A Maryland man is accusing his local Chick-fil-A of being racist after receiving a takeout order with the name “Monkees” written on it.
Marquis Vanzego went to the drive-thru in La Plata on Aug. 23 and ordered chicken strips, fries and an iced tea/lemonade drink. He told TODAY.
When the waiter asked for a “Monkey's” instead of a “Marquis,” Vanzego, who is black, was shocked to realize that it was his order.
“I just felt a little tingly feeling in my heart, that's what it felt like,” he told Today.
“You start thinking about all the other cases of racial profiling you've heard about in the news.”
Vanzego spoke with the store manager on duty, who apologized and offered to refund her order.
“I will be writing to corporate headquarters about this. This is very unpleasant,” Vanzego told the manager. A video of the conversation he shared on Instagram.
He also shared video of the moment he went inside the store to confront the drive-thru employee, only to be denied the opportunity to speak by the manager.
Some social media comments suggested the unpleasant typo was the fault of the drive-thru's intercom system, but Vanzego told Today he had ordered directly from a “young white man” who was standing outside the store taking orders.
Store owner John Flatley later told Vanzego that he didn't fire the employee because he was under 18.
Vanzego said he was also told that employees were writing down the names they heard.
“This Chick-fil-A is an independently franchised restaurant. The restaurant's franchisee has apologized to the customer,” Chick-fil-A's corporate marketing department told Today about the incident.
“However, this experience did not meet our expectations and is unacceptable.”
Vanzego said he hoped the employee in question would become more “socially conscious” as a result of the incident.
“I believe he should be held accountable for what he did,” Vanzego said.
Vanzego's own children are now adults, but when they broke the rules “they had to deal with the consequences,” he added.
“I understand he's a young man, he's 17 and he's still learning, but he also needs to know that there are consequences for doing something like that.”
