In a now-viral post on Facebook, a Baton Rouge woman posted about how she was kicked out of a local restaurant because an outfit she’d worn to the establishment before violated the dress code.
Y’Mine McClanahan wrote on her Facebook page that she’s a regular customer at Stab’s Prime Steak and Seafood. It wasn’t until she visited the restaurant on Tuesday that she was subjected to some atypical treatment when the owner told her that her outfit was “too revealing.”
McClanahan challenged the owner’s response, saying she’d worn the outfit to Stab’s without issue in previous visits and pointed to waitresses wearing “fishnet stockings and their butts halfway out.” The owner only told her that the restaurant has “buckled down” on its dress code that’s been in place for “a while.”
“How long is ‘a while’ ’cause I was just in here two weeks ago with the same outfit,” McClanahan asked.
“I can’t answer for what happened two weeks ago when I was not here,” the owner responded.
McClanahan’s Facebook post included videos of her conversation with the restaurant owner and the two-piece floral ensemble with a strapless crop top and maxi skirt she wore during her visit. She also posted some short clips showing one female wait staff member wearing black shorts with fish nets and another wearing a short skirt.
Her post went viral, drawing thousands of comments and shares. Many commenters sided with McClanahan, stating they thought her outfit wasn’t “revealing,” and believed she was “targeted” by the owner.
“Very much targeting. They will lose so much support,” one person commented.
“So you can’t wear that but the waitress can wear what she had on make that make sense,” another commenter wrote.
McClanahan, a family nurse practitioner, also serves as the vice president of the NAACP Baton Rouge branch. The day after she was booted from Stab’s, the branch president, Tia Mills, released a letter to the restaurant’s team, stating that McClanahan’s treatment left the chapter “questioning the consistency and fairness of your policies.”
“This incident has caused significant distress within our organization and among our members who frequently patronize your restaurant,” the letter states. “We believe this situation warrants further discussion to ensure such incidents do not occur in the future and to restore trust and respect between our organization and your establishment.”
The chapter requested a meeting with the Stab’s management team to “discuss the matter in detail.”
“I hate to make it a race issue, but sometimes as a Black woman, you’re almost made to feel like you have to prove that you deserve to be in spaces,” McClanahan told The Advocate. “And I should not have to go anywhere and feel as though I have to prove it. It should be automatic because I’m a human being.”
In a statement to The Advocate, Stab’s owner Dori Murvin, stated: “We have a dress code policy that we ask our customers to observe. A few times a month we speak with our guests about their attire including asking them to remove baseball hats in our restaurant.
Contrary to reports our attire policy is not new, it has been in affect (sic) for over three years now. We spoke with a guest yesterday about her attire and she pointed out that we have waitstaff dressed in a manner that might not meet the standard of our attire policy. For the last several weeks we have actually been working on a different uniform so that we are not asking a different standard for our customers than we are requiring of our staff.”
On the Stab’s website, the dress code policy dictates that patrons should wear business casual attire “appropriate for a fine dining, family restaurant,” that doesn’t include “Gym Wear, Sweat Pants, Tank Tops, Clothing with Offensive Graphics or Language, Exposed Undergarments or Revealing Clothing, Cut-off shorts and Flip Flops, Torn Jeans.”
”If you’re holding me to a certain standard for your atmosphere that you’re trying to create, then why are you staff members not held to the same standard because also, the sweet hostess, her shoulders were out,” McClanahan told WAFB.
“I find it very convenient because if that were the case then it should have already been put in motion. It doesn’t take that long to fix a uniform.”
Since McClanahan’s initial post went viral, the Stab’s team has promoted their dishes and events on social media, but nothing about their encounter with McClanahan. Hundreds of comments have been written underneath their posts vilifying the team for their treatment and response to her attire.
