An Evansville, Indiana, Olive Garden has parted ways with a manager who complied with a belligerent customer’s racist demand to have a non-Black server.
According to NBC News, the incident took place on Saturday night, when Amira Donahue, a hostess at the restaurant, said that the customer, a white woman, complained to a manager about her and the other Black hostess working during the dinner rush hours.
“She made comments about me to my co-workers concerning my race and saying that I should work at a strip club instead,” Donahue told the network. “She asked if I’m even Black and if I am from here.”
The woman, who was seated at a table with a Black server, began to demand a non-Black server.
A customer dining with his wife and a friend saw the whole ordeal and posted about it on Facebook.
“I’m never going back to the Olive Garden in Evansville. A few white people come in a says that they refuse service from a ‘colored’ server and asks to speak with the manager. The manager without hesitation ensures that they will not receive service from a person of color,” Maxwell Robbins wrote in his post. “That couple should’ve been refused service for even asking something like that!! It’s disgusting that olive gardens manager would allow that especially with a very diverse staff.”