Recently a small group of about six WWII veterans, the only survivors of an event known as Black Thursday, were in Dallas and decided to have lunch at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant Five Sixty. The old geezers were dressed casually in what was described as "mostly shorts and service-related t-shirts", and were refused a table. Of course, word got out and a brouhaha of sorts ensued over the idea that these "war heroes", a term that probably carries more weight in Texas than anywhere else on this planet, could have been refused a table anytime, anywhere. (The restaurant apologetically sent them several bottles of scotch afterward.) Reading about it got me to thinking about the whole idea of dress codes.
I don't think the restaurant was in the wrong here. They have the right to have and enforce a policy without exception, and out of consideration to all the other diners who cooperate they should.
But that doesn't make me a fan of dress codes. I'm not aware of any restaurants in my area that have them. And in swankier locales, we dress appropriately for a restaurant's reputation for formality so any rules that might happen to exist are transparent to us, and we tend to prefer restaurants that are less than that formal anyway.
I've only been part of one refusal: a new "supper club" had opened in a strip mall in Bakersfield, California, and I took a State official there for a business dinner. Men, we were told at the door, were required to wear jackets. Which, in Bakersfield, was fairly preposterous. Heck, I would bet that 90% of the jackets in Bakersfield belonged to Buck Owens, and maybe sequins weren't what they had in mind! We either had to leave or Terry, a most-average guy probably 5' 10" and 175 lbs, had to borrow some skeezy loaner they probably plucked off a dead guy who looked like Rodney Dangerfield. I preferred to go somewhere else than put him through the indignity of wearing someone else's clothes, but he gallantly insisted we stay. It soon closed.
Now I'm not a fan of the word 'should' so I'm not going to go so far as to say that the people who owned that club should not have had such aspirations. On the contrary, have at it. Go ahead and insist that a hotter-than-hell, dustbowl of a landlocked farming community play dress-up to eat in your joint, and see where it gets you.
In other areas, dress codes work out fine. At Galatoire's in New Orleans on Sundays, for instance, they not only require jackets for men, they even go so far as to specify what type of shirt is to be worn under it. (I'm always amused that women, apparently, can apparently show up naked but for heels and a purse as there does not seem to be a code for us. Has anyone tried this?) And why not? This is the bible belt, and Sunday's are special.
Dallas is another place a dress code should work if one is going to, relaxed POW disguises not withstanding. Dallas is a lot different than Bakersfield. In Dallas, they still have big hair. In Dallas, TV Preachers spend Sunday with their families and Monday with the church 'secretary'. In Dallas, titty bars are called Gentleman's Clubs. It's a world unto itself. Dress codes there should work out just dandy and keep the eyesores from ruining anyone's evening.
So I'm not arguing with the policy. But I will say this: many years ago while living in The OC, the huzz and I dared past the Orange Curtain to have dinner in Pasadena. I recall looking around me with absolute wonder: to one side of us sat Thurston Howell III--that is, a set of grandparents and their small grandson, where grandpa and sonny were both dressed in blue yachting blazers, white caps and white linen pants. On the other, a diva of a Chinese gay man held court wearing a low mohawk hair cut and fabulous layers of bright silk robes over a smooth bare chest laden with gold chains. A pair of girls wore shorts--in California, on all but the coldest days and sometimes even then, someone ALWAYS wears shorts. Bob and I were probably the plainest people in the room, but the cool thing was how normal it was there to be so diverse. In Irvine where we lived, all you had to have was a different skin color to stand out.
Which is why after spending five years in Alaska, we didn't move back to Irvine. But I digress....
So put me down as a dress code hater. I may not knowingly go to restaurants that have them--the rules beyond the health code ones barring bare feet for example--but I tend to avoid restaurants that do because I dislike both pomp and the very notion that it's a good idea to force your customers to conform to anything beyond civil behavior and the fabulousness of choosing your establishment, let alone what anymore is a conservative, outdated 50's ideal of properly dressed.
