We at The Takeout have strong feelings about French fry shapes. (I myself prefer a standard-cut fry or a Jojo.) But even given such ironclad convictions, we cannot recommend that anyone resort to violence over French fries. Thus, we must reprimand some customers of a Maine hot dog shop who have threatened the shop’s owners for switching from crinkle-cut to standard-cut French fries—French fries are serious business, yes, but surely not worth coming to blows.
The Kennebec Journal brought the controversy to light earlier this month. At issue are the fries served at Waterville, Maine hot dog shop Bolley’s Famous Franks. The franks may be famous, you see, but it was the crinkle-cut fries that customers just cannot part with. When the owners swapped them out for standard-cut fries, things got frankly ugly. Since the June fry switch, tensions have only escalated, leading to a confrontation with a man earlier this month who “ended up threatening to fight [the owner] when he was kicked out for becoming disorderly around customers.”
This is not an outlier. The restaurant says in a recent Facebook post that its staff has encountered “disturbing and hostile customers” who are “apparently very unhappy” with the change. The owners plead their case: The blades that the kitchen uses to create the crinkle-cut fries were flimsy and often broken, which was costly for the small restaurant. In switching to the straight-cut fries, Bolley’s will continue to use the same potatoes and the same process.
The owner, who signs her message “Leslie,” goes on to say: “All that being said, to speak to my first comment of hostile remarks from the public, I just want to say I will absolutely not tolerate being sworn at, threatened physical harm to myself, my husband and children. It is unacceptable here at Bolleys and should NEVER be tolerated anywhere.”
Yeah, no kidding.
Good people of Maine, the fry-loving staff of The Takeout understands your fried potato passions run deep as your pristine rivers. Please find an alternate source of the crinkle-cut fries you so desperately crave, and cut the weary owners of Bolley’s a break.