December 15, 2022
Actor Drew Droege Told Not to Kiss Date at 'Family' Restaurant
Emell Adolphus READ TIME: 3 MIN.
Actor Drew Droege said he was wrapping up dinner at El Compadre in Los Angeles when he decided to plant a kiss on his date for the evening. Droege claims that he was then reprimanded for the act by a manager who reportedly said the gesture wasn't appropriate because it was a "family" restaurant.
Droege said the whole incident was "appalling."
He added, "Just to let it sink in that he was literally telling us that two men were not to kiss at the restaurant."
According to Droege, he and his date understood clearly what was happening to them.
"We just put our drinks down and immediately just stormed out because obviously we didn't feel safe," he said. "We were just really stunned that we would be treated that way after a truly lovely dinner before that with our waiter and everything."
After sharing his experience on social media, Droege said he was not prepared for the amount of love and support he would receive over the incident.
"I wasn't prepared today for the amount of love and support, and I am so grateful to friends and allies, you know, queer, straight, and everything in between, [who] speak up and amplify," Droege told BuzzFeed News. "A lot of friends told me they called the restaurant today."
"His posts have garnered hundreds of comments and thousands of “likes” across social platforms, with some calling for a boycott of El Compadre and others flooding the restaurant's Yelp pages with one-star reviews this week," reads the Los Angeles Times.
"After releasing an initial statement Tuesday that it eventually deleted, El Compadre issued a second statement late Wednesday afternoon saying it had fired the employee in question," the Times continues.
“We want to sincerely apologize for the actions of our manager the night of December 12th,” the restaurant's latest Instagram post read. “This is not representative of our core values at El Compadre, and we wanted to let our customers know that the manager has been terminated.
“We have been in business for almost 50 years, and we accept, appreciate and value every customer that walks through our doors, and this behavior will never be tolerated in our establishment,” the statement continued. “We deeply regret how our manager handled this situation.”
His website reads: “Drew Droege is best known for his online parody videos of downtown indie darling Chloë Sevigny, featured in Entertainment Weekly, The Advocate, TimeOut New York, OUT magazine's Out 100, Marc Jacobs' 2016 Spring campaign, and HBO's Wigstock documentary, ‘Wig'".
He played Mr. Dennis, the drama teacher, on Paramount Network's "Heathers" and has recurred on "Search Party", "Bob's Burgers", "Drunk History", "Gloop World", "IdiotSitter", "Key and Peele", "Comedy Bang! Bang!", and Logo's "Cocktails And Classics,” along with numerous other series, films, and web series. An alumni of the Groundlings and Upright Citizens Brigade theaters in Los Angeles, he has written and performed five solo shows. He received the Outstanding Performance award at Outfest Los Angeles in 2018 for the BroadwayHD capture of "Bright Colors And Bold Patterns" (available to watch on broadwayhd.com).
Other LA theatre credits include Charles Busch's "Die, Mommie, Die!", Justin Sayre's "Ravenswood Manor", Matt Wilkas & Mark Setlock's "Born To Win", Julie Brown's "The Homecoming Queen's Got A Musical", long-running drag "The Golden Girlz", and musical parodies of "Troop Beverly Hills" and "The Devil Wears Prada".
