Server Fired From Local Denny’s For Racial Discrimination (and More Updates)

Welcome back to Eater News, a semi-regular round-up of mini news bites. Have info to share? Email intel to seattle@eater.com.

• Local-foods evangelist Jon Rowley — the icon who introduced Copper River salmon and Olympia oysters to the Pacific Northwest and was named “the fish missionary” by Julia Child for his expertise — died Tuesday of kidney failure at his home on Vashon Island. Rowley was 74 years old.
• Duke Moscrip, owner of the Duke’s Chowder House chain, took out an ad in The Seattle Times last week in the form of an open letter imploring President Donald Trump to help move forward a plan to restore the Columbia River salmon run. Moscrip said doing so would lead to “a gigantic increase in employment, an enormous increase in the GDP not just this year but every year hereafter and no downside.”
• At least one server has been fired from a Federal Way Denny’s restaurant for blatantly discriminating against a group of black customers last week. The server asked the customers in question to pay before their food would be cooked — something she did not require of white customers. The company responded on its Facebook page, citing “zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind”:

• No longer can fans of Starbucks’ flavored syrups, bulk coffee orders, and other branded merchandise like mugs buy these things online; the coffee chain giant shut down its online store this past Sunday.
• In other Starbucks news, activist shareholders will pressure the company to improve its parental leave policies for retail store workers, adoptive parents, and fathers. The company’s policies are already relatively generous, but not consistent: Starbucks offers 16 weeks of paid leave to new mothers and 12 weeks to new fathers and adoptive parents in corporate positions, but just six weeks of paid leave to new mothers in retail stores.