At about ten minutes to noon, Liberty—a longtime neighborhood bar/cafe/sushi joint on Capitol Hill—was pretty sleepy with just a few customers and not much conversation. But Liberty owner Andrew Friedman had a few choice words for me, for The Stranger, and for what he saw as our collective unfairness and betrayal regarding the $15 minimum wage. (Friedman wrote an op-ed laying out his perspective here.)

But I wasn't there just to get an earful. I was there for the "protest" (and an unexpected bit of political theater) that was supposed to happen at noon courtesy of Working Washington.

Friedman is a supporter of Forward Seattle, a group seeking to overturn Seattle's newly-won $15 minimum wage. The group has until Thursday to deliver enough signatures to put our new wage law on pause and then send the issue to the fall ballot, where it could be overturned, and there have been reports of dishonesty among Forward Seattle's signature gatherers. (Eli posted footage this morning that allegedly catches a Forward Washington signature-gatherer claiming that the referendum would raise the minimum wage, and that $15 isn't law in Seattle yet, both of which are untrue.)

So, Working Washington spent the morning tromping from Dollar Rent-a-car in South Lake Union to Flying Apron Bakery in Fremont to Liberty on Capitol Hill, all to draw attention to the referendum effort and its supporters, and to discourage people from loaning their signatures to Forward Washington.

A few minutes after noon, two or three people stood outside Liberty's sidewalk to hand out these flyers (that link is a pdf). Andrew hung around, smiling calmly, holding a baby, and talking to customers. Then a couple of other protesters in Working Washington t-shirts walked into Liberty, announced that "this establishment is trying to kill the minimum wage," and handed out more flyers.

Then came the fun part.

A couple of "customers"—a young man and woman who'd bought an iced coffee apiece—immediately stood up to perform a brief scene. "You don't support the minimum wage!" one of them said, voice full of indignation. "Shame on you!" the other said, threw down $20, and stormed out in a fake huff, leaving the coffee behind, effectively declaring that their principles cannot be bought for a refreshing beverage... and that they'd like to leave a very large tip.

Dramatically, it was totally unconvincing, but a stunt's a stunt. After the protesters left, one of Liberty's employees piped up to the customers left behind: "So... who wants that guy's twenty bucks?"

The stunt over, people left (except for one activist giving a camera interview outside). Rounding the corner, I ran into the "customers" who'd stormed out. I asked about Working Washington's other protests that day and they murmured vaguely. "So that was an act, right?" I asked.

"There is no acting here, sir," the woman replied. The man added earnestly: "We're just here to help workers."

I sent Friedman an e-mail asking if he wanted to respond to the afternoon's demonstration, but he hasn't answered (yet).