Nicolai Haugsted
“They got angry and said they shouldn’t have to wait,” says waitress.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle spent years calling Montecito home after leaving royal life behind in Britain.
The wealthy California enclave offered privacy, sunshine and neighbours accustomed to seeing some of Hollywood’s biggest names around town.
Yet their relationship with the community was apparently not always quite as relaxed as the surroundings might suggest.
Fresh claims from residents and people working locally are painting an awkward picture of the Sussexes’ early years there, including one particularly uncomfortable encounter at a popular bar.
According to Express via. a waitress, Harry and Meghan visited the Honor Bar shortly after moving to Montecito in 2020 and discovered that being a duke and duchess did not automatically move them to the front of the queue.
Their alleged response was to leave.
The waiting list apparently applied to royalty too
According to the staff member, Harry and Meghan visited the Honor Bar only once.
Business was apparently busy enough that no table was immediately available, leaving the couple with the same option offered to everybody else.
“Everyone is treated the same here,” the waitress said.
Harry and Meghan were allegedly asked to add their names to the waiting list.
The waitress claims that suggestion did not go down particularly well.
“They got angry and said they shouldn’t have to wait. Then they left and never came back,” she said.
No response from Harry and Meghan to the allegation was included in the source material, and the waitress’s account has not been independently confirmed.
According to her version of events, however, their relationship with the restaurant was not completely finished.
Food was later ordered for takeaway and collected by a member of the couple’s staff.
Montecito residents have more stories
The restaurant episode has surfaced alongside several other claims about Harry and Meghan’s relationship with their former neighbours.
Montecito became the couple’s primary American base after they stepped away from frontline royal duties and moved to California in 2020.
Their nine-bedroom home sits in one of the country’s wealthiest communities, where celebrity neighbours have included Oprah Winfrey, Kevin Costner, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston.
Fame itself is therefore hardly unusual around town.
Some locals claim Harry and Meghan nevertheless remained unusually detached from the community.
Ciara Curtis, a 52-year-old financial manager, recalled hearing about a neighbour named Susan who tried to welcome the couple with a bottle of local wine and a handwritten note.
According to Curtis, both items were passed through security.
The following morning, she claims, the bottle and unopened note were back on Susan’s doorstep.
“They could have easily given away the bottle of wine to a member of their staff and written a two-paragraph ‘thank you’ note back to Susan,” Curtis said.
“But the thoughtless act of brushing aside a small act of kindness set the tone for how they behaved and how they were perceived after that.”
Harry and Meghan’s version of the alleged exchange was not included in the source.
Other celebrities apparently do things differently
Local resident Marc Atwell also contrasted the Sussexes with some of Montecito’s other famous inhabitants.
Stars including Costner, Winfrey and Paltrow have participated in local events or supported community activities over the years, he said.
Atwell claims Harry and Meghan showed little appetite for following suit.
“Harry and Meghan made it clear right from the get-go that they didn’t want to do anything like that,” he said.
His wife, Laura Atwell, recalled the less glamorous side of having two globally famous royals move into the neighbourhood.
Photographers and journalists descended on the area following their arrival, she claimed, leading police to repeatedly move members of the media away from the couple’s property.
Harry and Meghan were hardly complete strangers to Montecito’s celebrity circuit, though.
They were photographed attending a fundraiser hosted by Kevin Costner and have attended gatherings involving figures such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Katy Perry.
Their relationship with Oprah Winfrey has also remained one of their most prominent connections in the area.
A Beach Boy is not exactly a fan either
Bruce Johnston has offered an even less flattering assessment.
The 84-year-old Beach Boys musician, who lives near the Sussexes, recently described Harry as a “jerk.”
Johnston said sightings of the couple around town had been extremely rare from his perspective.
He recalled seeing them only once in central Montecito, sitting in the back of a vehicle.
Security surrounding the pair left a stronger impression.
“I was scared, however, when I saw their bodyguards with guns filling up their car with gas,” Johnston said.
Johnston also speculated that Harry’s return to Britain could be connected to an attempt to repair his relationship with Prince William.
No evidence supporting that interpretation was presented in the source.
