My husband and I were dining at Jerry’s this morning when a disagreement occurred between a customer and the staff. I want to preface that I believe the customer to have been in the wrong when this disagreement began. She was upset that she had been waiting so long for pancakes, and she wanted to leave without her food. There were some members of staff who at first tried to dissuade her (“but what will we do with your food?”), reinforced their policy about pancakes (“pancakes take a while to cook and we have a notice in our menu”), or make a suggestion (“next time, give us a call ahead of time if you’re in a hurry”). All of which I felt were valid responses to the situation. Clearly, this woman was frustrated about waiting so long but not excessively so.

What really disappointed me was how one member of staff chose to handle the situation. He told her to leave immediately (which is originally what she was trying to do) and never come back then proceeded to hold the door open as he pointedly looked at a coworker and said, “Call the police.”

I was stunned. The customer was a black woman, and the situation was a misunderstanding and disagreement between her and the restaurant staff. Nothing worth calling the police over. Like I said before, it was obvious she was frustrated from having to wait 30-40 minutes for her pancakes, but she wasn’t yelling or harassing staff. She wasn’t committing any crimes. The escalation of this staff member felt very racially charged.

When my husband and I were paying before leaving, the same staff member was at the register. He brought up the situation in conversation, so we took a moment to express our disappointment and disapproval of the threat to call the police. In truth, my husband did call him an idiot. However, my husband dedicated 13 years of his career in law enforcement. Not only is it a waste of everyone’s time to call the police to babysit the fact you have no customer service skills, it’s absolutely racist to use the police as a threat to any person of color to get them to do what you want.

I don’t believe our specific police department would have put anyone in danger, but that’s not the point of this complaint. This man was white and this woman was black. The threat of police was used for what?

The man told us that he just wanted to get the woman to leave. That’s not how you do it. This woman wasn’t causing any issue other than being a bit aggravating because she was unhappy. That’s any kind of customer service work! People are not always going to be happy with their experience. That’s where customer service skills come into play. This woman did not deserve the way this man treated her.

The situation was eventually smoothed over by one of the other members of staff who also happened to be a black woman, and the customer left with her food.

I could tell our expression of disapproval went through one ear and out the other. My husband and I left, and we won’t be coming back.

The food was fine. Human decency was non existent.