A Washington, D.C. Chinese restaurant is “apologizing” after one of its regular customers complained about the name used on his takeout order. As reported by Fox 5, in place of the patron’s actual name, was the N-word. The restaurant owner claims they wrote down a nickname he provided.
Brandon Hart spoke to Fox 5 reporters days after the incident and was obviously still furious about what transpired on Friday, May 24th.
“I’m just flabbergasted that you can actually write that on a ticket or receipt or any piece of paper,” Hart said. “How can you write that word unintentional and then print it?”
When Fox 5 spoke to Yung Lan, the owner of Eddie’s Takeout, he told the cameras, “You know, I don’t know what’s that word. They write that maybe they speak.. ‘n-i-g-g-e-r.’ The customer tells, and we write down like that. They call in order, we write down there.”
Lan began to laugh-off the situation when the reporter pressed him on how one could misspell the name Brandon as the racial slur. Fox noted that Hart denies that he told the restaurant his name was anything but what it is.
When Yahoo Lifestyle reached out to Lan, he would not agree to an interview, but a server at Eddie’s did double down on the claim they made about the spelling. “We speak Chinese and our English is limited, so we ask customers to spell their names on the phone,” the server purported. “We typed the name he spelled.”
Although Fox 5 says that Lan eventually apologized for the mixup and vowed that it would never happen again, Yahoo reports that people have been calling Eddie’s to make death threats. It’s a teachable moment that Hart says he hopes will encourage everyone to be more knowledgeable and aware.
“People need to be more educated. Not just white people and black people. Just people in general,” said Hart.