Allison Irby

Review of Taco Mac

I just had the most terrible experience I've ever ...

I just had the most terrible experience I've ever had at any restaurant in my life. My friends and I were treated like complete trash from the moment we walked in the door! We too are servers and just came to grab a bite to eat after our shifts. After being sat, we waited about 8 minutes before our server came to the table. I believe his name was Ladarian. He seemed pretty busy so we understood and waited patiently. When he finally approached us, he never greeted us. He walked to the table and said "do y'all know what y'all want?!" A little surprised at the lack of professionalism, I kindly said "hello, how are you?" He then caught his self, properly greeted us and we gave him our complete order. Our food came out in about 10 minutes. Unfortunately, as I was about to take my first bite into my buffalo wing, I noticed there was a piece of hair wrapped around the wing, about 4 inches long. I stopped the 1st server I saw to let them know what had happened. She went to get a manager by the name of Shelly Worthy, who was accompanied by another gentlemen. She asked what happened, and I explained that we found hair in our food. Her immediate response verbatim was "No one in our kitchen has black hair so I don't know where it came from". There was no apology or empathy. She was immediately defensive and guarded. I then explained to her that there was no way it came from us. My hair was back in a ponytail, my boyfriends hair isn't long, and my other friend was sitting on the other side of the table and never touched the food. The hair was discovered within the first 45 seconds of the food being on the table. Shelly continued to insinuate that it was our hair and repeated over and over that no one in the kitchen has black hair. As we all know, there are many moving parts before food actually hits the table. From the prep chefs, the cooks, to expo, to the food runners. there are many ways other than the cooks, that hair can accidentally end up in food. Regardless of any of that, as a manager, if this happens to a customer, you don't accuse them of putting the hair in their own food! Then went so far to say that a server, who was not our server, told her we must have done it! Shelley then says in an extremely condescending tone "were going to comp it for you, but that didn't come from us"... I have never been so mistreated, racially profiled and disrespected in my life! What would I gain from putting hair in my own food, when I came to eat?! We never asked or gave the impression we were looking for any compensation. We never asked them to remake the food. We simply just wanted to make someone aware that there was hair in our food so they could take any preventive measures needed going forward. Instead of empathizing with our experience, we were judged and treated as if we were trying to get something out of it. To try to deescalate the situation, I said to Shelley that it's obvious you don't want us here, we will leave. My boyfriend stood up in disbelief of what was happening. I asked for the check and Shelley then says "I'm calling the police on you!!" I ask her why, she didn't have an answer. We had barely touched our food and were being treated like criminals because we simply brought to her attention there was hair in our the food. At this point I'm literally floored!!! I asked her "what did we do wrong?! How can you treat us this way?!" She continued "you guys just need to leave and don't come back here!" I told her she was a disgusting human being and I left the server a tip. I didn't want the server to suffer because of the poor judgement of the manager. I'm positive the bill was not over 25 dollars. After serving nearly 300 guest, to dine out at an establishment expecting the same excellent service I give daily, to be treated like this is heart wrenching! This was my 1st time at the Duluth location but I've been a customer of Taco Mac for over 7 years and get excellent service 100% of the time. Shelly Worthy should not be representing your company! Her evil heart and racist judgment is going to get you guys in big trouble