Carmine's Pizza & Eatery

I’ve gone to Carmine’s quite a few times but I’ve always gone with at least one other adult. The food is usually good and the location is convenient. However, today I had no other adult with me and so I took my service dog in case I were to have any mobility issues; accompany me was my granddaughter, age 5. We were waiting in line to be seated when one of the workers started YELLING at me to get THAT THING out of the store, screaming that “You can’t be in here!”. I tried to explain that the dog is my SERVICE DOG and I had her documents to prove it. She told me she doesn’t care! Another worker came up and started also telling me that SERVICE DOGS ARE NOT ALLOWED! Clearly, they don’t know the ADA law. A third worker started trying to tell them that SERVICE DOGS are allowed and they did not want to listen to him. I started to agree that I would leave, except I wanted them to put it down on something with their restaurant stationary that they were refusing to provide service to me because I have a service dog. Instead, they threatened to call the police. When I told them I would call the police myself – that is when they started to think that perhaps Service Dogs ARE allowed and they decided to listen to the third worker who had been quietly but emphatically telling that service dogs are permitted. They finally decided to “allow” me to be served, but ONLY if we sat as far in the back as possible, so that no one would see us. So we finally did get served and they assigned the worker who had been knowledgeable about the law to provide service. After that, we had no problems. We were seated at a booth in the back, I put down a thin towel I use to mark my dogs “place” when we are out and we were fine. Other patrons who were seated later were quite surprised when we leaving to see that a service dog had been quietly siting under the booth’s table. I still like their food but I don’t know that I would ever recommend them to anyone with any kind of disability. The only worker who had been polite and who had known and understood the law was told that tonight will be his last night and so he’s out of a job. I suggested he might want to apply where I work. We need polite, calm, intelligent workers there. Too bad Carmine’s doesn’t value good workers – and too bad that the workers they are keeping are rude and do not know the law. I did tip the one worker who knew the law, was polite and provided service about 30%. Hopefully he will find a better job.