'Angry' About Customer Complaint, Eatery Owner Puts Up a Sign

Amanda Cartagine didn't take kindly to the gripe about her special-needs staff
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 5, 2018 11:48 AM CDT
After Complaint About Staff, Owner's Sign Strikes a Chord
No room for discrimination in Amanda Cartagine's eatery.   (Getty Images/shironosov)

A customer at a chain pizza restaurant in South Carolina didn't like that his lettuce bowl wasn't getting refilled the way he wanted, and the owner of that eatery pushed back in the most "bless your heart" way possible. The reason behind the commotion: The customer at Greenville's Pizza Inn complained about a worker who has autism, and Amanda Cartagine was irked by the way the man spoke about her employee; she says about 60% of her workers have special needs, per WYFF. Cartagine says her restaurant's manager tried to explain the worker's circumstances and that he wasn't trained to do what the customer requested, and the customer retorted that a sign should go up informing customers about the workers there having special needs.

"These are like my kids, and it made me angry," she says. "I wanted to do something that was not rude, but got my point across." What she did: put up a sign on the door that reads, "We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and hire all of God's children." FOX Carolina has a photo of the sign. A mom of one of Cartagine's workers, who has Down syndrome, says she's grateful her son has a place like Cartagine's to work at. "We parents with special needs [children] are always faced with breaking down barriers, stigmas, teaching other people that our children are more like them, than different," she tells WYFF. As for the customer who spurred the new sign, Cartagine says, "If he is not OK with that, then I'm OK with him not coming back. That's a dollar that I don't need." (More uplifting news stories.)

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