Last Friday night, Banana Leaf owner and manager Mahathir Badawi suddenly developed a suspicion that not all patrons of his Center City Malaysian BYOB eatery are 21 years of age.
“I overheard some customers discussing how they went to high school with [recently drafted NBA player] Ben Simmons,” Badawi said. “After doing some back-of-the-napkin math, I realized that he graduated in the class of 2015, meaning his classmates couldn’t be older than 20.”
Badawi said that, while he knows that his restaurant is popular with college students, he always just assumed that they were of-age juniors and seniors.
“I employ the honor system. I always assumed that was a good enough barrier to entry.”
But since the revelation, the owner acknowledges that he has started noticing evidence that his establishment’s Franzia-chuggers may be younger than he thought.
“I’m pretty sure one group was a high school football team. They were wearing jerseys and everything.”
However, Bagwati acknowledged that he was reluctant to start carding diners, citing a similar local restaurant that did so and was forced to close after a 90% drop in sales.