Black Restaurant Patrons Kicked Out After White Woman Feels 'Threatened'
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A group of twenty-five black family members and their friends say they were denied service at South Carolina restaurant after a white patron complained about feeling "threatened" by their presence.
Michael Brown and the rest of his party had waited over two hours to be seated at North Charleston's Wild Wing Cafe, when a shift manager suddenly informed them that a "situation" has arose.
"She 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," Brown told Live 5 News. "Obviously, if we were causing any conflict, we would have been ejected out of the place hours before."
It was at that point that someone decided to pull out a cellphone to record the unbelievable conversation for posterity.
Brown says the shift manager, angered by the recording device, decided to kick them out of the restaurant.
"I said so you're telling me I have to leave," he recalled. "She said I have a right to deny you service. 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."
Seeking an explanation from Wild Wing Cafe's corporate office resulted in several unreturned calls.
It wasn't until Brown published a Facebook post recounting the incident that someone finally reached out to him.
"We got alerted through social media, so we always encourage our customers to respond to us or to comment on our social media pages," said Wild Wing Cafe CMO Debra Stokes.
In addition to an apology, Brown was reportedly offered a free meal for him and his group, but apparently declined.
"This is not a situation where you can just give us a free meal and everything is ok because it's deeper than that," he said.
In the aftermath of all the negative press, WWC of North Charleston posted an apology to its own Facebook page, saying it is "truly disappointed and sorry that any guests of ours felt disrespected or discriminated against," and promising a "thorough investigation."
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