Twenty-five black friends and family members took to Facebook to protest their unfair treatment after they were allegedly denied service at a South Carolina restaurant, the Wild Wing Cafe, because a white patron said she felt "threatened" by their presence, Live 5 News reports.
Michael Brown and his friends and family waited for two hours to dine at the Wild Wing Cafe in celebration of a cousin's last day in town, and when they finally sat down, a staff member came up to them and informed them there was a problem.
"[The shift manager] said there's a situation where one of our customers feels threatened by your party, so she asked us not to seat you in our section, which totally alarmed all of us because we're sitting there peaceably for two hours," Michael Brown, a victim of the incident, told Live 5 News. "Obviously, if we were causing any conflict, we would have been ejected out of the place hours before."
During the conversation with the restaurant manager, a member of his party videotaped the incident, which was when the shift manager then became upset and asked them to leave.
"I said so you're telling me I have to leave. She said I have a right to deny you service," Brown recalled. "I said so you're asking me to leave because you're upset because he was recording you, after we've waited for two hours, and after you've already pretty much discriminated on us, and she answered yes."
Several calls were made to the cafe's corporate office, though Brown says he never received a call back. However, when he posted a complaint to the company's Facebook page, he finally got their attention.
"I will never go to Wild wings cafe in N. Chs again! We (Party of 25 family and friends) waited 2hrs, patiently and were refused service because another customer (White) felt threatened by us," Brown wrote. "This type of racial discrimination is unacceptable and we have to put a STOP TO IT. The manager looked me dead in the face and said she was refusing us service because she had a right to and simply she felt like it. DO NOT SUPPORT THIS ESTABLISHMENT... PLEASE SHARE THIS POST... We need your help."
Many Facebook users responded with their support and promised to boycott the restaurant.
"We got alerted through social media, so we always encourage our customers to respond to us or to comment on our social media pages," Debra Stokes, the chief marketing officer for Wild Wing Cafe, told Live 5 News. "We had a conversation. It was a really good conversation. He and many of his family and friends were there about a month ago, and they are regular customers of ours. So, they were having a going away party, and they just didn't receive the experience that they have come to know and love."
However, though Brown and his family and friends were offered an apology and a free mail, he said that he was not fully satisfied, as the issue is one of discrimination, not simply a misunderstanding.
"We weren't coming there for a free meal," he said. "When we came there that night, we were coming to patronize the business. This is not a situation where you can just give us a free meal and everything is OK because it's deeper than that."
