I have worked at eateries for many years. It is my observation that employees and customers both get mistreated. After all, capitalism is based on greed that pays slave wages. I have known owners whose families drive BMWs, and other double standards abound.

Smokers get paid breaks while I, as a non-smoker, have been ordered to carry the slack caused by their absence. Then I got harassed while hauling trash through the smoking area.

There is a lot of stuff diners don’t see while paying inflated prices for fatty factory foods full of empty calories and carbs. I’ll bet that folks who don’t eat out live longer and are healthier. It would be better if people prepared their own three meals a day for life. They would save money and feel better, too.

I don’t need the plethora of theme-park palate palaces. People are paying for the decor — bloated overhead that bloats us.

I believe there are some conscientious restaurants that feed the poor, thereby emulating the American greatness that, in America’s infancy, amazed Alexis de Tocqueville when compared to Europe’s class wars. He noted how the rich helped the poor unhesitatingly.

Let that serve as an example to help solve the nation’s ills as financial gaps widen.

George Stanley, Greene