Restaurant cans manager who berated gay actor and his date for … – Queerty
A Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles says it has fired an employee after he berated two men on a date. The couple made the mistake of showing a little affection to one another.
Actor Drew Droege, who is also a regular fixture on the LA comedy circuit, shared what happened on his Facebook and Instagram.
“Last night, I went on a really nice date,” Droege wrote. “With a really sad, disgusting, hateful moment in the middle.”
“We went to El Compadre in Echo Park. The food and our server were both great. We paid and had a bit of time before catching a show downtown.”
“Finishing up our second drinks, we had our arms around each other and kissed a few times. A manager approached our table and said something to the affect of, ‘you guys can’t do that here.’ We were confused at first, but then he very firmly stated, ‘this is a family restaurant.’”
“I asked if anyone had complained to him, as we looked around and only saw happy straight couples eating, laughing, doing the same thing we were doing,” Droege said. “He threw his hands in front of us and said, ‘I don’t care if you’re the President of the United States, we don’t allow your behavior here.’ We promptly got up and left.”
Droege went on to say, “Ever wonder why gay people often seem nervous? Why do we walk faster? Why do we work so hard to please others and be good little citizens in this world? I will never be back. I encourage you all to find another place too. Also after this happened to us, we went outside and made out in their parking lot.”
The restaurant responds
Droege’s posting prompted hundreds of comments. Pretty soon, people were also leaving complaints and negative reviews on El Compadre’s social media and Yelp page.
Yesterday, El Compadre responded on its Instagram page.
“We want to sincerely apologize for the actions of our manager the night of December 12th. This is not representative of our core values at El Compadre, and we wanted to let our customers know that the manager has been terminated.”
“We have been in business for almost 50 years, and we accept, appreciate and value every customer that walks through our doors, and this behavior will never be tolerated in our establishment,” the statement continued. “We deeply regret how our manager handled this situation.”
It continued, “We do believe El Compadre to be a family restaurant, and coming into our restaurant is like coming into our home. In our home we believe in love and equality and the fact one of our employees made someone feel unsafe is not acceptable to us.”
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Droege told the LA Times that El Compadre had not personally reached out to him to apologize.
He said that he and his date “weren’t getting frisky or anything” and were shocked by the manager’s attitude.
“This made us feel less-than and made us feel really judged,” Droege said. “All the fears that we have as gay people out in public — I mean, there’s a lot of really, truly horrifying things that continue to happen to us in this country, in this world every day, and this was so minor compared to anything like that. It was just a reminder of, ‘Oh, you might think you’re safe in Los Angeles, but you’re not.’”