It was a rumble at a Red Lobster restaurant on Mother’s Day when another ‘Karen’ lost her mind waiting for her order and slapped an employee.
The term ‘Karen’ has become popular in the modern-day lexicon referring to “a strident middle-class white woman who talks down to people of color, usually in serving-staff positions.”
According to the York Daily Record, a video posted to YouTube shows several employees forcibly removing the woman (who was not wearing a face mask) from the restaurant. As she attempts to push her way back inside, she loudly demands her “motherf**king money back.”
With the employees blocking the door, ‘Karen’ continues to be unruly. The employees inside appear to be trying to find a way to solve the refund issue when suddenly the woman hauls off and slaps a female employee.
And all hell breaks loose as the situation quickly devolves.
After a scuffle, the moment seems to be defused to some degree. As the employees start to head back inside the building, the woman declares, “I was assaulted and have a whole crowd to see it.” Judge for yourself by the video who threw the first punch.
The Daily Record reports Springettsbury Township Police were called at 4:26 p.m. to the location.
Lt. Tony Beam told the newspaper, from what he could ascertain, “She was upset because her food wasn’t ready. She wanted her money refunded.”
Beam went on to say that the customer was gone by the time officers arrived at the restaurant, but they spoke with her at a ‘nearby location.’ No charges have been filed in regard to the incident.
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, patrons weren’t allowed inside the restaurant, only employees. Pick-up orders were to be brought out to customers on the sidewalk.
One commenter on the YouTube page said a friend was there and all the orders were placed and pre-paid either through GrubHub or the Red Lobster app.
While there was an hours-long backlog, customers who wanted a refund apparently had to make those requests using the apps as the local staff wasn’t hooked up to do refunds.
Watching the video below, it seems apparent from the unified front of the restaurant employees throughout the video, the woman must have been putting up quite stink inside.
Plus, if she’s ordering Mother’s Day dinner from Red Lobster, she’s got bigger problems.
Nicole Bott, director of communications for Red Lobster, provided this statement regarding Sunday’s incident:
“We understand that we may have disappointed some of our guests on Mother’s Day when due to COVID-19 and changes to our operations and staffing, we were not able to keep up with the demand at some of our locations. We apologize that some of our guests experienced long wait times, crowds, and in some cases, did not receive their orders.
“It is always our goal to provide our guests with a great seafood experience, and unfortunately, for some guests, we did not meet that goal on Sunday. We are working to better understand what occurred and how we can prevent it occurring in the future.
“That said, we do not tolerate violence for any reason in our restaurants. We expect our team members treat our guests with respect, and we expect our guests to treat our team members with respect in return. We are grateful our Manager and the guest involved were not seriously injured in the incident on Sunday.”
