We could hear the chatter of the restaurant grow quiet. He stood over our table, red-faced and pissed off. We were stunned, before the Taurus among us broke the silence, “Just who in the eff do you think you’re talking to?”
“Leave, but you’re buying this salad,” he responded as he sat the salad on the table, instructed the busboy to clear our table, and then stormed off.
I was an ISU teacher’s assistant, only one of a few black students in the entire journalism department at that time, and I couldn’t afford to be jailed over my refusal to pay for something I didn’t order or eat.
We gathered our belongings and approached the counter to pay. I asked the manager to wrap the salad — he had a server bring me a bag — no carton, just a bag, and I paid with a check. On the memo portion of the front of the check I wrote: “I will never eat here again.”
I took it the salad home, took photos of it and tossed it. I had every intention of filing a formal complaint, but a journalism student caught wind of the incident, and ran a story about it, so I left it alone.
A few days later the regional manager called because her office received the check with my complaint on the front (or read the ISU Daily article). She requested to meet with me, to get a better understanding of what went wrong.
