‘You Shouldn’t Say It’: Virginia Crazy Crab Employee Fired After Writing Racist Slur on Receipt –– Now the Customer Wants Her Money Back
Insensitive or ignorant? That’s the question many people are asking online after a woman shared a picture of her friend’s receipt from dinner that featured a racial slur.
Atlanta Black Star spoke with Soncerae “Sunni” Long and her fiancé, Hunter Hughes, about what happened Saturday.
Long said a friend of hers went to Crazy Crab in Fairfax, Virginia, for dinner. When the waiter came back with the $133.87 check, the phrase “Poquito Poquito n—-r” was at the bottom.
“She was taken aback by that,” Long said. “[An employee] brushed her off. She basically told her this person is from Asia, he doesn’t know the language, he didn’t know any better.”
Long said her friend felt like the employee was trying to keep her from “creating a scene.”
The server, according to Long’s friend, was bright red and clearly embarrassed.
Atlanta Black Star called the Crazy Crab and spoke to a manager who identified himself only as “Rez.” There is also a LinkedIn profile that identifies the general manager at Crazy Crab in the DMV area as Rezwan Chowdhury.
“Who would write something like that? I’ve been in this industry for 42 years, and I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said. “And I get it, I get it, he didn’t know all that stuff.”
Rez told the Atlanta Black Star the employee was “goofing around” with back-of-house staff and entered the word into the system, not realizing it would print on a customer’s receipt.
“Why did he think it was OK to say that word?” our reporter asked.
“He probably picked it up from the back-of-house guys,” Rez said.
Long told the Atlanta Black Star she has not seen any Black employees at Crazy Crab.
Rez said he immediately terminated the employee, a young Asian man who recently moved to the United States.
“He never said he was terminated,” Hughes said. “[The manager] said he was still employed and that he expected the kitchen staff to only be there for six months.
Hughes and Long sent a recording of their phone call with Rez to Atlanta Black Star. Virginia and Georgia are “one-party consent” states. This means it is legal to record a phone call as long as at least one participant consents to the recording.
There was no mention of the employee’s termination in the nearly 14-minute video.
“They want termination, it’s termination, we can do that,” Rez said, doubling down that the employee had been fired in a second phone call with Atlanta Black Star. “He’s not coming back, ever.”
Rez also clarified that, in regard to the six-month comment, he meant college and high school students.
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Atlanta Black Star asked Rez whether he really terminated the employee. He maintained that the employee was gone.
During the call to Hughes and Long, Rez seemingly excused the use of the racial slur, comparing it to common swear words not associated with race.
“I mean, what if he used it in the wrong place, then what?” Rez asked over the phone, as recorded.
“But he did use it in the wrong place,” Hughes said before Rez cut him off.
Atlanta Black Star asked if the money was refunded.
In the video, Rez agreed to refund the entire bill but had to check with his bookkeeper first and said he would call Hughes when the transaction went through.
Hughes claims the money has not been sent back.
When asked about the money, Rez told the Atlanta Black Star that the refund had been issued.
“They’re saying they haven’t received the payment yet,” our reporter said.
“Oh, yeah, well, it takes 24 to 48 hours,” Rez said.
“Are you planning on calling them to confirm it went through?”
“Of course,” Rez replied.
Long told Atlanta Black Star that she and her family had been coming to Crazy Crab for years and that the customers there are mostly Black.
“You should not be saying it. No one should. I don’t care if you’re Black, you’re white. You shouldn’t say it,” Hughes told the Atlanta Black Star.
“You don’t see slurs against other races that much,” Long said.
“Yeah, I feel like the most used slur is n—-,” Hughes added.
The slur is widely considered the most offensive, historically loaded, and prevalent racial slur.
Rez told the Atlanta Black Star that he reiterated to his staff that such verbiage will not be tolerated.
Hughes said he would let our reporter know whether the refund for the Saturday dinner goes through. As of Wednesday afternoon, it has not.