I decided to order a burger to go and take home to finish watching the Cowboys game. When the burger came out, "Happy September 11th" was written on the box, with the "11" being the WTC and a plane flying towards it. I asked him [the bartender] to please take the burger away and give me a refund. He sort of scoffed and proceeded to speak with his manager, and within earshot, called my friend and I "assholes" for complaining about what he clearly thought was funny.
To be fair, the manager came over and provided me with a refund, but no apology or explanation. A bit stunned, we finished our beers and left it at that. Before leaving, I asked to get in touch with the owner so that I could voice my concerns - the manager asked me to leave my information, at the same time confessing that the "joke was f&$cked up". As I walked out, I heard from behind the bar "Allahu Akbar..." repeated several times.
Petrol Station owner Ben Fullelove had only heard of the incident two hours prior and talked to Eater about it tonight.
So obviously now, we're trying to distance ourselves from the employee involved in it, and that's not how we do business. I talked to the guy [the customer] and that meant more to me than anything else. I understand the damage that gets done to your business, but I have to know for myself that we're ok with that guy. I got a chance to shake his hand and apologize to him and that means a lot more to me than the damage to my business.
As for the employee in question, Fullelove says, "You can't control every aspect of your business. An employee made a stupid mistake...well, not even a mistake, he did something really, really retarded and he got fired. You can only spin it so many ways after that."
Fullelove did leave us with these parting words, "I mean obviously, from my point of view, we're pretty embarrassed. And I'm angry that I would have somebody work for me like that. At the same time, he doesn't work for me anymore and we can move forward."
Looks like Fullelove's conversation with Tarek G. went over well. Right before posting, we found this update to the Yelp review:
I wanted to update this - I was able to speak to the owner and have a good conversation about my experience at Petrol. He assured me the person(s) responsible will be terminated and the underlying issues will be addressed in short order. He sounded sincere and I appreciated his swift response once he was notified of the issues by the local community.
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