A TikTok video shows an enraged cafe worker in New York City berating a Black customer because she used the business’s bathroom.
The video posted by TikTok user @jasmineliketheprincess69 has garnered nearly 900,000 views in less than a week and shows her encounter with a worker at a coffee and sandwich shop called Chez Alex in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.
The customer, who said she’s a regular at Chez Alex, wrote in the video caption that the employee confronted her after she went into the cafe to buy a pastry and use the bathroom.
“I had to use the restroom, and since the door to the cafe was opened, and I had just seen a white lady leaving the establishment with a coffee, I assumed they were open, and I went in thinking it was OK for me to use the restroom and buy a pastry,” the caption reads.
She said that as soon as she walked in, the worker began “cussing” at her. The video shows the employee, who is also recording the altercation on her phone, yelling and chastising the woman because she walked in before the shop officially opened.
“Why are you so mad?” the customer asked.
“Because you are being ridiculous! Store is closed, you come here without saying anything, asking anything, you just came straight to the bathroom,” the worker answered.
The customer said that she didn’t see anyone behind the counter; otherwise, she would have asked permission.
“I thought you guys were open. I’m sorry. Your door was unlocked,” the customer said.
Even though the customer apologized for not seeing the store hours on the door, the woman kept berating her.
“Why am I supposed to close it?” the employee responded.
At first, the employee demands the customer to call the cops, but finally just tells her to leave.
“She called me stupid, dumb, and asked if I didn’t know how to read time because clearly they were still closed and had not yet opened,” the customer wrote of the encounter, adding that the employee also pinched her and pulled her hair.
“All this because you used the restroom?” one person commented.
“How unprofessional and just out right uncalled for,” someone else wrote.
“As a small biz person, if I open my door before hours, I figure I may get an early customer. If I fail to lock up at 5, someone might come in. Pretty simple,” another commenter stated.
The customer posted a follow-up video with some Google reviews from other patrons who said they encountered similar behavior from the cafe’s owners and employees.
“Great sandwiches. But I’ll never be coming here again after witnessing the owner verbally attack a clearly troubled patron,” one person wrote seven months ago in a review. “Sure, she might be a nuisance, but the way he screamed at her and got in her face made me incredibly uncomfortable.”
“The owner was extremely belligerent and rude to an elderly woman that came in the other day. Got in her face and just started screaming at her,” another review posted in January reads. “Just extremely twisted behavior especially as an establishment participating in the gentrification of Bedstuy.”
“Maybe treat people with respect? Owner of this establishment has no control of their anger and temper,” someone wrote in another review.
