‘Sit down and shut up’: my lunchtime ordeal at Karen’s Diner
Masochism as entertainment has long been the 21st century’s stock-in-trade: Gordon Ramsay shouting at aspiring chefs; catty old Kevin McCloud comparing someone’s multimillion-pound Grand Design with a car showroom. Even in this #BeKind age, we remain hungry for ritual humiliation.
It was only a matter of time, then, before someone came up with the idea of a restaurant experience that aims to be as unpleasant as possible. Blame the Australians for Karen’s Diner, new to the UK, which advertises itself with the slogan: “We hate good service.”
Some journalists go undercover in despotic regimes. Others create elaborate identities to lure the powerful into corruption. My lunchtime task was to go incognito at Karen’s in Prestwich, a suburb of Bury in Greater Manchester once home to the late Mark E Smith, the Fall singer whose uncompromising rudeness was less of a gimmick than a way of life. Karen’s Diner would have represented everything Smith hated about modern life, where insults come from a script rather than the heart.
My cover story fell apart at the first hurdle when the scowling maitre d’ noticed the notebook sticking out of my coat pocket. “What’s that?” she barked. I stuttered an unconvincing reply. She directed us to table 22, the worst in the house, right by the toilets.
A waitress chucked menus in our general direction. Another brought us chefs’ hats crayoned with insults. Work experience student Hope, no doubt rapidly reassessing her career goals, received one reading “Tory”. Mine said: “I noshed Boris.” A woman strutted past to the loos with the confidence of a supermodel, perhaps forgetting she was wearing one saying “dopey slag”.
A surprising number of children were dining with Karen. Under-16s must be accompanied by
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