New owners of a famous Maine eatery are learning an important lesson quickly: don't mess with the fries.
When Leslie and Jim Parsons took ownership of Bolley's Famous Franks, a famous eatery in Waterville, Maine, they decided to cut costs by changing the crinkle-cut french fries to straight-cut last June.
Bad move. The couple didn't realize their seemingly simple change would cause massive blowback and even physical threats, Central Maine reports.
“People come in with a negative attitude that the fries aren’t going to be the same,” Jim said. "They think we're changing tradition."
Leslie said customers have threatened to fight her and her husband over the change.
“Within the last week, we have encountered some pretty disturbing and hostile customers apparently very unhappy with our straight cut French fry,” she wrote in Facebook. “While I fully understand the crinkle cut has been the long standing traditional fry of Bolleys, I was forced to make an unpopular business decision for reasons as a business owner one must make from time to time.”
According to Leslie, nothing about the fries have changed except for the cut. In fact, many customers even described the fries as good as they were before the Parsons took ownership. But some customers are still "acting out" in the store over the outrage of straight-cut fries -- bad enough that Leslie Parsons says she fears for her three daughters, who often hang around the restaurant.
"When someone is hostile, you don’t know where the endpoint is going to be,” she said. “If you’re getting into fights over french fries, you’ve got bigger problems.”