Wanted Poster for Ken Burger

Early last week the Charleston Post and Courier's Ken Burger penned a little story about the food and beverage industry.

His eight paragraph expose' amounted to nothing more than a political attack ad, without the ominous voice over or the dramatic video of atomic bombs laying waste to some unknown metropolitan area.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?

$100.00 REWARD FOR A PHOTO

OF KEN BURGER DINNING OUT

Some excerpts of Ken's Sunday column:

".... your waiter might already have an undergraduate degree and has talked about going to graduate school. You know, as soon as they get enough money. So they're not exactly graduate students. They're more like gradual students."

Ken's portrayal of the Food and Beverage industry as being one of non stop parties and drug use is also at odds with those who work long hours and spilt shifts.

He explains that they..."party together into the wee hours of the morning, spend what money they made that night before the sun comes up, wake up with a hangover, then start all over again."

"Talk to a few waiters and waitresses who've been at it a while and they might tell you the truth. Once the high wears off, it's just a crummy job."

His take on females in the food and beverage industry is equally troubling:

"For young women, especially, sexual harassment is common." As if to say all women work at Hooters.

Bloggers, talk show hosts and columnists will often say something extreme in order to get a reaction to build page views, listeners and readers.

But its not always the smartest thing to do, as every once and a while someone steps over the line of good taste and into the quagmire of stupidness.

Mr. Burger for some reason elected to insult the food and beverage workers of Charleston not once, but twice in the same week.

The local twitter universe exploded with tweets about Mr. Burger's column, so offended was the wait and kitchen staff at one restaurant that they did a little change up on their lunch special sign.


Photo Credit Charleston City Paper

The Tattooed Moose located at 1137 Morrison Drive Charleston, SC 843-277-2990.

One thing every person who has ever worked in a restaurant knows is that you don't piss off your server regardless of how slow the service is, or how wrong your order is you always keep your cool. If you don't the pay backs can be rather nasty.

With that general knowledge in the back on my mind I had to wonder what would bring Ken Burger to write such a negative and one sided column, after all Charleston is a tourist town we rely heavily on service staff who for the most part work for only tips.

Ken's view is that if your serving in a restaurant you are either young and in school or dumb and trapped in menial job.

Now given all the press I wonder how daring is Mr. Burger? Would he venture out in Charleston's public restaurant domain? And if so wouldn't he run the risk of a little or maybe even major pay back?

I guess we'll see.

In order to make it a little interesting Cedar Posts has put a $100.00 bounty on Mr. Burger's Head.

Any member of a Charleston restaurants waitstaff who can produce a photo of Mr. Burger dining out will get 100 bucks.

The rules are simple:

1)Photo must be of the real Ken Burger, not a douche bag look alike.
2)Photo must be taken on the Charleston Peninsula or at least within 5 miles, which means Goose Creek doesn't count.
3)Private Clubs don't count, neither do bag food establishments.
4)Photo must be taken by an employee of the restaurant where Mr. Burger is dinning. 5)Paparazzi photogs are not eligible.
6)Photo must submitted between now and October 31, 2010.

In the event of multiple submissions the first photo submitted will be declared the winner. All photos submitted even photo shopped entries will be published, this is a blog we'll post anything. However only real photos can expect to win the small paltry amount of cash being offering.

To claim your cash prize, email your photo name and address to: cedarposts@gmail.com

UPDATE: We have a winner! Katie from Jack's Cafe wins our challenge! We also need to give Ken Burger an extra side of fries for going along with the whole crazy idea and posing for the winning photo.