Business & Tech
Chipotle Rethinking Firing St. Paul Manager After Viral Video
Chipotle may rehire a manager after the company learned of "additional information​" in an incident captured in now-viral videos.
SAINT PAUL, MN — Chipotle may reverse its decision to fire the manager of a Saint Paul location after videos showed a group of black men were refused service unless they could show they had money for the meal.
According to Chipotle, the manager at the restaurant believed the group were customers from a couple nights ago who were not able to pay for their food.
The videos posted to Twitter by Masud Ali on Friday showed a female employee telling the group that they have to pay because they never have money when they come to the location. Employees behind the counter ignore the group as they wait to be served and the men in the group accuse the employees of stereotyping them.
Find out what's happening in Saint Paulfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
@masudali what happened here is not how our employees should treat our customers. We are committed to treating all of our guests fairly and with respect. The manager has been terminated and the restaurant has been retrained so this doesn’t happen again. We'll be back in touch.
— Chipotle (@ChipotleTweets) November 17, 2018
"We're not gonna make food unless you guys actually have money," one employee is heard telling the group. The same employee suggests the store could call the police and the group can be heard and seen getting angry.
Following the incident, a tweet surfaced showing Ali apparently discussing "dining and dashing."
Find out what's happening in Saint Paulfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
"Dine and dash is forever interesting," read a tweet from Ali's account, posted in 2015.
"aye man i think chopotle catchin up to us fam. should we change locations and yoooooo what should we do about the other thang," reads another from 2016.
The tweets have since been deleted.
On Sunday, the restaurant chain said it may reverse the decision to fire the manager after it learned of "additional information" in the incident.
Our actions were based on the facts known to us immediately after the incident. We now have additional information which needs to be investigated further. We want to do the right thing, so after further investigation, we’ll re-train and re-hire if the facts warrant it.
— Chipotle (@ChipotleTweets) November 18, 2018
Sign Up For Patch's Daily Newsletter and Breaking News Alerts in Your Neighborhood
Photo by David Allen/Patch
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.