Tennessee restaurant owners apologize after ‘black people’ written on top of ticket

COLLIERVILLE, Tenn. — The owners of a popular Tennessee restaurant went on social media to apologize to their community and two customers at the center of a controversial incident.

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Thursday, two employees were responsible for writing ‘black people’ at the top of a receipt at Booya’s in Collierville, according to a Facebook post.

Customers Derrick Gray said he used to work in the restaurant industry, so he knows how things should work.

“You don’t categorize by age race or sex, you categorize by what they have on or what table they sitting at,” Gray said.

When Gray received his receipt after ordering food at Booya’s, his jaw dropped.

The words “black people” were printed at the top.

“I tried my best to be as nice as I can about it and it seemed like the response was like 'OK, that’s fine. Sorry about that,” Gray told WHBQ.

Gray and his friend were not satisfied with the apology, the television station reported. They then created a post on Facebook, which was shared hundreds of times.

He said he sent a Facebook message and email to the restaurant owners but only received a response on Facebook that said the owners were researching the incident.

Later that afternoon, the owners apologized to him over the phone.

Gray accepted the apology.

“It’s sad that I’m used to it because it happens all the time,” Gray said.

WHBQ spoke to the owners, John and Kim Kupiszewski, who apologized on Facebook.

Part of the statement said, “The two employees that were responsible for this incident have been taken off the schedule indefinitely and I will ask the two customers when I get their contact info what they would like to happen.

“We didn’t think it was something we needed to train,” the owners said. “We thought this was common sense that you didn’t do that, but we were wrong. But at the end of the day, the buck stops with us.”

The owners planned to have a meeting with the employees and step up their sensitivity training.

“This is a lesson learned especially in the climate we have going on right now it was so unacceptable,” they said.

Gray said the owners asked him if he would talk to their employees about what happened so it could be a learning lesson.

He is considering doing it.

He also asked the owners to go to diversity training so they can train their employees properly.

Cox Media Group