A few weeks ago, we brought you the news of “what has to be an idea that will eventually go horribly wrong,” in that TGI Friday’s were testing out “mistletoe drones” in some of their restaurant locations — which would ostensibly fly around the crowded restaurants and goad unwitting patrons into awkwardly kissing. Well, it should come as little surprise that the idea has already “gone horribly wrong,” as a photographer in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay TGI Friday’s location came close to losing an eye from one of the damn things the same day the promotion launched.
When a reporter for Brooklyn Daily was visiting the TGI Friday’s to do a story on the drones, the drone operator asked if he could land one of the smaller drones on her hand. However when she flinched at the last moment, somehow the drone went careening into the face of her photographer, Georgine Benvenuto.
“It literally chipped off a tip of my nose,” said Benvenuto, using tissues to stanch the blood. “It took off part of my nose and cut me here, right under my chin.”
Benvenuto said she’s just thankful she wasn’t blinded in the name of love. “Thank god it didn’t go anywhere under my eye — that is my livelihood.”
Drone operator David Quiones said an accident like this had never happened before, and even blamed our reporter for the bloodshed.
That’s just the risk you’re taking when you make the decision to eat at a casual eating establishment though, you guys.
Quiones isn’t worried that the drone strike on Benvenuto will be the kiss of death for the restaurant chain’s Mobile Mistletoe holiday promotion, saying that people won’t be scared away because they already know — and disregard — the risks.
“If people get hurt, they’re going to come regardless. People get hurt in airplanes, they still fly,” Quiones said. “There is a risk involved — anything flying, there is risk.”
Sure, I can totally understand the correlation between the small risk you take in the necessity for air travel versus potentially getting disfigured by a tiny helicopter with razor-sharp blades while you’re just trying to eat your $10 endless mozzarella sticks, for f*ck’s sake.
As of now TGI Friday’s has no plans of discontinuing their “Mobile Mistletoe” campaign, but let’s see what happens when this story goes just a little bit more viral. I expect a statement by the end of the day.
(Brooklyn Daily via Gizmodo)