re: Desi Vega apologizes to Black couple who had tip auto added to bill at restaurant

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I'll be stunned and eat crow if he files a lawsuit.

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UPDATE on the Desi Vega experience.
Desi Vega, the owner of Desi Vega's Seafood and Prime Steaks, reached out to me and my wife and asked to meet with us in person. We agreed. At the meeting, he personally apologized and acknowledged these employees did what we said.

My wife and I believe his apology was genuine. We did, however, emphasize that at this point, this is way bigger than us. The community has rallied behind this and has been vocal in seeking change. Our post began as a simple effort to bring public awareness to a horrible, racist experience, and ended up being shared and commented on more times than we could ever imagine. My wife and I appreciate all of the support. We have read thousands of comments and suggestions. These suggestions have spanned from individuals asking us to demand a refund, file a lawsuit, get the employees fired, seek positive change, etc.

We decided to request the following: a public apology and acknowledgment that this happened to us; implementation of implicit bias training throughout the organization; posting (in the menu, throughout the restaurant, or the receipt) the actual gratuity policy so that employees can never do this again and so that no one would have to ever experience what we experienced; having his organization work with, support, and donate to Café Reconcile - an organization that supports the training of underprivileged youth to promote entrepreneurship and advancement in the restaurant industry. My wife and I will be reaching out to Café Reconcile today to work on the details of this arrangement.


We did not ask for a refund. We ate the food so we have no problem paying for the food. He was, however, adamant about processing a refund to our credit card and did so above our objection.

We did not request for the termination of the employees as we do not feel like this is our call to make. This is a call for him to make as their actions impact his organization. We did not post our experience to seek revenge, a lawsuit, or monetary gain. Our post was made in an effort to bring awareness and positive change.

We believe this was accomplished and we could not have done that without all of you rallying behind us. We hope that other restaurants will implement similar policies in an effort to prevent this mistreatment from happening across the industry as a whole.
Thank you all.

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