Photo: Mike Mozart/flickr We always have onion ring towers.

In an unexpected turn, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued Ruby Tuesday for gender discrimination because the company allegedly refused to hire male employees for a variety of plumb summer jobs in a resort town. The agency says that in the spring of 2013, Ruby Tuesday told employees “within a 10-state region” of Park City, Utah, about a handful of temporary summer positions that also included free housing, and that the guys who applied were eventually “shocked” and “angered” to learn their gender had disqualified them from the “lucrative” slots.

Andrew Herrera and at least one other man complained to the commission after they heard the news. It sounds like they were hoping, possibly against the odds, that jet-setters descending on Park City would tip better. Whatever the case, they weren’t considered because the announcement expressly called for women applicants — wording the EEOC describes as a “rare … explicit example” of discrimination, even for all of the terrific specimens it sees. Ostensibly, the company claims it was just refraining from having to place men in the same housing as its female workers. The EEOC suit asks for monetary damages for the men, updated notices posted throughout that ten-state region, and a new round of sexual-discrimination training for everybody.

[AP, EEOC]