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At the Saint Marc restaurant in Huntington Beach California, a customer Brenda Carrillo and a friend asked for a drink and their waiter asked them, “Can I see your proof of residency?
That question took customer 23- year old Brenda Carrillo by surprise and her friend repeated his question in disbelief and waiter said, “Yeah, I need to make sure you’re from here before I serve you.”
Brenda said, “It was kind of hard to process because we’ve never experienced this.”
After her sister Diana and their other friend arrived, they sat down not realizing what had just transpired when the waiter walked up again and asked Diana for her “Proof of residency” too.
That was it, the four stood up and they spoke to the manager, who apologized to them for his waiter’s actions and offered to re-seat them ladies, but it was too late, the women left the restaurant.
Her sister Diana said that at first she thought was maybe he was joking, but when he said, “I need to make sure you’re from here…” she knew that was no joke and she said, “But he didn’t have a smile.”
Diana continued saying, “There was no indication hat he was trying to make a joke or even possibly flirt with us.”
Hours after the incident happened, Diana decided to go to Facebook and to Yelp and put it out there. She said on Facebook, “How many others has he said this to? I hope this employee is reprimanded for his actions. No establishment should tolerate discriminatory actions from their employees.”
After her post, management reached out to Diana and offered another apology saying the waiter had been fired and that “this type of behavior…will not be tolerated.”
In a separate statement to the LA Times, the restaurants manager said that the waiter’s actions were, “in no way… representative” of the restaurant’s employees or management.
“We have always celebrated being part of the diverse Huntington Beach community, which means valuing all guests and treating every individual with respect,” the statement read.
The restaurant invited the ladies back to a VIP treated meal and to have 10% of their weekend sales donated to a nonprofit of their choice.
The four ladies declined that invite, but accepted the 10% donating offer. They wanted to the donations to be shared with the Orange County Immigrant Youth United, a Santa Ana-based organization that advocates for immigrants living int he country illegally.
Since the restaurant apologized on their Facebook and Instagram accounts, they since have removed them. They said they did so because the incident has soon be resolved and the waiter has been dealt with internally.
The women disagree with this and said, “To us, that makes us feel like they weren’t really sorry.”
In a recent St. Patrick’s Day posting, the restaurant did have this to say:
Saint Marc Pub-Cafe, Bakery & Cheese AffinageThis very unfortunate incident has been handled internally through the termination of the employee at fault. We also contacted the guest and plan to donate 10 percent of this weekend’s sales to the charity of her choice, Orange County Immigrant Youth United. In no way are the actions of this former employee representative of the Saint Marc brand nor are they reflective of the opinions of anyone else on our team, including executive management. We have always celebrated being part of the diverse Huntington Beach community, which means valuing all guests and treating every individual with respect.
Via:latimes
