Waiter Fired For Facebook Rant About 'Cheap' Hurricane Harvey Refugees
Many people in the restaurant industry have responded to the devastation of Hurricane Harvey with generosity and support. A Texas Pizza Hut used kayaks to take food to stranded flood victims. Four Mexican bakers trapped in their bakery spent two days making hundreds of loaves of pan dulce for displaced victims. The manager of a Chck-fil-A used a boat and jet ski to rescue a trapped elderly couple. But this week a waiter at a San Antonio Rainforest Café went on Facebook to complain that Hurricane Harvey refugees were cheap and should drown. He's since been fired.
According to the Houston Chronicle, a server at a Rainforest Café posted on a San Antonio Facebook group to complain about evacuees from Houston. He called them "cheap" and alleged that they asked for discounts and didn't tip. Worst of all, he wrote that they should just "go back to Houston, Galveston, and Corpus and ... drown."
He posted it to a private Facebook group, but the other members of the group did not take kindly to his profanity-heavy rant, especially the way he told evacuees to "die slow" with their families. The waiter reportedly deleted the post quickly, but other members had already taken and shared screenshots.
Other members of the group shared screenshots of his rant and called for him to be fired. They got what they wanted.
"It was brought to our attention that an employee of Rainforest Café in San Antonio shared personal comments on a private group Facebook page," said Keith Beitler, the senior vice president and COO of Landry's specialty restaurants division, which owns Rainforest Café. "This is not reflective of our company's views and this employee is no longer employed with us. Our hearts go out to all those affected by Hurricane Harvey's devastation."