In an embarrassing mix up for all concerned the nation's largest phone company invited it's customers to Adeline's instead of "add a line", going so far as to include a phone number and address for Adeline's Diner in Bismarck, South Dakota.
More than 800 people took advantage of the offer and showed up at the restaurant expecting a free meal courtesy of the phone company. What they got instead were runny eggs and cranky, over-worked waitresses.
The ad, inviting customers to add another phone line, ran for six hours on radio stations through-out the Midwest before being withdrawn after numerous complaints. It attracted people as far away as Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Provo, Utah to tiny Adeline's. The line stretching around the corner at some times before the restaurant ran out of food and the crowd was dispersed by the town sheriff, Mortimer Snuff.
