Every so often, humanity conspires to hand out small, gift-wrapped reminders that truth is stranger—and occasionally pettier—than fiction. Case in point: Deacon Blues, an upstate New York bar, recently served up lunch to seven senior diners, along with a bonus item on their receipts—an unvarnished insult, right under “TABLE.”
An Unintentional Roast on the House
According to reporting in the Times Union, relayed by syracuse.com via Tribune News Service, the incident unfolded in Watervliet, where a group of friends from a senior community, who are apparently well-acquainted with the local lunch scene, made their regular stop at Deacon Blues. Rather than receiving only the classic hospitality, each member of the party was greeted on their individual receipts with the descriptor, “TABLE: Old Bitches.” It’s the sort of message you’d expect to encounter scrawled on a napkin at a particularly rowdy trivia night, not dispatched by a thermal printer to a table of octogenarians.
Ron and Helen Wilkinson, who opened the bar back in 1979 and named it after a Steely Dan song, reportedly felt “mortified” when made aware of the episode. A representative for Deacon Blues stated, per the Times Union coverage, that the owners—away on vacation at the time—are committed to ensuring all guests feel respected, and plan to address the issue directly with their staff. The bar’s statement went so far as to invite the affected women to speak with the Wilkinsons after their return, with hopes of a more satisfying resolution.
“Please Do Not Judge the Entire Restaurant…”
After Keira DiNuzzo, granddaughter of one of the diners (identified as “Mimi”), posted about the incident on Facebook and left a candid review, the social media conversation expanded well beyond the lunch tab. Reportedly, Helen Wilkinson replied to DiNuzzo’s review on the bar’s Facebook page, expressing that the behavior was the responsibility of “one disrespectful person” and urging readers not to judge Deacon Blues as a whole. As emphasized in the original report, apologetic posts from the bar soon appeared publicly, and the restaurant’s Facebook review section vanished—either hidden or deleted—following the online uproar.
The Times Union, cited in the syracuse.com piece, highlighted that each of the seven diners had requested a separate check (out of what was originally a reservation for ten), and it was only after returning home that one of the party spotted the label on her receipt. This led the rest to check their own, discovering the same unvarnished description.
Publicly, the bar has stated it will take “appropriate actions”—a phrase that covers everything from staff re-training to the ceremonial banishment of the offending point-of-sale terminal. Details on what that entails remain light, and there’s little information whether the social media reviews will return anytime soon. For now, most of the official answers are heavy on contrition, light on specifics, and best described as a delicate attempt at digital damage control.
Legends of the Lunch Crowd
There’s a certain folklore that sneaks through restaurant kitchens—staff codewords for regular patrons, affectionate or otherwise, that rarely make it to the front of house. Typically, those labels live and die in kitchen shorthand or whispered legends, not in the immortal record of a paper receipt handed directly to a diner. In an odd twist of transparency, as described in the sourced report, this label made the leap to the public side of the counter. It’s difficult not to wonder what other amusing (or mortifying) labels might someday surface if a split-second lapse in professionalism meets a digital footprint.
In a detail highlighted by the Times Union, it seems that a seemingly innocent request for separate checks—hardly an unusual ask—may have tried the patience of at least one employee just enough to prompt this very public slip. The episode has all the traits of a modern parable: a frustration meant for the back office unexpectedly broadcast in thermal print.
Reflections on Receipts and Respect
Stories like this land squarely in the sweet spot between the absurd and the all-too-human—a real-life reminder that the best intentions of hospitality can be undone by a few careless keystrokes. If nothing else, the Deacon Blues saga illustrates just how easily a note meant only for staff can stumble, blinking and bewildered, into the daylight. From a batch of receipts marked “old bitches” to internet infamy and vanished Facebook reviews, it’s hard not to marvel at how a minor act of indiscretion can earn a table of seniors a brief but memorable place in digital folklore.
So what’s the moral? It might just be that, in our age of instant records and social media echoes, your receipt may live far longer—and travel far further—than you ever intended. For those picking up the tab, a glance at the fine print might now come with a dose of curiosity. After all, who knows what legends your next lunch order might leave behind?
