This is what the manager grabbed.

-All the juices are stored in plastic containers. I.E. Apple Juice (which would originally come in a huge store bought, typical apple juice container) is poured into 1 container. Same goes for orange juice, cranberry juice, sour mix, bloody mary mix, margarita mix, etc.

-These are all the same size and shape containers (easier to store). However, they are labeled- both with colored tape and with the name of what it is. For example, pina colada mix would have blue tape, margarita green, apple juice orange.

-That manager should not have made that drink. Either they were busy, understaffed, or that specific Applebee's was poorly managed. No manager, when I worked, ever came behind my bar. Ever.

Sounds like this Applebee's is one of the lesser quality ones. Also sounds like a simple mistake that should not have happened.

atszyman · Jun 20, 2007

Doctor Q said:
How many Applebee's patrons ordered a margarita and got apple juice?

It was found that after the first few margaritas most patrons could not tell the difference. And with the lack of/less of a hangover the next morning and increased profits for the restaurant the substitution of the apple juice for margaritas was deemed to be a good business move.

Doctor Q · Jun 20, 2007

iKwick7 said:
Let me explain this a little more detailed for everyone- I bartended at an Applebee's for 7 years.

I shouldn't be surprised, but I am, at how often we discuss some random topic or news event in the forums and find that we have a forum member with experience/expertise in exactly the area we're discussing.

Abstract · Jun 20, 2007

Doctor Q said:
Why was the manager preparing a drink for a toddler? Isn't the manager supposed to manage/supervise, while employees prepare the food and drinks?

Exactly. That's the first thing I thought when I read the story.

He is a manager. How much do managers know about how things are done by employees? Staff have a certain way of doing things, even if the manager doesn't realize this, as he doesn't have to the work himself/herself. Managers really shouldn't do employee tasks like that.

He doesn't know enough about the bar to make drinks, and he shouldn't have made it. Even if the apple juice container looked identical to the margarita container, a lower level employee wouldn't have made the same mistake. Maybe the apple juice is typically stored on the left side of the fridge, while the margarita mix is stored on the right side. Maybe the apple juice container is on the top shelf, while the margarita mix is on the middle shelf. I don't know, but managers don't tend to do these tasks often enough to know, either.

iKwick7 said:
-These are all the same size and shape containers (easier to store). However, they are labeled- both with colored tape and with the name of what it is. For example, pina colada mix would have blue tape, margarita green, apple juice orange.

Then what colour label was used for the orange juice?

asxtb · Jun 20, 2007

Doctor Q said:
I guess some people need to keep gas around for the lawnmower, but it seems dangerous to have gasoline in the garage no matter what you store it in. And having it mislabeled gives you twice as many ways to invite disaster.

Where should he have stored it? In the kitchen fridge?

iKwick7 said:
Let me explain this a little more detailed for everyone- I bartended at an Applebee's for 7 years.

-No, there is no margarita "mix" (i.e. purchased, pre-made margartia mix with alcohol already in it). Some Applebee's make house Margarita mix in the mornings and store them in plastic containers. This is what the manager grabbed.

-All the juices are stored in plastic containers. I.E. Apple Juice (which would originally come in a huge store bought, typical apple juice container) is poured into 1 container. Same goes for orange juice, cranberry juice, sour mix, bloody mary mix, margarita mix, etc.

-These are all the same size and shape containers (easier to store). However, they are labeled- both with colored tape and with the name of what it is. For example, pina colada mix would have blue tape, margarita green, apple juice orange.

-That manager should not have made that drink. Either they were busy, understaffed, or that specific Applebee's was poorly managed. No manager, when I worked, ever came behind my bar. Ever.

Sounds like this Applebee's is one of the lesser quality ones. Also sounds like a simple mistake that should not have happened.

This explanation makes it sound like perhaps they were understaffed and the manager was from a different store covering someone's shift. Since he was from a different store maybe the label colors are different and it was busy and he just blanked out and grabbed the container with the color from his usual store. Just a possibility.

iKwick7 · Jun 21, 2007

Abstract said:
Exactly. That's the first thing I thought when I read the story.

He is a manager. How much do managers know about how things are done by employees? Staff have a certain way of doing things, even if the manager doesn't realize this, as he doesn't have to the work himself/herself. Managers really shouldn't do employee tasks like that.

He doesn't know enough about the bar to make drinks, and he shouldn't have made it. Even if the apple juice container looked identical to the margarita container, a lower level employee wouldn't have made the same mistake. Maybe the apple juice is typically stored on the left side of the fridge, while the margarita mix is stored on the right side. Maybe the apple juice container is on the top shelf, while the margarita mix is on the middle shelf. I don't know, but managers don't tend to do these tasks often enough to know, either.

Then what colour label was used for the orange juice?

I was just speaking hypothetically. It's been a couple years, but, if memory serves me correct, Apple Juice was 2 strips of BLUE tape. Odd, isn't it? Orange Juice was orange tape. Pina Colada was one white tape strip and one blue tape strip. Mmmmm. I loved that mix.

And yeah- managers typically know nothing about the bar. Or even restaurants, for that matter. I did have one manager that was a champ behind the bar. Nice guy, worked you hard. Most of them knew nothing about alcohol and would just hang around the bar to learn things and have fun (it is damn fun back there).

Doctor Q said:
I shouldn't be surprised, but I am, at how often we discuss some random topic or news event in the forums and find that we have a forum member with experience/expertise in exactly the area we're discussing.

Gotta love this site, eh?

Applebee's serves Margarita to 2-year old

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