Restaurants offering lunch discounts to women today for ‘Equal Pay Day’

Restaurants from Hanalei to Waimea are offering discounts to women at lunch today, Tuesday, April 20, Equal Pay Day.

But the rule is ask and ye shall receive.

Those wahine who do not request the lunch discounts will not be given them, according to Judith Thomson, chair of the Kaua‘i Committee on the Status of Women.

The Hanalei Gourmet in Hanalei Center; Camp House Grill in Waipouli’s Kaua‘i Village shopping center and on the highway in Kalaheo; Deli & Bread Connection in Kukui Grove Center; JJ’s Broiler in Anchor Cove, Nawiliwili; Paradise Seafood & Grill, Puhi; Gaylord’s Restaurant at Kilohana, Puhi; Casablanca at Kiahuna, Po‘ipu; Dali Deli in Koloa; and Wrangler’s Steakhouse in Waimea, have owners or managers offering lunch discounts, but only to women who ask for them, Thomson said.

Equal Pay Day marks the point in the subsequent year a woman, according to national averages, has to work in order to make the same amount of money a man in the same position made the calendar year before.

Hawai‘i’s women fare better than those in some other states. Here, women make 84 cents for every $1 a man makes working similar jobs.

By national standards, it takes a woman 16 months and 20 days to earn what a man earns in 12 months. Women work until Tuesday of the following week to earn the same wages a man in a similar position made the previous week, Thomson said.

She will be lunching at JJ’s Broiler from 11:15 a.m. to 1 p.m., and invites women to join her if they’re in the area.

For more information on the Kaua‘i Committee on the Status of Women, please call 241-6300 or 245-7944.