Twitter Revolts Against Virginia Restaurant’s Plan to Enforce Social Distancing With Room Full of Creepy Mannequins

By Ken MeyerMay 13th, 2020, 11:16 am
 

News followers flatly rejected a Virginia restaurant’s plan for removing the awkwardness of social distancing in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Washingtonian magazine published a story on Tuesday about The Inn at Little Washington, an upscale dining establishment that announced they will reopen on May 15. Since the state’s social distancing rules say restaurants can only be filled to 50 percent capacity, chef Patrick O’Connell came up with an idea to occupy the dining room’s unoccupied tables with dressed-up mannequins.

From the article:

The chef (who majored in drama in college) has been working with Shirlington’s Signature Theatre to get the faux humans costumed in 1940s-era garb. Servers will be instructed to pour them wine and to ask them about their evening.

“I think it would do people a world of good to reduce their anxiety level when they come out to a place which is still unaffected, because if you watch your television, you think that there isn’t such a place under a bubble,” says O’Connell. A friend told him: “Patrick, after all these years, your location finally paid off.”

Unfortunately, the mannequin idea doesn’t seem to be going over very well online, mostly because a lot of reactors find it nothing short of terrifying:

Of course, not everyone hated the idea since some people either made their pop culture references or expressed a willingness to give it a chance:

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