Business is booming for a Pennsylvania restaurant recently challenged by an atheist activist.
Prudhomme's Lost Cajun Kitchen in Columbia, Pennsylvania decided to try and increase its Sunday business by running a promotion that allowed people to bring in a church bulletin and get a discount on their meal. But Sharon Prudhomme says that began the restaurant's spat with an atheist named John Wolff.
"Apparently that ruffled some of this feathers and he got upset about it and called the Human Relations Commission, in which case they … then sent down a 16-page complaint form that we were discriminating," the owner explains. "This gentleman, Mr. Wolff, had thought that we were discriminating against him and any others, as he said he was an atheist."
Although 35 restaurants in the area do the same promotion, Wolff singled out the Lost Cajun Kitchen. In response, Prudhomme invited Wolff to bring his membership card from the Freedom From Religion Foundation to the restaurant and promised he would receive the same discount.
"His response: he said, 'I couldn't be bothered.' So, he had never been here, he had never come here [and] he had never had any intention of coming," Prudhomme concludes. "He just happened to see our ad and decided that that was going to be something that would ruffle his feathers and whatnot."
The Prudhommes have hired an attorney and will respond to the allegation of discrimination, but they have no intention of caving to Wolff or the Human Relations Commission. Meanwhile, the ordeal has generated booming business for the restaurant.