*Woody’s Cheesesteak in Atlanta has responded to a customer’s viral video about a staffer using a racial slur.
Instagram user Darlene McCoy Jackson explains in the clip that she visited the eatery last week and upon receiving her receipt, she noticed the word “Darky” was written on it. When she brought attention to the offensive wording, McCoy Jackson claims the employee refused to apologize.
“When they took the order, they asked my name, and I told them ‘Darlene’, and he typed in ‘Darky’. And I noticed it when I was paying for it because the name came up on the screen,” McCoy Jackson said, Baller Alert reports.
“I said, ‘Wait a minute, my name is Darlene.’ He says, ‘I heard you.’ I said, ‘But you have Darky. Could you change it?’ He says, ‘No.’ I say, ‘My name is Darlene, not Darky,’ and he says, ‘Don’t worry about it.’
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McCoy Jackson, a radio personality and singer, told her 90,000 IG followers that the employee refused to give her a refund.
“I took the food, and I took the receipt. It’s clearly still on the receipt,” she said in the clip (see above). “I said, ‘Sir, all I asked you was to be more sensitive about this. You can’t call Black people Darky.’ He says, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ And here we are now.”
As The Blast reports, Woody’s owner Steven Renner caught wind of the incident and issued the following statement: “First and foremost, I’m sorry to Darlene about the experience Darlene had today. It’s not what we’re about at Woody’s. We’re about inclusivity, diversity. We’re about respect for everybody,” owner Steven Renner said in a statement.
Renner said his employee, who is Hispanic, made an honest mistake when he referred to the customer as “Darky.”
“He uses abbreviations a lot…he was typing the name ‘Darly’. Unfortunately, the ‘K’ and the ‘L’ are next to each other. He simply hit the ‘K’ instead of the ‘L’,” Renner said.
“I think he does the best he can taking drink orders, sandwich orders, but a lot of the rest was lost… there’s never been an experience like this before,” Renner continued.
McCoy Jackson said the experience left her feeling “so disrespected.”
“I don’t want my dollars to be disrespected like that or me as a person. I don’t want to see anyone go through that,” she said. “In this establishment, you need to be a lot more cognizant of your customer, ‘cause you have no idea who you’re talking to and what you’re saying and what you’re doing is offensive. I was a first-time customer, now I’m a last-time customer. I’ll never be back.”
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