Olive Garden Manager Fired For Complying With Customer

A manager at an Olive Garden in Evansville, Indiana has been fired for obliging a white customer who refused to be served by a Black server. The incident went viral after Maxwell Robbins, another patron in the restaurant, witnessed the exchange posted about it on Facebook:

“A few white people come in a (sic) 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,” Robbins wrote on Facebook Sunday morning (March 1).

Robbins later told the Today Show that he avoided talking with the customers because he didn’t want to make a scene, but said he wanted the restaurant and the public to be aware of what happened.

“I felt the need to post that on Facebook because I do not think anyone would have stood up for those girls. They would’ve continued to go to work somewhere they were not comfortable,” Robbins said. “Amira [the hostess] was in tears and didn’t have anyone supporting her at that time so I felt like someone had to stand up for her.”

After Robbins made the Facebook post, it went viral. It was also later seen by Amira Donahue, who was the hostess at the Evansville Olive Garden and was one of the two young women allegedly targeted by the white couple.

In a since-deleted Facebook post, Donahue spoke out about what she went through over the weekend.

“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,” Donahue wrote.

She also added that the white female customer said “awful things” about her and even asked if she was from the United States.

“All I said to this woman was ‘sorry I don’t know’, ‘have a nice day’ and ‘excuse me’ when she was standing in the way of a extremely busy restaurant,” she continued. “I got pulled aside by my managers twice. She then proceeded to scream at me in the middle in the lobby.”

Donahue also wrote, “When she was sat she asked for a white server, then ate half her food & asked for a refund! She should’ve been kicked out ASAP. But I guess the racist customer is more valuable than your black employees that were left in tears.”

Hunter Robinson, a spokesperson for Olive Garden, told TODAY, “We have zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind, and the manager involved no longer works for our company.”