Mad 4 Mex cuts late-night service to minors

The change means patrons under 21 years old lose access to the restaurant's half-pricer specials. The next time you get a late-night craving for half-price Mad 4 Mex food, you're probably out of luck if you're under 21. Reacting to what the popular restaurant's management calls an underage drinking problem, the eatery -- which opened in the 3401 Walnut Street complex last September -- has begun closing the doors to underage students after 11 p.m., the hour it cuts food prices in half. The policy will be in effect from 11 p.m. to its 1 a.m. closing time Tuesday through Saturday nights, according to Mad 4 Mex's parent company, Big Burrito Inc. Tom Baron, president of the Pittsburgh-based company, said the restaurant will now begin carding patrons on "busy nights" when it is harder to spot underage patrons who are drinking. This past Tuesday night was the breaking point for the restaurant, according to Scott Brown, the late-night manager at Mad 4 Mex. He said a live band had packed the house with a large crowd, including many underage drinkers, several of whom personally assured him that they would not be drinking. Brown said one girl, an underage friend of the band's who had promised him she would not drink, particularly bothered him. "She was sitting right in front of me and she was drinking," Brown said. At that point, Brown decided to bar all underage patrons, even those who said they just wanted to eat. College freshman Lu Fong Chua arrived at the restaurant with friends at about midnight Tuesday. "We couldn't even go in and sit down, even though we weren't drinking," Chua said. "The guy said, 'It doesn't make a difference. From tonight on, you need an ID.' " According to Gene Mangrum, an executive at Big Burrito, Chua's group was the exception to the rule. Most of the late-night clientele don't have food on their minds, he said. "The bottom line is that the majority of people who come into the restaurant after 11 p.m. are not there to eat dinner," Mangrum said. "It's a bar crowd." But that bar crowd benefits from the half-price food available after 11 p.m. That pricing policy is not likely to change, Mangrum said, because the bar makes back the losses on the lower-priced food with alcohol sales. Take-out remains full priced all the time. There already are several bars on campus, and the transformation of Mad 4 Mex into a bar-like spot closed to underage patrons is of concern to both students and Penn officials. The 3401 Walnut retail, office and classroom complex is owned and operated by the University. "We'd like to see late-night retail options for everyone," said Tom Lussenhop, Penn's managing director of real estate. "I think there should be considerations of other options." But Mad 4 Mex says it's all out of ideas for handling underage drinking. "Is it unfair that I say, 'No, you can't come in because you're not old enough'?" asked Brown. "Or is it unfair that they come in here and get me fired because they're drinking?" Brown said that on crowded nights, it is impossible to police the restaurant properly. He added that "it's 'out there' that people can come in here and drink underage." That perception has forced the restaurant to adopt the exclusionary policy, said Mangrum. "We're looking at it as a survival mechanism," he said. "The solution as far as we're concerned is to eliminate the source of the problem." Other campus bars have also taken steps to stop underage drinking in their establishments. An employee at the nearby New Deck Tavern said the restaurant decided three years ago to close to underage customers after 8 p.m., mostly to avoid potential fines from the Liquor Control Board. And Marc Lewis, a manager at the Palladium, said that while Mad 4 Mex may have some short-term problems since the restaurant's customers are mostly undergraduates, the action was necessary to avoid LCB fines. "It's a good call," he said, adding that the Liquor Control officers will "show up at some point." "It's like buying a stock and riding it to the peak. If you've gotten to the point where you think you've maximized your stock of underage drinking, you should jump out," Lewis said. Restaurants face potentially heavy fines if underage drinking is discovered on the premises. They are also responsible for anything that happens to underage patrons as a result of drinking at the restaurant. "There have been several incidents," Brown said. He added that it was just a matter of time until something tragic happened, given the ease of access to alcohol at the restaurant. And alcohol is indeed easy to get at Mad 4 Mex, said one Penn junior who asked to remain anonymous. "I drink [here] every now and then," the 20-year-old said. "As long as you go up to them and you look like you should be here, they'll serve you." Of greater concern to Brown are students who buy drinks for underage friends, particularly when the underage drinker has been let in after promising to abstain. He called such promises "bullshit." Penn students are at fault for not policing themselves, Mangrum said. "A rampant disregard of what we ask of our guests has forced our hands," Mangrum said. He added that at the company's restaurant at the University of Pittsburgh, "people don't try to take advantage of" management. "That has not been the case in Philadelphia at all," Mangrum noted. Higher staffing levels offer one possible solution, but Mangrum said such a plan wasn't particularly viable because it would cost the restaurant far too much money. Besides, said Brown, no level of staffing could stop the underage drinking. "It doesn't matter, they just go behind our backs," he said. And if you're underage and still don't want to pay full price at Mad 4 Mex, the restaurant will continue to have half-priced food Monday through Friday, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Daily Pennsylvanian staff writers Ben Geldon and Jeremy Reiss contributed to this article.