More than a dozen super and sports car owners from the NFR or ‘North Face Rally’ group who claim to have been denied a table at an All Star Wings & Ribs restaurant in the city of Vaughan, in Ontario, Canada, due to their race, took revenge by running around the parking lot revving their rowdy engines.
The restaurant, however, tells a different story, saying it was a misunderstanding when a waitress told the group of 14 people, who did not have a reservation, that “they were lucky to get a table”, at which they were offended and left the premises before the table was ready.
In a statement posted on All Star Wings & Ribs Facebook page, the restaurant described the incident that happened on Tuesday, May 24, thusly:
“AllStar Wings and Ribs values AND appreciates our diverse clientele and have done so for the past 14 years – we proudly serve people of all ethnicities, sizes and genders and do not discriminate by any means. We do, however, refuse the right to serve people who may be under the influence, participate in harassment or cause a disturbance on the premises.
To clarify the incident that occurred on May 24th, 2016 – a gentleman requested a table for 14 people, without a reservation at the Vaughan location at approximately 9 p.m. He was advised of the wait time and was informed there was another group of 15 paying their bills and leaving shortly, and where they would be seated. As some time went by, the table of 14 waiting at the front, understandably so, became impatient, as they were probably eager to take their seats and enjoy their meal.
When the hostess stated, “they were lucky to get a table,” based on the level of business at that time, she simply implied based on the general business of the establishment at the time they entered + the fact a similar group size was about to leave, their group was in fact, lucky.
Unfortunate and regrettable as that statement may have been, the statement was not meant to be rude or offensive in any manner. The group left before their table was ready, upset and offended – taking the actions of our staff members as racist and poor customer service.
Please accept our deepest apologies for all those who were offended and misunderstood the message conveyed by our staff member. If another table was sat before, or there were empty tables, it was only because at the time, the venue only had smaller tables available.
Following this incident, the group decided to retaliate by excessively revving the engines of their vehicles right in front of the establishment, disturbing the patrons enjoying their meals. At this point, the group was asked to vacate the premises to avoid any further confrontations.
Once again we find it regrettable and apologize that the comment was misunderstood but we also feel the retaliatory excessive engine revving of numerous vehicles, to disturb the establishments customers and subsequent profane and vulgar posts by one of the groups leaders as well as having all members, whether present or not, post bad reviews of the establishment is in poor taste.
AllStar Wings and Ribs did not participate in the filming of these videos, nor was this approved by any employee of AllStar Wings and Ribs.”
Many of the offended NFR sports car owners took to social media criticizing the restaurant. In response to the above statement, one of the drivers named Casper Pan wrote:
“Not true, the table was ready, we asked to sit down as we waited for close to half an hour than one of the waitress said ” your waitress is not ready” we can see there is more than one waitress standing around we asked kindly to sit and wait then the waitress said “you are lucky to get a table” that’s went everyone got pissed off. But you know what, the McDonald next door had better customer service and I really enjoyed my 20 piece McNuggets.”
A Reddit member found this posting on Facebook too without disclosing the name of the commenter:
“F**k you Vaughn All Stars! When you have customers from the South Asian race, try not to be assholes especially when you run a well-known restaurant. Customers are customers, treat them right. Doesn’t matter if they’re South Asian, African – American or European. Don’t have them wait for an hour, while customers who came after get seats. But, shame on the waiter for saying ” You’re lucky you’re getting a seat”. No way to treat a customer, no matter who they are. Stereotyping customers is pretty disgusting and hopefully they realized their mistake when NFR rolled out!”
Was it a case of impatient and entitled rich kids (or adults) who misunderstood the waitress’ comment or did the restaurant employees really single them out based on their race? In any case, the way they reacted was completely childish reminding us of South Park’s Harley Davidson episode…