A white patron at an Olive Garden restaurant in Evansville, Indiana, demanded service from an employee who wasn't black, according to a hostess at the restaurant, the New York Post reports.
A manager allegedly granted the request, resulting in a diner who observed the incident and the server involved taking to social media to slam the restaurant chain.
Learn more about the alleged incident of racial discrimination in the video below:Amira Donahue, a 16-year-old hostess at the restaurant says the customer - a white woman - complained about her and another black hostess to a manager.
"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 on Wednesday. "She asked if I'm even black and if I am from here."
Donahue also said the customer was one of a group of people - including two children.
Maxwell Robbins, 22, a diner who witnessed the incident, told NBC News that he was so shocked by the ordeal that he wrote about it in a Facebook post and has submitted complaints to the restaurant.
"I’m never going back to the Olive Garden in Evansville," he wrote. "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," Robbins continued. "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."
Responding to the post, Donahue wrote:
"Racism is still prevalent in 2020! After years of experiencing micro aggressions and attitudes simply because of my color; I never thought I would be publicly embarrassed like I was yesterday. To be told that “i should work at a strip club instead” was over the top. People don’t understand we’re not only children, but humans with feelings regardless of color."
In an update to Robbins' post, he revealed that the manager had been dismissed and that it "seems like Olive Garden made a massive effort to ensure that this will not happen again."
A statement to the New York Post, by Meagan Bernstein, a spokeswoman for Olive Garden, confirms that the manager's position had indeed been terminated.
"The only person no longer with us is the manager," Bernstein said in the statement.
