NEW YORK — A month after a similar incident in California, Papa John’s Pizza has apologized after an employee in New York City typed a racial slur on an Asian American customer’s receipt.
Both incidents also illustrated the power of social media.
On Jan. 6, Minhee Cho posted a message on Twitter along with photo of the receipt describing her as “lady chinky eyes.” “Hey @PapaJohns just FYI my name isn’t ‘lady chinky eyes,'” she wrote.
The message soon went viral. Within hours, Papa John’s, which is headquartered in Kentucky, apologized on its Facebook and Twitter pages and said that the teenaged female employee had been fired.
The Papa John’s in question is located at 3477 Broadway.
Last month, Chick-fil-A issued an apology following an incident at one of its Irvine restaurants. In a Dec. 9 post on his Tumblr page, Kelvin Lee said that his friend, a resident assistant at UC Irvine, and a student made a purchase at a local Chick-fil-A and found “Ching” and “Chong” printed on their receipts under “Guest ID.”
It is customary for a cashier to ask for a customer’s name and type it on the receipt.
A photo of the Chick-fil-A receipt went viral, and the cashier, identified only as Lia, was fired.
Chick-fil-A said in a statement that “the inappropriate and unthinking behavior of a young team member at one of our restaurants … clearly violated our operating standards.”