• A white customer at an Olive Garden restaurant in Indiana told a 16-year-old hostess, who is a person of colour, that she “should work at a strip club instead,” according to a report from NBC News.
• She then flew off the handle after being seated in an area where her server was black, and screamed at a manager for someone else to help their table.
• The manager complied with her demands, but was fired after the restaurant chain’s officials investigated the incident.
• Maxwell Robbins, who was in the eatery and observed the encounter, wrote on Facebook: “The manager without hesitation ensures that they will not receive service from a person of colour. That [customer] should have been refused service for even asking something like that!!
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A white woman was at the centre of an incident at an Indiana-based Olive Garden on Saturday by allegedly saying a black hostess should be a stripper and then demanding that she be waited on by a non-black server. The manager on duty gave in to her request to be moved to a section with a white server, and has since been fired.

Amira Donahue, an employee at the Evansville eatery, told NBC News that the woman entered with a few other people, including two children, during the dinner rush.

“She made comments about me to my co-workers concerning my race and saying that I should work at a strip club instead,” Donahue, 16, told the outlet. “She asked if I’m even black and if I am from here.”

The woman became incensed upon being seated in an area that was being served by another black person, Donahue said. She shouted at a manager, who acquiesced and moved her to an area with a white server, NBC News reported.

Meagan Bernstein, a spokeswoman for Olive Garden, told NBC News that the restaurant chain does not tolerate discrimination of any kind. The incident was investigated on Monday, she said, “and we made the decision to separate with the manager involved.”

Maxwell Robbins, who was eating at Olive Garden at the time, but has since vowed to never return to this particular location, chronicled the incident on Facebook. By Thursday, her post had been shared over 2,000 times.

He said the manager’s response to a customer refusing to be helped by a “coloured” server was “disgusting.”

“The manager without hesitation ensures that they will not receive service from a person of colour. That [customer] should have been refused service for even asking something like that!!” Robbins wrote on Facebook.

For her part, Donahue told NBC News that she was so shaken by the encounter that she started to cry. Robbins confirmed seeing that.

“The young lady was in tears and had no one to support her,” he told NBC News. “So I felt if I didn’t write this post, nothing would have happened and she would continue to go to work for a place that she feels uncomfortable at and unwanted at.”

He decried the manager’s decision to put the customer at a pedestal and allow two employees to be humiliated, adding on Facebook that Donahue is the “sweetest host [he’s] ever met at any restaurant.”

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