Papa Johns Pizza Receipt Calls Asian Customer “Lady Chinky Eyes”
UPDATE: According to CNN, Papa John's Headquarters has issued an apology for their employee's actions.
When Minhee Cho got home from visiting her local, New York-based Papa John’s, she discovered that she got a whole lot more than a hot, round pizza pie. She was handed something of a potential firestorm of bad press for the pizzeria.
Earlier today, after reviewing the receipt she received from Papa John’s, she noted that the employee who handled her order didn’t use her name. Under her order number was the words “Lady Chinky Eyes”, a nickname obviously given to her by the employee.
I’m thinking the employee will likely be hearing from Papa John’s management team, given that Cho immediately used her Twitter account @MintyMin to tweet the following:
The tweet comes with a Twitpic link to a nice quality image of the receipt, showing the Papa John’s Restaurant address, phone number and the insensitive choice of customer nickname.
As (bad) luck would have it, Cho is Communications Manager for ProPublica, a non-profit, independent investigative journalism publication. She’s certainly media savvy, and knows how to deliver a social networking punch between the eyes, although at this point she’s only mentioned what happened to her via the tweet to her 900+ followers.
Of course, the press (and social media) will pick things up from there. After all, as I am typing this article, Cho's Twitter following broke 1,000.
Replies to Cho’s Twitpic have been mixed, all the way from some saying the printed nickname was funny to others stating their downright disgust at the Papa Johns Pizza employee’s choice of nomenclature.
I imagine as this story gets out further, previous customers of Papa Johns Pizza Restaurant #3070, located at 3477 Broadway in New York, just might dig up their old receipts to see what scurrilous names they may’ve been provided by the same employee (let’s hope it’s just the one.)
Of course, a restaurant chain can’t be blamed for the actions of one employee, but given the damage done by the improper hijinks of employees of other eateries in the past, I’m sure Papa John’s will feel the effects of this for some time to come.
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