It’s not just staff that are subject to this kind of discrimination- patrons are frequently screened and sorted and sat based on their level of attractiveness. Hot walk-ins on a Friday night? You’re taking that prime deuce. Schlep who made the reso on Opentable and shows up in cargo shorts? Yea, you can have a…

I work at an orthodox boys’ school. Long sleeves, long skirts, and nothing low cut. I do, however, pair my low-top chucks with my outfits on a regular basis.

Sorry, too busy eating my delicious taco bowl from the Trump Tower Grill to reply.

In the 90s I worked in a lingerie store that required skirts/dresses, stockings and heels year round. And plenty of makeup of course. Summer be damned, staff have to look ladylike. Nice tailored pants can’t be ladylike? Not according to my interviewer.

Are you Trump? this is Trump isn’t it?

It’s not just restaurants, but shops too: I worked at Topshop and Urban Outfitters in London as a student, and when people handed in a CV we were supposed to mark down whether they were dressed in a way that would suit the clothes on offer, so sort of fashionable. Ok, sure, I guess this is ok but I remember some south…

Great article, love the research you put in to it!

The gaming industry in Las Vegas figured out how to get around all those pesky anti-discrimination and labor laws long ago. Casino cocktail waitresses are hired as entertainers, not employees. It allows the company to require a ‘certain look’ for the ‘role’. Wonder if the restaurant industry will ever try to make that…

There is so much to boggle at here, but I’m stuck on a casino requiring servers to wear their hair DOWN. That is so backwards!

but once you start assaulting customers with a baseball bat, things get out of hand quickly.

I noticed this pattern in a lot of trendy places, usually a place where twenty something young adults flock to.

However, most of my favorite waiters, waitresses, and staff members are not in any way model types....they remind me of my warm uncle. I guess older people are just more experienced and that’s why their…

Employers get away with looks-based discrimination everywhere, it’s just more obvious in restaurants and bars.

Oh it’s not just restuarants that do this. I was actually looked up and down and told that I had to wear skirts “because the manager is old fashioned.” It was a language school and I was behind the reception desk the whole time. I was presentable and no-one cared. Also none of the blokes in the middle aged old boys…

This story is not the least bit surprising. When I was in college, I worked at a restaurant were the uniform was black pants and a white, button-down shirt. However, there was not a single male server, and every one of the female servers was under 21 (no liquor license). Not surprisingly, we had a lot of middle-age,…

Subconsciously, a hiring manager might see a well-qualified woman applicant, and feel that she just “doesn’t quite fit what we’re going for.”

My (very attractive) daughter had a job interview at an upscale restaurant that consisted of the manager looking at her and then asking when she could start. I don’t think she even said more than hello before this happened.

I love the article. It’s extremely well written and there are some great points. I have one problem with it.

I live in a small-ish city in upstate NY, there is one restaurant in particular where the women staff must wear a push-up bra and they even have a deal with the salon next door that the women who work there must show up with a blowout. I think they have a budget of $2000 for this. It’s so disgusting.

Excellent article, very informative. Thank you.

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