Dad's Copake Diner — Restaurant in Town of Copake

POLICE CALLED AFTER OWNER REMOVED DISABLED SENIOR CITIZEN WITH SERVICE DOG!

This owner has asked a disabled senior citizen with a service dog to leave their restaurant. The ADA (Americans with Disability Act) stipulates that disabled persons with service dogs are to be allowed in ALL areas where the public is allowed.

I am 72 years old, I have heart disease among other disabilities. I am also a veteran and a retired fire-fighter & paramedic. I am asking all veterans, firefighters, senior citizens and the disabled to not patronize this diner. Here is the reason why: We entered this restaurant and were asked if we had "paperwork" for our service dog. We told them we did but we are not required to present it under the law. Shortly after this the owner came out and asked us to leave. This is against the law. We asked him if he was sure and if he made us leave, I would request police assistance. He said "this is my restaurant and I can do as I wish. Go ahead and call the police.”

I cannot image anyone in business not knowing the law and then having so much lack of compassion to remove a senior citizen with a service dog. Our service dog is extremely trained to cause no disruption to the business and he has never acted in an untoward manner.

We called the police who promptly came. We explained the situation to the officer and he was kind enough to go inside and inform the owner that we can certainly enter and have a service dog. When he came out he said we can go back in and everything “good to go”. We would like to thank your Sheriff's Department and the officer that responded. He was polite, respectful and rectified the dreadful situation caused by the owner.

This owner does not deserve a business. He does not know the law and certainly has no idea how to treat people. If you live in Copake or are traveling through, this establishment does not deserve your patronage. If you have a senior or disabled person in your family, you certainly should consider not supporting such a business. It might also be a good idea for the town of Copake Mayor and local officials to see how a local business can do this kind of thing to senior citizens. It is certainly not good advertising for your town and I am sure not representative of other businesses that treat their customers with respect and act within the law.

His response to this below is that he allowed us to eat in his diner. NOTE that he only "allowed us to eat" was because of the police presence. He...

I live in PA and my family comes here to visit family friends. The first two times we were here it was pretty good and reasonably priced. The third time I was there the waffle maker was broken and that’s all I wanted. Which I understand but it’s still frustrating. Then, my bacon came out and it was as hard as a rock. We came back again when we were in town and ordered “waffles with fruit topping” for $8.99. We ordered two of these. When we ordered she asked us what fruit we wanted and she gave us the options of blueberries, strawberries, bananas, or all. We picked all thinking this would be mixed berries with no warning they were going to charge us for each topping. They charged us $13 and some change for two waffles, $4 for strawberries, $4 for blueberries, $4 for bananas, and $2 for whipped cream… not sure where that even came from since we never asked for it and it wasn’t on the menu. WE PAID $14 FOR TOPPINGS…. that is insane. We also asked for 2 sides of bacon and they tried to charge us for 4 before I asked them to take it off. Finally, we got the bowl that says “served with your choice of toast” and they charged us for the toast. When we brought it to their attention, the lady had taken the receipt out of our hands and came back and threw it down before we could even mention the rest of our issues. I went up to the counter and said how we asked for the waffles with fruit topping for $8.99 and never were told that we had to pay for the toppings. They told me that the most they could do was take $1 off for each topping meaning they would take off $4 since there were 4 toppings and I couldn’t even get them to give me that. They gave us $3 off, took off two of these bacons since we asked for 2, not 4, and then proceeded to add a 20% gratuity to the bill ($14.93) when there were 4 of us. This left our total at $100. FOUR PEOPLE… BREAKFAST… $100. That is outrageous. We tried to give them multiple chances but we will no longer be coming back here as it has gone...

Not your friendly small town diner where you expect fair prices, generous helpings and quality food. Since changing owners the food quality has declined immensely , the prices have increased and the portions are obviously smaller. I can understand raising prices but don't then make the portions smaller. As someone who always shops local first I thought I'd give it a bit to see if the new owner was just figuring it out. I have been eating at Dad's since it opened mostly ordering out and the new nickle and diming with charging for condiments is ridiculous. Let me explain what happened during my last experience at Dad's. I wanted to order the appetizer fried shrimp they didn't have them so instead of accommodating their longtime customer by letting me just order the dinner fried shrimp minus the baked potato,veggie and soup it came with they said "no you have to buy it all". The last owner would've said I'm sorry we are out of what you wanted how can we make you happy. So I instead ordered fish and chips it came with a tablespoon of tarter sauce on the side so asked for a bit more and was charged 50cents just ridiculous do they now charge for ketchup packets too. Mind you in the countless times I've ordered out I always left a tip and I never took napkins or utensils. So to nickel and dime me over tarter sauce is just too much. We also ordered cheese fries with triple the bacon saying we'd pay for 3 sides of bacon and our bill reflected just that but then we get home and see at most 2 slices crumbled on top of it. We apparently should've just ordered 3 sides and crumbled it on ourselves to ensure we got what we paid for. I'm a meticulous budget-ter and I can tell you that in 2018 I spent $1956 at Dad's diner that's not including the many times this year we ordered out and I will never spend another penny there. Copake businesses in a whole have gone...