Upper East Side Restaurant Nello Bans Single Women From Eating At The Bar

Because, apparently, the owners consider all of us escorts, and they have "special" seating rules for them.

And yes, this is as disgustingly ridiculous as it sounds, so let's backtrack.

This week, in an essay titled "The Night I Was Mistaken for a Call Girl," jet-setting creative executive Clementine Crawford shared her dehumanizing (in more ways than one) experience at her favorite uptown eatery upon a recent trip to New York.

"I perched at my favourite seat at the bar and started to respond to all the emails that had arrived on the flight over," she explains. "A waiter approached – a familiar face, but oddly hesitant on this occasion. He advised – with evident embarrassment – that I was no longer permitted to eat at my usual spot and that I must now sit down at a table."

When she returned a few days later, she was told to move yet again. Then, from her new table, she watched as a fellow regular - a male one, that is - was served his meal without incident while perched on a stool at the bar. After rightfully speaking up, Crawford learned "that the owner had ordered a crackdown on hookers" and assumed management believed "upscale escorts working the bar lowered the tone of the place and would be less obvious if escorted behind a table."

She spoke to an owner, explained that she had been misidentified, and he responded "that he could run his business as he pleased, and that [she] was no longer welcome to eat at the bar, only at a table."

Real classy.

While she decidedly left the name of the establishment out of her piece, Crawford did confirm to Page Six that the restaurant in question was Nello, a Madison Avenue eatery frequented by the likes of Beyoncé and Sarah Jessica Parker, famous (or, shall we say, infamous) for springing a $275 white truffle pasta bill on their patrons.

Now, Nello should also be known as a place that discriminates against women - especially the empowered, out-on-her-own, pays-her-own-bill woman. The woman many men use as an example to "prove" that sexism isn't real, because, after all, there are now female CEOs in the world!!! Crawford put it best when she wrote, "All these years we have been battling for a room of one’s own; and, little did we know it, but we are still fighting for a seat at the table (or bar, to be strictly accurate)."

Of course, there are layers of shittiness to unpack here. It's not just the fact that at this so-called "sophisticated" establishment, all unaccompanied, attractive women are unquestionably considered sex workers, it's also the fact that there's a "sex worker seating policy" in the first place. Shouldn't a professional woman (in any field?) who can afford her meal be allowed to eat where she pleases? 

The answer is yes - and it most definitely shouldn't be here.

[Photo via]