Olive Garden has announced that they have fired one of their managers after they fulfilled a customer’s request that they are served by a non-Black member of staff.
A customer who visited one of their chain restaurants in Indiana on Saturday shocked staff members and fellow patrons when they loudly requested that the manager of the store send a non-Black member of staff to serve them.
Amira Donahue, who worked as a hostess at the restaurant in Evansville, said the customer, a white woman, complained to a manager about the non-Black members of staff working at the establishment that night.
“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 NBC News. “She asked if I’m even Black and if I am from here.”
Maxwell Robbins, a customer at the Indiana location, was appalled by what she had just witnessed and hopped onto social media to blast the manager.
“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. 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,” she wrote.
“We have zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind, and the manager involved no longer works for our company,” Olive Garden said in a statement to WFIE, they said,
They are currently investigating the incident.
