It doesn't even matter what the original thing was about. The way it was handled by the restaurant's PR team is what turned this small sub-reddit topic to a social media nightmare.
In one single night, that PR person, probably drove away tends of thousands (if not more) of customers. It doesn't matter who is right or wrong at that point, them not catching which side the public was on, and just arguing back and forth, is what turned this into a train wreck.
My point was it doesn't matter at this stage. It already happened. Time to deal with it. This kind of stuff happens all the time probably and it shows up in local paper at most, or in some /r/wtf sub-reddit.
Regardless of what side you are on, you can't deny that the restaurant lost a considerable amount of business in just a couple of days. That should be a fire-able offense.
"In one single night, that PR person, probably drove away tends of thousands (if not more) of customers"
How did you get to that conclusion?
Based on anecdotal evidence from the past, I tend to think very few people (outside of the HN/Reddit crowd) follow this type of news, and of those who do, almost no one cares enough to actually change their behavior.
In one single night, that PR person, probably drove away tends of thousands (if not more) of customers. It doesn't matter who is right or wrong at that point, them not catching which side the public was on, and just arguing back and forth, is what turned this into a train wreck.