By Richard L. Gaw
Staff Writer

With successful locations in Wilmington, Newark, Hockessin, Kennett Square and now in Jennersville, the Two Stones franchise of gastropubs have rightly earned their reputation as a happy destination for delicious food and good times.
So it came as a great surprise to many patrons when the restaurant's Jennersville location was recently targeted for what some in the community viewed as a discriminatory incident that quickly spread around social media.
On the evening of May 12, Kennett Square resident Gabriela Pedroza visited the Jennersville location with a male friend. As they took their seats in a booth, they ordered drinks, and were subsequently asked to show their identifications. Pedroza flashed hers – a Pennsylvania-issued driver's license – while her friend, a citizen of Mexico who was visiting Pedroza, provided his Mexican passport. He was denied beverage service.
"I then asked the manager what the problem was, and she said that she couldn't accept [the man's] ID," Pedroza said. "I told her this it is a valid, government-issued ID. She told me that the policy of [Two Stones] is to accept U.S.-issued IDs only.
"I told her, 'So what you're telling me is that when you have tourists from anywhere in the world and they come here and they don't have a U.S. ID, your establishment is going to turn them away."
The manager repeated the restaurant policy to Pedroza.
Pedroza and her friend then left the Jennersville restaurant. Later that evening, Pedroza posted information about the incident on the ICE-Kennett Facebook page, and then later on her personal Facebook page. Almost immediately and over the course of the following weeks, her post received more than 100 comments and was shared 74 times. Responses ranged from outrage and disappointment to suggestions that Two Stones' ID policy was discriminatory, and threats from regular Two Stones patrons said that they would no longer do business with the restaurant.
Within 24 hours of Pedroza's post, Two Stones operations manager Michael Stieglitz wrote a personal apology on her Facebook page.
"Certainly it's understandable that everyone is very upset," Stieglitz wrote. "We either have done a horrible job of training our staff on foreign documents, or more so obviously, need to get better at communicating with guests. I can personally assure you, we do not discriminate or 'only serve U.S.- documented people.' This is a very sad example of how miscommunication and lack of training can hurt people unfairly and unjustly. Again, I apologize personally for how my staff handled the situation."
In a follow-up post, Stieglitz wrote that Two Stones "SHOULD HAVE and WILL moving forward, get Canadian and Mexican official current ID documents for comparison." 
Stieglitz then made a personal phone call to Pedroza.
"He [Stieglitz]set things straight with me immediately, saying that it's not a policy to just accept U.S. ID only," Pedroza said. "I can say that I respect him a lot, because it would have been very easy for him to just wash his hands of it and say, 'Call the restaurant manager, I had nothing to do with it,' but instead he said he accepted his fault in this, because he didn't train his staff into the fact that they can accept these IDs."
Pedroza then posted again on the Facebook page, detailing the specifics of the conversation she had with Stieglitz.
While Pedroza said that she was surprised at the volume of responses her post received, her decision to share the Two Stones incident -- one that ultimately reached the restaurant's management team, who responded immediately -- demonstrated the power of social media.
"Back in the day, [my complaint] would never have gone past the restaurant's website or an email, and maybe it never would have been heard," she said. "But [these postings] proved that one person can make a change, that one person can change policies simply through posting [on social media.]"

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email [email protected].

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