Not going to mince words.
Don’t give this restaurant your business. Vote against the behavior of the owners toward one of his staff. Refuse to support Nathaniel’s in Owen Sound.
Most of us have people we have loved die of cancer, some of us many we have cared and needed in our lives.
36-year-old waitress Stacey Fearnall has had loved ones face cancer, and she took part in the Cancer Society head shaving event, raising $2,700.00 dollars. Good for her, I’ve no doubt Cops for Cancer, her family, friends and the Cancer Society are grateful.
Her boss is another story.
This fundraiser has been going on for 10 years, (a high school grad class raised money participating in this event recently for their prom. The female grads looked amazing, glowing not just from graduating but with their empathy with others who suffer).
The mother of two, who was told by her boss to go home after she refused to wear a wig, was in tears when she returned home Tuesday just a half hour into her shift.
“When she went in she felt like there was something wrong with her,” her husband said.
“Nobody would really look at her, make eye contact. They didn’t really say anything and it made her feel kind of less than human.”
It was a slow night so she came home early, but when she called to say she’d be in the next day, she was told not to bother, he added.
Nathaniels owner and chef Dan Hilliard defended his decision, saying the restaurant has certain standards. He prohibits male staff from wearing earrings and requires employees keep their hair at a reasonable length.
Fearnall is still on the payroll and she can return to work once she grows her hair back, he said, adding she was offered the summer off to spend time with her kids.
It turned into a he said/she said media story; bottom line, her bosses can get stuffed.
If I were Mrs. Fearnall I’d not take their money while her hair grows out. I’d cut all ties.
She did something for her community and for those she loves.
This goes beyond an employee/employer relationship. .
Lets turn the tables. What if her boss Hilliard had cancer, would he have been penalized for losing his hair? Told to leave with pay by a partner or staff and come back when it grew in?
Nope.
If he’d shaved his head for the Cancer Society would he stay away from his business?
Nope.
His baldness would have been celebrated as part of his will to fight his illness.
Are waiters penalized for being naturally bald?
Nope.
For choosing to be bald or getting buzz cuts?
Nope.
What if a waiter had lost his hair to cancer or chose to shave his head for the Canadian Cancer fundraiser. Would he have been laid off until his hair ‘grew in?’
Nope.
He’d too have been applauded.
It’s unlikely Hillaird and his partner would not have demanded our hypothetical waiter use a toupee.
Cops for Cancer is a community loved group. If they needed my help they’d get it.
Stacey Fearnall you are a brick and a stand up lady.
Thank you for your identification with cancer patients, male, female, young and old.
I know you have decisions to make about returning to the restaurant, their rejection of your decision goes beyond small town prejudice. You said you are not planning on filing a gender discrimination against the owners of Nathaniel’s Restaurant.
In that decision you shows patience, common sense and kindness.
Your former bosses could learn from you.
A haircut doesn’t affect her ability to work.
She indicated she’d rather work for a company who cares about her work ethic and places character over outward appearance. Owen Sound businesses are stepping up. A plant nursery she works part time for has given her extra hours. Kudos.
If I am ever in Own Sound, this is a no-brainer. Nathaniels restaurant will never get my business; if image matters, then the restaurant owners can wallow in shallow image. There are other good resturants who have indicated they would not fire an employee for participation in a charity event.
The restaurant was closed the night after Mrs. Fearnells story broke according to The Owen Sound Sun Times.
Other Nathaniel’s employees, however, were standing behind Dan Hilliard and Jeff Ferris, the restaurant’s owner and manger.
“I am upset for them. They are a physical wreck today,” said kitchen employee Cathy Cruickshank. “It just breaks my heart. I’m shaken, I’m upset, I’m hurt.”
Staff members said the owners are generous people who support numerous charities and always help their employees when needed.
“The character of these people is not mentioned,” said server Matt Daciw.
But many in the community were reacting with shock and anger that the 36-year-old woman was told to go on a leave of absence until her hair grows back.
The rest of the town react is mixed, the majority of citizens are not impressed with her bosses move, other restaurants and businesses have offered her a job.
Owen Sound - wiki
Published 5 months, 4 weeks ago43 Responses to “Nathaniel’s restaurant in Owen Sound”
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Hear hear!
I could not have said it better myself. You have hit the nail squarely on the head in your assessment.
Very best regards,
Greg
Awwwwwwwww…..the other employees are wrecked…..I own a restaurant….if one of my employees did this I would be PROUD of her or him….in fact ALL the other employees and the owners should now do the same for cancer…..I am ashamed of the decision the owners made…..I will not recommend them for any future business until they change their attitude and be manly enough to apologize publicly….AND MEAN IT….and say they acted and reacted too quickly….it doesn’t matter if Stacey told you or not…..GROW UP !!!
I would never eat at Nathaniels again….. ! period
Disgusting, is my first reaction.
Then, using present employees to fight the owner’s battles makes it worse.
The owners started this, they should finish it.
I hope this courageous lady does sue the resaturant owners.
Sad and shameful when a female is fired for supporting a worthy cause and for being “hairless”!! Will females now be fired for being breastless due to cancer as well? This story reminds me of the Tim Horton’s employee (also female) fired for offering a “donut hole” free of charge to a child! There is something terribly wrong when businesses are so mired in rules that compassion, common decency, and common sense are discarded! There is also a matter here of freedom of expression, and of threats used to control. (And I don’t care when I go to a restaurant if my male waiter is wearing an earring! I only care about whether the establishment is clean, the food is good and the waiter is efficient and polite!) This is NOT about whether the other staff or the owners of Nathaniels are good people. This IS about wrongful dismissal and discrimination!
I hope the owner and manager get cancer and go under chemo
The only way they’ll ever learn
Pricks
I Just can’t believe it, in this day of age, bald is beautiful, this restaurant has lost my business.
I agree wholeheartedly. On another website, I just read the following, referring to one of the owners of the restaurant:
He says he’s already heard from some customers who agree with him and say they would have been “appalled” to have been served at Fearnall’s table.
If you are “appalled” to contemplate being served by someone who has shaved her head for cancer research, then I am appalled to have to acknowledge you as a fellow member of the human race. Would you have also been “appalled” to share your dinner table with those of my family who lost their hair while having chemotherapy?
I’m sorry that since I don’t live in Owen Sound I won’t have the pleasure of boycotting their restaurant.
I know several women who have shaved their heads in this manner, and they have never been laid off. Why couldn’t Nathaniel’s stand behind her, raise some money for cancer and celebrate her decision?
That would have offered a MUCH happier story.
I am appauled to hear this story. It shows how truly cold, callous and heartless men are simply for money and their restaurant business. Their proper response would have been to join in with this young woman and have their heads shaved…raising money for a wonderful cause. Stop being so selfish and self-centered and do something for the betterment of society. I do not live in Ontario, but if I lived in Owen Sound, I guarantee that I would NEVER patronize a restaurant with these low values.
Boycott this place!!!! they better pray they’re not sporting a bald head themselves Cancer does not discriminate & I truly believe what goes around comes around little boys shouldn’t be in charge of making adult decisions….. Stacey sue their butts I’m sure there’s not contract outlining the length of HER hair or lack there of I cannot believe in this day & age that these 2 pompous idiots pulled this I hope to hear Nathaniels has gone under as for you Stacey hold your bald head high we’re all very proud of you Cancer hits every family if not an immediate member a friend hopefully someone will come to your aid & be proud to hire you we had an employee in our ofc do the same & everyone including the owner supported her
these 2 jerks need to be forced to do some community work in a Cancer ward all the best Stacey I’m sure you’ll come out on top & Thankyou
FYI:
Nathaniel’s Restaurant
215 8th Street East
Owen Sound, ON N4K 1L2
(519) 371-3440
Owner: Dan Hilliard
Shame on Dan Hilliard! I have never been to Nathaniels and I never will step foot into one. I’ve lost a very close family member to cancer. I hope I’m not losing a very dear friend who is currently battling cancer. I’m a really passive individual, I rarely get upset over things but I can’t help but feel outraged over what is happening in Owen Sound at Nathaniels. Dan Hilliard, if you somehow come across this blog in this massive medium we call the internet, I want to ask you something. How do you sleep at night??? I feel sorry for you.
Harry
Well I think I just posted a message about Stacey Fearnall, the waitress in Owen Sound who was fired from her job at a local restauarant for shaving her head in support of a local charity. But my cat jumped on the keyboard and it vanished - and now I don’t know if it was sent it or not, and I didn’t even know if it was your site I sent it to. It is now irretrievably lost but it probably had printer’s pie at the end of it, thanks again to my cat. I grit my teeth and still affirm that I love this bl**dy cat! But was it even your site?
The message was about finished and I was about to proofread it, but I didn’t keep a copy. Please apply to my cat if you want me to send it again!
The London Free Press:
“Treating this with a negative slant only hurts the cause and we really don’t want negative attention and we don’t want (Nathaniel’s owner Dan Hilliard) mistreated,” Fearnall said. “In general, he was a good employer.”
She is correct. Those of us who can make a donation to The Cancer Society can turn the resturant owners decision into positive action.
The resturant has’t opened since this story broke, which doesn’t help the owners, other employees, the community or fund raising events. 400 people participated in this fund raiser in Owen Sound. Good for them.
We can donate under Ms. Fearnalls name at The Canadian Cancer Society.
As a life long foodserver, having been in the hospitality business for 35 years. I am shocked and angry that the owners of Nathaniel’s acted so rash, especially when Stacey Fearnall had only commited an act of compassion and consideration, to raise funds to fight cancer. These two guys should be ashamed of themselves, and so should any of their staff who stood up for them, although my guess is that any of Stacey’s co-workers did that out of fear for their jobs. These guys don’t deserve to even be in business. They haven’t even had the courtesy to admit they were wrong, and have offered no apology. I invite anyone out there to join the Facebook group “Reinstate Stacey Fearnall Now !!” to protest this most ridiculous decision. I hate to say it, but I would like to see these guys put out of business for this most shallow and discourteous act. KUDOS to you Stacey for the class you have shown us all throughout this. And to add further, I shave my head every day before my shift, and none of my employers have anything negative to say about it.
I would like to be the 1st to come to Mr. Hilliard’s defense.
While I have a great deal of sympathy for people with cancer, I also have sympathy for those with mental illness.
What other explanation could there be for this guys behavior and utter lack of foresight as to what the publics reaction would be.
He actually did this because he thought his patrons would be offended by a bald waitress but wouldn’t be offended by a boss who fires her for a selfless act to try and help cancer victims?
This man is beyond stupid.
Mental illness is the only rational explanation I can come up with.
Perhaps the good people of Owen Sound should have a fund raiser to get him the psychiatric help he so obviously needs!
Bernie in Ottawa
So much for freedom to run your business as you see fit! Why should the restaurant owners be railroaded into changing their policies about appearance because an employee made the choice to shave her head. She could have raised the same amount of money without shaving her head and kept her job as well.
It’s about personal responsibility, folks. There are myriad ways to raise money for cancer research, and they don’t all involve gimmicks. I raise money for my causes by having a garage sale every summer and donating the money. No one is forced to buy my stuff, I don’t advertise that the sale is a fundraiser, and I don’t cut off my hair, walk for three days, or sit in a tree for a month. You can have empathy without doing all that.
This woman did a noble thing — I guess. However, her nobility ended when she refused to take responsibility for her decision. If she or her friends notified the press about this with her blessing, then I have absolutely no respect for her.
What if she had cancer and had chemo. And all her hair fell out? Would this owner have still fired her because customers couldn’t look her in the face? Like the short sited moron(Dan Hilliard) of a human said?
Rachael:
I think she did take responsibility for her decision.
I think by asking people to focus on fundraising and not on her is taking responsibility for the public response to her story.
I have not not seen anything to indicate she sought media attention.
You go back to the source story, wires picked it up.
It’s a Timbit story, people intuitively respond to these.
The owners made an honest pr mistake, and I think compounded it by chosing not to respond.
They advertise a ‘fine dining’ establishment, image is important to their bottom line. I think the public’s idea of image are changing.
Assuming customers who like ‘fine dining’ would be offended was the owners choice and is an insult to customers.
I think this way of raising money touches Canadians deeply, we think Terry Fox.
We think about the origin of Cops for Cancer.
It’s core and it’s human because men and women put something personal on the line besides money - their image.
The owners are as free to speak as Ms. Fearnall is.
They’ve chosen not to.
This owner has every right to react as he did. It’s his establishment. The public has every right to be appalled and to
choose to boycott this restaurant. This is freedom and the market taking care of business. I love it.
They act like they are doing her a favor: “giving her the summer off to spend with her kids.” Sheesh, she works two other jobs, bet her family really needs the money.
If these people want to repair their image, they should all shave their heads, give money to cancer research, and print up t-shirts that say they’re proud to go bald to fight cancer. They’d fill up every night!
It’s never too late to say you were wrong and apologize.
I think legally the owners of Nathaniel’s had every right to lay off this woman. But then she also had the right to go public with the story. She was apparently laid off because she refused to wear a wig… fine but it seems to me to be a bit of sour grapes that the owner felt he had the right to create consequences for her actions (refusing to wear a wig) while expecting to be shielded from the consequences of his own actions in laying her off. He’s upset that she went public, oh cry me a river. So it’s fine if he’s giving the consequences (an entire summer of lost wages) but not OK if he’s the recipient of consequences?
I will never ever go to this restaurant. All of use at work have now sworn to never go to this restaurant. Shame on this restaurant and its pathetic owner. We give the waitress our full support.
It was touched upon in many articles online that she was given a choice ‘to wear a wig’.
As a person who loved and lost to cancer, this is very insulting.
There is no shame, but a quiet dignity in losing your hair to cancer; the individuals who shave their heads in support of this cause are the few who, painfully for Mrs. Fearnall, realize how a loss of self can shadow the disease.
I am so sorry for the shameful treatment she, and the individuals she was supporting who have lost their hair battling this terrible disease, must endure.
Have been to Nathaniel’s. Never will again and will tell everyone I know to do the same. These two are crazy. Yes, there are 3 sides to a story and somewhere there is the truth, end of the day, did they really think that in this day and age this would not go to the public domain. The deserve the treatment they get for being so stupid as to ever let it get to this point. What were they thinking!
It seems the owners of this establisment look upon their employees as mere chattel. The rest of the employees should grow up and defend this lady instead of backing the owner.
I would hate to see anyone get anything as nasty as cancer but in the world of karma and with the statistics available regarding the cancer rate in Canada, wouldn’t the owner have something to think about if it happened to him or a loved one and they lost their hair not through a barber’s clipper but chemo?
The lady is someone who any business should hire asap. The owner is a selfish moron. Besides, wouldn’t no hair be safer around food and the cooking of food?
I’m going to phone the idiots and ask if I’ll be able to eat there, I have to drag along an oxygen tank, what will the owners and other customers think? Oh dear, I’m not a perfect customer I guess, do I offend people if I don’t seem perfect? I suggest others who do choose to eat there, make sure they ask to speak to the mgr. and give ‘em an ear full!
Guess it’s all in the eyes of the beholder yes? The woman in the picture, looks fine. If some think she would look better with hair hanging down to her waist, their perogative. Not relevant to her duties though, either way so Dan Hilliard, the owner of Nathaniel’s restaurant should be ashamed that he’s a lousy human being. What a disgraceful person, most of you should harass him every chance you get, don’t let up for months for any reason or for any of his solutions to his disastrous mistake!
In the words of Forest Gump:
“Stupid is, as stupid does.”
I suggest ordering a meal and then reporting that you found a hair in your food. Just to make a point.
I just had my 6th and last cycle of chemo today….. radiation is next. I am so moved by people who show their support by shaving their heads. Loosing ones hair is psychologically very hard on what is such an emotionally and physically challenging journey. How unselfish of her to give up freely what we who have cancer view as giving up our self identity. She willingly suffers with us.
You wake up each day and see that stranger in the mirror, a shadow of who you were. The feeling is only re-enforced by ignorance such as that of the owners of Nathaniel’s Restaurant. The fact that that action came from a woman floors me. I think Stacey Fernell looks great and I think the buzz had the opportunity to create positive buzz for the restaurant had they kept her.
Nice people? Maybe, but what a “Dumn ass move”!
Cheryl,
Cape Breton Island Nova Scotia
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=21158ca0-7c3d-437b-bc03-0fdf575e53b0
Well - the owner went to the media and sort of apologized.
He forgot to speak to Stacey first though. His ‘apology’ sounds just like something one of Harper’s MP’s would say in the House of Commons (sort of).
The Owen Sound Sun Times writes about why this story went around the world.
The Nathaniels Resturant apology published in The Owen Sound Sun Times:
Nathanial’s is(was?)an upscale restaurant and personal appearance does matter. They have a certain expectation of what their servers look like. This woman that performed this skull shaving stunt was fully aware of that. She chose to alter her appearance contrary to what was expected of her at work. She talks the talk, so let her walk the walk. Not everyone thinks bald(or close to it in this case)is beautiful. Some think it’s quite ugly.
True Welly, no arguement - there are people that think bald is not beautiful.
Enough disagree however to over double the donations under her name to The Cancer Society.
Employers all over the country offered her a job.
Nathaniels owners and fine dining customers won’t be subjected to not beautiful - a woman who lost her dad to cancer, has a best friend fighting cancer and who was an excellent employee.
I agree she made her choice, talking the talk and walking the walk. Good for her and everyone who supported her. She raised the most money in the Owen Sound event even before it was more than doubled by the public when this story broke.
Mr. Hilliard certainly got some very bad advice from someone (likely a lawyer who lives in his office as opposed to the real world).
Maybe he can write a book based on the experience:
“How to Destroy a Business with One Really Bad Decision”
It’s not about the length of your hair, but the content of your character
Well, after 40 years, I suppose we have finally come full circle.
Back in the olden times, 1968 to be exact, I was a student at dear old Hickory High School, concerned about recent assassinations, Vietnam and the ‘68 presidential election between Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon.
If I’m honest with you, I’ll tell you that another concern of mine was between me and my dad, who kept insisting that my hair was too long and I needed a haircut. I was lucky that my dad never got full-tilt gonzo crazy over my hair, but my guess is that if you are a male baby boomer, you may have also had a conversation or two with your father who thought your hair needed to be cut to make you respectable.
I reckoned that we’d all moved past the “length of hair” controversies, especially now that everything from shaved heads, to buzz cuts, to cornrows, to pony tails on men and women are seen in most of the workplaces around the world. Self-expression is alive and well in today’s world (and rightfully so), and it’s probably inevitable that every generation thinks the next one may be taking things a tad too far.
But it turns out that up in Canada, one restaurant’s owners haven’t moved past this controversy at all - as a matter of fact they’re so mired in the ’50s that it might take a miracle or H.G. Wells’ time machine for them to catch up with the rest of us here in the 21st century. Turns out the restaurant’s owners fired one of their employees the other day because she came to work after she’d shaved her head.
But here’s the real kicker.
Seems that Stacey Fearnell, a waitress at Nathaniel’s restaurant up in Ontario, Canada, was fired because she shaved her head all right. But the genuine gold-plated “sine qua non” of this controversy is Stacey Fearnell shaved her head to raise money for a cancer research charity near her home.
Oops.
Even after hundreds of e-mails, newspaper articles and phone calls lambasted Stacey’s bosses in the media, and folks stayed away from the restaurant in protest, Stacey’s bosses, the owners of Nathaniel’s, told reporters they didn’t care why Stacey shaved her head; their restaurant had certain high standards and waitresses with shaved heads couldn’t work at their “casual fine dining” establishment.
Mercy. Forty years ago youngsters were getting kicked around for wearing their hair too long, and today they are getting fired from jobs because they have no hair. Is there no end to lunacy?
One of the great lessons a parent can learn is to love your children no matter what they do to their hair. They may grow it, show it, cut it, bob it, color it, shave only parts of it, cornrow it or put Heinz 57 sauce and Elmer’s Wood Glue on it to make it stand up two-feet high, but hey, the bottom line is that even if you cut if all off, hair grows back (not for ALL of us, but that’s another column).
The point is that every generation mistakenly thinks the current generation is nuts compared to “the way we were.” Know what? Every generation is wrong. Youths of today or teenagers who will graduate in 2075 will attempt to break away from the patterns set by their parents, and I can guarantee you that different hairstyles will be part of that expression.
Jeff Ferris and Dan Hilliard, owners of Nathaniel’s restaurant in Ontario, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. What you did ranks as one of the dumbest business decisions ever made but even more importantly, on the compassion scale, was nothing short of morally reprehensible. You judged a young woman by her hair, or lack of it, and to top it off, she did what she did for charity, and you did what you did in the name of making a buck.
The latest word is that because of the firing, Stacey Fearnell has received numerous job offers all over Canada from people who don’t have a problem with the way she looks. They do, in fact, like her because she is obviously a compassionate person who went to extremes to donate money to a worthy cause.
I’ve got a feeling this is going to have a happy ending. I hope Stacey accepts one of these new job offers, makes a ton of money and can afford to buy Nathaniel’s restaurant in Ontario when it goes out of business.
Dr. Lee Jessup is president of United Way of Davidson County. He can be reached at leejessup@unitedwaydavidson.org.
Have these guys gone out of business yet ?
It re-opened Allen, and it’s had reviews since.
http://www.restaurantica.com/on/owen-sound/nathaniels-restaurant/23004468/
Get a life morons. She was told that her employers had misgivings about her shaving her head. She did it anyway. And you hating people have got on the bandwagon and spewed your vile hatred.
Shame on all of you.
Meow:
Moron:
1. a person who is notably stupid or lacking in good judgment.
2. Psychology. a person of borderline intelligence in a former classification of mental retardation, having an intelligence quotient of 50 to 69
You are free to disagree with how people respond to this resturant.
You are free to disagree with why people have chosen to support the former employee.
You are free to reiterate facts.
However assuming anyone’s motivation is hate and adding in name calling is not part of the blog policy. Play nice.
Well the actions of this resterant in unfortionate. This web page blog would almost be use full, if it used it publisity for good instead for just a way to slander a restrant hows own is a dumb ass. I’m he looking for a link that would help me find an event to donate hair. I would think that would be a smart thing to have here, as the amount of attention this situations has attracted in Grey and Bruce cnty.
Chris:
Contact your local Cancer Society.
They’ll give you a list of events, and/or a list of hair dressers or hair dressing schools in your area that will help you donate.