Imagine the scene: you’re out with a date with your Hebrew honey having some dinner and some drinks. All is going well. Until the check comes, when you notice that, instead of a table number on the bill, are the two words: “Jew couple.”

That’s right, some genius waitress at the Waterfront Grill in Parkhill, NJ (who is no longer in the employ of said Jersey Shore establishment) decided to identify the couple in writing on the bill by their perceived religious background. What’s more, the objectionable phrase resurfaced a few week’s later, on the Jewish guy’s credit card bill:

Relaxing at happy hour on a Friday night, July 8, [Brooklynite Elliot Stein] and his girlfriend of two years, Jennifer Cassin, had just finished their sushi and drinks. When the check arrived, a startled Cassin picked it up and handed it to her boyfriend, saying, “What the hell is this?” Along with the list of their orders was the printed phrase: “Jew Couple.”

Stein said he took the offensive bill and showed it to Jewish friends seated nearby who said they could not believe it. When the group started questioning the manager, Stein said she simply told them there was nothing derogatory about the statement. Stein said he was then asked to leave for making a fuss.

The restaurant’s general manager, Malia Wells, yesterday told The Post that the offending phrase was a matter of “poor judgment on the part of a bartender.” The server, shown as Karina on Stein’s bill, has since “moved on,” Wells said. She would not say whether Karina was fired.

“We are a family restaurant, and we welcome everybody,” she said, adding that the words “Jew Couple” were never intended to be derogatory. “We use it as a form of identity,” she said. She would not elaborate on what the restaurant does when there is more than one couple assumed to be Jewish at the restaurant.

Do you think the server meant it as a compliment? You know, that she really meant to write “Jewlicious couple”?

(Cross-posted at My Urban Kvetch)

About the author

Esther Kustanowitz

For more posts by Esther, see EstherK.com, MyUrbanKvetch.com and JDatersAnonymous.com.

46 Comments

  • Hmmmm….Jew couple? Complimentary? Let’s ask our resident YOG and supposed friend of the “Jew People” – Hey Tom, uhm, I mean, Mr. Morissey, Sir…waddya think of “those people” after all?

    Actually – probably it was an “identifier” and didn’t mean so much…it’s like: Where Does this White Whine and Heinekin go?

    Oh yeah, over there, to the really loud group of people who keep nashing the peanuts and NOT drinking!!! (see previous jsirp wisdom)…yeah, the JEW couple over there…

    Oh, good, now I know where to take the drinks>

    AFTER ALL, SHE IS A SHIKSA BITCH WAITRESS, YOU KNOW>>>> You think she’s able to REMEMBER stuff like that????

  • I’m waiting for someone to remark “that wouldn’t have happened if they had eaten in a Kosher restaurant” but before that debate starts I thought I’d interject a funny story from when I was waitressing my way through law school at Friendly’s (which by the way, uses an ingenious method of identifying which check goes with which table called “table numbers”).
    After dinner the woman ordered black cherry ice cream, the man ordered a banana split, making sure to tell me he was highly allergic to nuts. When I brought the sundaes, I very politely put the women’s in front of her saying “you have the cherry” and then put the man’s in front of him and said ” and you have the banana with no nuts”. When I realized what I said I had to hold my breath until I got back into the kitchen to explode with laughter and when I told my co-workers we all laughed so loud that the manager had to give the couple their meal & dessert for free.
    Guess I haven’t changed much from when I was 19!

  • Hey, I’m new here, been reading this blog the past few days. I opened the link to NY Post article and the Jersey ADL guy is quoted as saying “it doesn’t even say Jew-ish, it’s indefensible.” i thought that was pretty interesting, because when someone calls me a Jew or Jewess it definitely rubs me the wrong way, but I couldn’t tell you why. Any thoughts?

  • Did they teach you to use the term “shiksa bitch” at Ohr Somayach?

  • Ohr Somayach? Boy do YOU have me wrong..Uh, oh…here we go…here comes Chutzpah – standing up for SHIKSA BITCHES????? OMG – DON’T YOU REALIZE THAT THOSE CHICKS ARE RIGHT NOW, PLOTTING to steal away nice available Jewish guys even as we blog? And YOU WANNA BE FRIENDS?????

    Wasn’t there a post about that book Boy Vey, with this chick who’s all into Jewish guys and their neurotic tendencies (thus proving jsrip right, yet again, about how neurotic we are…but hey, it’s sexy.

    Plus, this just in…didn’t anyone hear the new poll that love handles and scruffy is in…metroFAGsexual is out…in which case…hey hey hey…Jsirp has got it made!

    Chuztpah – this is your SURVIVAL we’re talking about! Some dumb waitress, right after she writes, JEW PEOPLE on the bill…don’t you know what she does?

    She takes her car and parks it by a road side, and leaves her door open, crying…

    NO – YOU SILLY GOONS>.. nNOT pretending that she’s got a flat tire (hey, THAT’LL GET A LOT OF JEWISH GUYS REAL FAST – NOT…CHANGE A TIRE? MECHANICAL…)

    No,…of course not…she parks by the side of the road, preferably in the rain, door open, shapely, sexy shiksa bitch leg hanging out the door.

    She’s leaning on her steering wheel – crying! Boo Hoo.

    Jew Guy comes over – cuz, he’s gotta save the world, you know…

    What’s wrong, little lady?

    Ugh, she stammers. Forget it! You wouldn’t understand! My MOTHER DRIVES ME CRAZY! SHE JUST DOESN’T LET UP. NEVER NEVER NEVER!!!!

    Yes, it’s true, this does happen! This is how they do it, those SBs…they’ve got a secret society on how to nab Jewish guys…

    #1 Always be slightly vulnerable – in a way that says, your pain can ONLY be cured by a really good orgasm from a JEWISH MAN!!!

    And, Chuztpah – you want to defend these women?
    Jewish mother – help this poor, dumb, humor-challenged chick out, will you?

    love ya! Jsirpicco!

  • Two-syllable words always sound nicer than one-syllable ones. One-syllable ones sound harsh. We were once Judeans, but they shortened it to one syllable, Jew, as a hostile thing. Think of all the slur words you know for groups; they are almost all, with one exception, one-syllable.

  • Jsirp, oops, your homophobic & misogynistic middos are showing again.

  • Chuztpah! couldn’t you at least get the tiniest bit creative when you slam me besides calling me a women hating, fag with a small dick?

    It’s so boooooorrring (and not true – HA! -Father of 5 bli ayin horah pooh pooh pooh!)

  • no, it would have been “those fucking arabs”. they come into the Kosher pizza place in Plifton from Paterson all the time and it’s really “unsetteling”. as open-minded as I try to be, I wish they would disengage from coming into Jerusalem Pizza, but they like it because there’s no “un-Hallel” meat there.

  • Plifton, is that a code for Clifton? AH I get it, Passaic – Clifton. Like the music they play there sometimes, I used to listen to Jewish rock music alot, but none of the cool groups more of the Yeshivish ones, sometimes those tunes carry the day for me.

    The real question is how do you grow as an adult? What does you are the same mean? You think the same on everything, or being a parent has had an effect in some way?

  • jsirpicco: sheesh. language man, language! I don’t like looking at my blog and seeing anyone referred to as a bitch. Please try to moderate your language ok?

  • How fucked up and embarrassed of our heritage are we when we interpret someone labeling us as “Jew” as derogatory?

  • DW, I think it’s not that these people were ashamed of being Jewish. It’s just a strange choice to refer to someone by their religion in this kind of context. I mean, why does someone do this when, as other people have said above, saying “Table 12” would be much easier, and less likely to make the newspaper…

  • It certainly is curious why the waitress would choose to identify them by their religion, and they would be reasonable to question her actions but that’s no reason to interpret it as a slight against Jews.

  • dw – they weren’t eating at a kosher restaurant, so clearly the dude wasn’t wearing a kippah or something that would easily identify him as a Jew. Granted, this did happen in New Jersey so they could have been wearing gaudy guiant star of david necklaces… but I think the point is that they took offense because the waitress identified them as Jews based perhaps on their mannerisms. Of course the fact that she was right doesn’t make it any better. Or does it? I dunno. I actually don’t think it’s a big deal. She accurately ID’d them as a Jew couple. They were in fact a Jew couple. So what’s the big deal?

    By the way, Chaim from http://www.life-of-rubin.blogspot.com/ actually sent me this story earlier and I was gonna blog it but the ever so nimble Esther beat me to it. Dang yo! But thanks anyway Chaim. You deserve some recognition.

  • Oh, and I’ll add that I don’t think it’d be a big deal to me either. In leaving the tip, I’d probably write “Goy Bartender” on the back.

  • I call jews jews all the time at work and there hasn’t been one complaint from a jew about it. Maybe it’s because I’m 6’4″,265 lbs and not some little “shiksa bitch”. Stop your fucking whining. Jews.

  • Couple walk into a restaurant on a FRIDAY NIGHT, what do you expect that good things are going to happen? You think that all of a sudden that they are going to be given a free meal? They should be at their grandmothers helping her have a nice shabbos dinner.

    Wait a minute, dating for two years? THis guy should start taking his honey seriously or she should find another dude. Commitment problems all over the place, Friday night dinner out…

    No wonder they were so offended, they were trying to do everything to just be goyish, and bada boom, they stick out like Jews no matter what.

    Hashem has a way of reminding us of who we are when we are trying to not be who we are.

  • LOL! It’s funny ’cause it’s true. 🙂

    Thanks for that, Alter K. I needed a good laugh right now.

  • Thanks CK, you guys should start reading my blog for material, since I beat y’all to the punch so often these days 😉

  • Okay CK – I’ll say shiksa “witch,” and then everyone will know what I mean…but check out that 6’4″ chick – if it’s a chick I’m telling you..

    When the chips are down the goys can kick our behinds!

  • See Chaim, why’d you have to go and do that? I try to be all nice and stuff and then you turn this into a pissing match. Heh … 😉

  • not at all jewlicious wrote: I call jews jews all the time at work and there hasn’t been one complaint from a jew about it.

    Wait what are you saying? Your job involves calling Jews? Or are you saying that at your place of employment, you regularly call people of the Mosaic persuasion by the epithet “Jew,” and because of your magnificent size they cower away in fear not daring to complain?

    You need to be clearer. At my office there are lots of chassidic Jews and I often greet them in yiddish by saying, vus machtsu yid? Basically, what’s up Jew? No one takes offense.

    So do you like… work at a synagogue? Or are you just a BIG FUCKING ILLITERATE IDIOT? I’m guessing idiot. Please let me know if I am mistaken stupid head.

  • I hate america. I am sorry I came back here from Israel. Don’t worry, this country is going downhill so fast in our lifetime we will see masses of them eating out of garbage dumpsters.
    One thing Marx was right about, the greedy capitalists will dig their own graves.
    300 people just laid off at Panasonic hq, jobs going to India. No one cares, this is capitalism, the blessings of capitalism. I say, get whatever 2 or 3 jobs you can now, cuz even working at Dunkin Donuts will be hard to find soon.

  • Ck – You have a gazzlion hits a day and I have like 12 and a half 🙂 It’s a “PISHING” match. It’s a whooping.

    Keep up the great work you Jew-Bloggers.

  • Hey, sirpmeister– don’t know what to make of this one. Wonder if the ditz in question thought that the always-reliable, ethnic ID would help her keep her customers straight.

    Alternatively, maybe she thinks Hitler was right. Who the hell knows?

    It sure is hard to get decent help these days. Nobody better write, ‘Irish bloke’ on my tab, or there will be consequences…

  • sirp, no problem. Safe haven and the very best in legal representation– all for a modest retainer (well, modest considering the desperate circumstances).

  • Bunch of crap Izzy. Don’t beleive any of Bushes bullshit, more jobs my ass. I can’t even get a Dunkin Donuts part time job, there are 3 fast food places in my neighborhood. I applied to all 3 for Sunday and part time eves. Not a peep.
    Yes I shaved and dressed well for it. Sheehs get a job my ass. u have no clue at all.

  • Dear Jobber,
    I am sorry that you are having trouble finding work. Parnassa is so crucial. Check hatzlacha.com, also this might help: from from
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NCYIjobs/

    ———————————
    There are 16 messages in this issue.

    Topics in this digest:

    1. Masters in Psychological Counseling looking for work in the field
    From: “sherman_jennifer”
    2. Fwd: [YIWHJOBS] Job available
    From: NCYIjobs
    3. Fwd: [ENRV] Powerbuilder developer
    From: NCYIjobs
    4. Fwd: [YIWHJOBS] SOCIAL WORKER and MENTAL HEALTH WORKER
    From: NCYIjobs
    5. Fwd: [JimsJobs] (Job) Application Developer – NY
    From: NCYIjobs
    6. Senior Software QA Engineer/Lead – Wall Street – NYC
    From: “crus_surfer”
    7. Sr. QA Lead Position
    From: “elananh22”
    8. oracle 11i/NJ&Sybase DBA/Lansing,MI
    From: Lorven Technologies
    9. Fwd: Jewish Jobs Weekly
    From: NCYIjobs
    10. Fwd: [YIWHJOBS] Pt five towns will train
    From: NCYIjobs
    11. Fwd: [YIWHJOBS] JOB-Computer Technician – Cedarhurst
    From: NCYIjobs
    12. Fwd: [YIWHJOBS] part time gym teacher
    From: NCYIjobs
    13. Fwd: [YIWHJOBS] Mashgiach/Kosher Supervisor/Kitchen Manager
    From: NCYIjobs
    14. Fwd: [YIWHJOBS] Job Opening – edison NJ
    From: NCYIjobs
    15. Fwd: [YIWHJOBS] ORACLE DBA
    From: NCYIjobs
    16. Fwd: [YIWHJOBS] FW: [PCSAguda] Visual Basic Programmer
    From: NCYIjobs

    These were todays. They come out every day.

    Good luck, Hatzlacha Raba.

  • Hey I saw in the paper today this place did the same things w. another patron. not Jewish but some other comment like that.

  • Dave, I saw that story too: a woman who had been complaining about her cable service got a bill; the space where her name should have been read “Bitch Dog.” Which is just stupid because it’s redundant, anyway. Not just that, but it repeats itself.

  • I think it is a sign of the times. That americans would even think to act like this. Nothing will be done about them.

  • I think it is sad that the waitress/bartender assumed they were Jews based on looks or actions alone (however, maybe as someone pointed out there was a large gold chai or something cool like that).

    I do feel though that this does not come close to when I went to McDonalds (yes was not keeping kosher yet then) before school one day with my friend and her boyfriend. He proceeded to tell me how horrid kykes were. I guess our cute nicknames like this bother me a little more than being referred to as a Jew.

    Also, would it matter if a Jew wrote the comment versus a “shickza witch” as she was called earlier? Why is it ok for us to label ourselves or for blacks to use the N word, but the second someone else does it, it hurts?