Cheesecake Factory Under Fire: Staff Attacks Man for Wearing MAGA Hat in Restaurant
This stuff is getting tougher to swallow.
A young black man trying to enjoy a Mother’s Day dinner with his girlfriend’s family at a Florida Cheesecake Factory is finding out firsthand that some discrimination complaints matter more than others.
And a black man supporting President Donald Trump won’t get much sympathy in the mainstream media.
According to an exclusive report by the conservative news site The Daily Wire, 22-year-old Eugenior Joseph made the mistake of thinking he had a right to a political opinion on Sunday when he entered the restaurant franchise at Miami’s Dadeland Mall.
He wore a pro-Trump “Make America Great Again” hat, which was apparently enough to make him a target of the restaurant’s staff.
The “welcome” he got wasn’t exactly what the family was looking for.
As The Daily Wire reported:
“According to multiple witnesses and Joseph’s own account, a woman who worked at the restaurant walked up to him and started pointing at his hat, signaling for the other employees to come over.
“Her finger was literally on top of his head, we were all looking at her like ‘what is happening?’ one witness told The Daily Wire. ‘She was pointing at him, calling her other coworkers, telling them to look at this guy wearing a Make America Great Again hat.’
“At that point, approximately a dozen or so employees approached the table and began making comments about the hat, with some saying they wanted to punch Joseph in the face. Witnesses also allege that some of the employees also referred to him as a ‘n—–‘ in their conversations among each other.
“‘So then all the employees started standing there, saying things out loud, like, ‘I’m going to knock his head in so hard his hat’s going to come off,’ the witness continued.”
Considering the state of race relations in the country today, that should be enough to spark protest marches, a nonstop stream of mainstream media commentary and maybe even a chainwide “standdown day” so every Cheesecake Factory employee can be instructed on the finer points of customer relations.
(Serving staff rule No. 1: Don’t threaten to knock guests’ heads in so hard their hats come off.)
The incident was confirmed by an apology issued by the Cheesecake Factory chain on Monday that might have been just a little forced.
As The Daily Wire reported in a follow-up, the chain stated:
“No guest should ever feel unwelcomed in one of our restaurants and we are taking this matter very seriously. Upon learning of this incident, we immediately apologized to the guests in person. We are conducting an investigation and will take the appropriate corrective action.”
After the apology, the incident got grudging coverage from a few traditional outlets. (USA Today gave it a perfunctory seven paragraphs, for instance.)
It got sneering coverage from liberal outfits (like the puerile Miami New Times.)
But for the most part, it’s been ignored in a way the tale of two non-paying customers who ran into trouble at a Philadelphia Starbucks never was.
Fortunately, conservatives on social media were all over the story:
Think Cheescake Factory will close all their stores for a day of race sensitivity training for EVERY EMPLOYEE at a cost of $16 million like Starbucks? Using the left’s warped logic, the fact that he’s a @realDonaldTrump supporter negates his blackness. https://t.co/FUz1IlnKml
— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) May 15, 2018
You go to a restaurant to enjoy a meal, not listen to the political opinions of the person being paid to serve your food. Do your job and keep your opinions to yourself.
— Jack George (@JackGeo11365653) May 15, 2018
This one really hit it on the head, though:
If this happened to an Obama or Hillary supporter, this would be playing 24/7 on MSM. Vote Red in November. #maga2018 #MAGA #MAGA2020 @Cheesecake
Liberals can’t see that they are the ones actually mimicking the way Nazi Germany started.— hankusa (@hankusa) May 15, 2018
Clearly, a still-unexplained dust-up at a Starbucks, where two black man couldn’t bring themselves to buy a cup of coffee for some reason, merits a full-court, Obama-era-style baring of America’s racist soul for the mainstream media.
Meanwhile, a documented, seemingly open-and-shut case of harassment perpetrated against a black supporter of the current president is either ignored by the mainstream media or outright mocked by liberal outlets.
Cheesecake Factory has already given much of America reason not to trust it, after six armed law enforcement officers were ordered out of one of the chain’s franchises in December 2016 because the chain has a policy against firearms in the premises. The company put out a lame apology then, too.
Cheesecake Factory can issue its half-hearted apologies, and the mainstream media can all but ignore a legitimate news story. But conservatives know what’s going on in the country.
And it’s getting tougher to swallow every day.
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