It had become a Friday-night tradition for 6-8 of us to visit Waffle House #2208 at 950 E. Cartwright in Mesquite, Texas, after we play pickleball at a nearby recreation center.
Until our last visit, we had enjoyed nothing but positive experiences with the food and service. Unfortunately, one waitress ruined that experience during our most recent visit.
On Jan. 26, six of us showed up. After a considerable wait, a young waitress took our drink orders and, eventually, our food orders. Initially, she seemed upset that three of us were paying for one other person and ourselves--so it would require three tickets (it is our tradition that members of one pickleball team pay for the meal of a member on the opposing team).
As we waited an inordinate amount of time to even receive water, guests who were seated after us received their drinks immediately and their food orders long before we did. Our food orders were basic.
As the surly waitress continued to ignore us, never smiling and making us feel like we were putting her out, we noticed that with other customers in our area she was smiling and being jovial.
Since we are mature, friendly and courteous people, not to mention good tippers, we could not figure out why we were being treated differently.
After a few minutes of observation, it became painfully obvious that it was because our skin color was not the same as the waitress and the customers she was friendly with. She is black and we were primarily Anglo, with some non-black ethnicity in two members.
We all have the utmost empathy for anyone struggling with personal issues. Until we saw how much better she treated other customers, we had given her the benefit of the doubt that maybe she was struggling with non-work issues.
After eventually finishing our meal, with a couple of items forgotten until we asked about them, we never received our tickets.
After we walked to the register to see if we could pay, the rudeness escalated. When a member of our party asked about the tickets as the young waitress had her back to us and was seemingly having trouble totaling them, the employee snapped at her with a gruff, incoherent response. (Incidentally, the tickets had disparate totals for what should have been similar amounts. Nevertheless, I still left a $5 tip on a $21 tab.)
As mentioned earlier, had the waitress treated other customers the same way she treated us, although it still would have been rude, we would not have taken it personally.
Although I am Anglo, I have black, Hispanic and Asian members in my extended family. I've also never heard a prejudiced word from any of my pickleball friends--which includes a revolving cast of different ethnicities.
Since we were all courteous, we could think of no other explanation for being treated differently than our skin color.
As a female member of our party, who has mixed ethnicity, said, "Other customers were treated as guests, which they should have been. Her total disregard for us was very upsetting and blatant. Reverse racism is not okay."
As a result of this experience, we have decided to discontinue our Friday-night tradition of coming to Waffle House.
That is a shame because I really like Waffle House, and enjoyed watching a couple of your young female customers dancing to the jukebox. I also had a pleasant conversation with a black couple sitting at the counter who sympathized with the way we were treated.
I am not criticizing this Waffle House as a whole, but saying one waitress caused us to decide to stop going.
I sent this letter to the local manager and to the corporate office, but did not receive a response from either. If they had responded with an apology, we would have considered returning. read more
