Restaurant on Google Glasser: Man-child stinking up the joint

We should be thankful for clarity.

There's so little of it around and sometimes it does a fine job of piercing the odorous fog.

One Seattle diner, the Lost Lake Cafe and Lounge, decided to be -- in its view, at least -- very clear with a customer about his wearing Google Glass while eating.

Nick Starr, a video teleconference network engineer, sat down at the diner with his Google Glass proudly perched on his nose. That nose was soon put out of joint when he was asked to take off the famed glasses or take off.

As he put it on his Facebook account, he'd worn Glass there before and the staff had even been curious. On this dark night, however: "A woman who works there comes up to us and tells me that the owner's other restaurant doesn't allow Google Glass and that I would have to either put it away (it doesn't fold up btw) or leave."

It just so happens that the Lost Lake Cafe and Lounge has common ownership with the 5 Point Cafe. This was the first to ban Google Glass.

Starr, though, said he asked the woman to show him the policy for the Lost Lake Cafe and Lounge. In short, no policy was allegedly produced, and Starr was sent on his way.

His Facebook post demanded an apology and said: "If the staff member was in the wrong and lost the owner money last night and also future income as well, that this income be deducted from her pay or her termination."

Some might find this a little presumptive. Indeed, one of Lost Lake's owners, Jason Lajeunesse, told Forbes: "We'd much rather 86 an entitled-acting tech nerd."

The Lost Lake Cafe and Lounge lost little time in leaping to its Facebook account with its full riposte.

This began by calling Starr rude. It continued to delineate the diner's policy. It added: "If you do wear your Google Glasses inside, or film or photograph people without their permission, you will be asked to stop, or leave." And then the diner offered a touch of color to its feelings:

And if we ask you to leave, for God's sake, don't start yelling about your 'rights'. Just shut up and get out before you make things worse.

You will experience surprising indigestion when I tell you that this post attracted comments.

Many were supportive of the restaurant's staff. Some, though, claimed that they'd never go to the Lost Lake again.

To this, Lost Lake's Lajeunesse offered a quite tasty reply on Facebook: "Ohh no...You mean we wont have a flock of google glass wearing man children stinkin up the joint. Shoot!!!! What are we going to do! The Google Glassers Boycott is actually hilarious."

It's not as if the Lost Lake bans pictures of its food. It's that some Glassers seem unaware of the discomfort their nasal attire might cause others. Especially that now they can buy a simple shade that will hide whether their Google Glass is on or not.

As David Meinert, the other co-owner of Lost Lake, told Forbes: "We're not trying to be jerks at all. If you walked in here with a video camera we'd ask you to stop. If you're speaking too loudly on a cellphone we'd ask you to leave. That should be obvious. With Glass, there should be etiquette around its use, and we feel that in a setting like a café or bar they should just be taken off and not used."

It may be that those of a nerdy persuasion are sometimes unaware of the feelings they engender.

On occasion, though, it's hard not to conclude that they feel they represent the future and that everyone who doesn't get with the program is a retrograde nincompoop.

I fancy this is not the last time that the true measure of nincompoopery will be tested on the subject of Google Glass.