A Black family vacationing in the Bay Area of California last week said their trip took an ugly turn after their visit to a restaurant ended with a racial slur being typed on their receipt.
Whitney Washington told KTVU that she and her family were the only Black customers at the Pica Pica Arepa Kitchen in San Francisco when they visited the restaurant on Aug. 12.
Their visit was fine until they got the receipt for their food orders.
On it was printed, “Here n****s.”
“My daughter is actually the one who notices in the upper right-hand corner that it says what it says. ‘Here the N-word,'” Washington said.
Right away, Washington said she visited other customers’ tables to compare her receipt to theirs and check whether this was a restaurant-wide error or a targeted incident.
“We were the only Black people in the restaurant,” Washington remarked. “She showed us her receipt, and in the same spot where ours said, ‘Here the N-word.’ Hers only said ‘here,'” Washington added of one patron’s receipt.
Washington then took up the matter with the waiter.
“I pointed to the ‘here N-word,’ and I said, ‘Do you know what this means?'” Washington recalled. “He didn’t say no, he said, ‘I don’t know how that got there.'”
When Washington asked for a manager, the waiter said no manager was on duty during their visit. She snapped a photo of the receipt before the waiter took it away.
A Pica Pica Arepa Kitchen manager said she learned about the receipt the day after the incident and immediately fired the waiter who served Washington and her family.
“It’s totally unacceptable. “We fired the employee right away. I didn’t know what is going on,” a manager KTVU identified as Vena told the outlet.
Vena said the waiter offered no explanation for what happened but threatened to sue after he was terminated.
San Francisco Police were also notified about the incident, but it’s unclear whether the department will launch an investigation at this time.
Washington and her family returned home to Maryland once their vacation was over. She said that while the incident left her rattled, it didn’t stop her or her loved ones from enjoying the beauty and diversity of the San Francisco area.
I know some people use that term culturally, interchangeably. That is not a term I use in my home. I don’t use that word, we don’t call people that word and nobody calls us that word,” Washington said.
