The father and son behind one of Big Apple’s most popular pizza shops – Prince Street Pizza – are stepping down after being accused of making racist comments, mocking the Black Lives Matter movement and telling disgruntled customers to wear a hat to sit, ‘reports said Friday.
Frank Morano, who opened the store in 2012, and his son, Dominic Morano, will continue to own the restaurant, but will no longer be involved in day-to-day operations, will have no interaction with customers and will not be involved in management, Report Eater.
The fall-out comes after food blogger Joe Rosenthal started posting screenshots of the poisonous comments on his Instagram on Dec. 24 – people flooded the company’s Yelp page with negative reviews, the store reported.
In the earliest September 2017 incident, Frank responded to a poor Yelp rating by calling the customer “a hybrid”, “a mutt” and “yellow dog” – a term considered racist against Asians.
When Frank announced his decision to retire with his son on Friday, he defended the remarks to Eater, saying the customer was kicked out by security because he was ‘intoxicated’ and acted ‘violent’ towards customers and employees. .
Frank also said the client commented on the owner’s Italian heritage in ‘humiliating terms’, but admitted he ‘should never have responded’.
In later comments, the pizzeria cursed customers who accused the owners of being racist.
When two black women posted negative reviews in August and December 2019 in separate incidents claiming to have been discriminated against by Prince Street Pizza, Frank fired back with a series of curse-laden attacks.
In the first incident, Frank calls the customer a piece of sh-t ‘and writes’ go f – k yourself you disgusting race card playing c – t’, reports Eater, referring to screenshots.
In the second incident, Frank wrote ‘I got all kinds of racial religion and sexual orientation coming into my store. Now go in a hat from your racist clown. ‘
Frank later told another customer to put on a hat after leaving a review and complained that a white man had been given a free bottle of water, but then the man, who was an Asian, did the same. asked, he was told to pay.
In other reviews, Frank threatened customers with violence – he called it a “punk hillbilly” and a “communist scumbag”.
“I guarantee you this old hole will break your jaw in one fell swoop,” Frank wrote to the customer, telling the store, referring to screenshots.
Rosenthal also made a Facebook post of Dominic that has been removed since 2016, mocking Black Lives Matter protesters who were hit by cars during protests. When the boy is confronted about it, he shares a meme that says, “Did you find it offensive? I found it funny.”
Prince Street Pizza released a two-page statement on the comments; they promised to do better.
“We care deeply about the feedback from our customers and take it very seriously when a customer experiences a negative experience in one of our stores,” the statement read.
“Our actions in the past to address the concerns of negative customers have been lacking and have been extremely inappropriate.
‘What we said then and how we behaved was wrong, and it will always be wrong. We really apologize and sympathize with the pain we caused during these incidents, and apologize to all our Prince Street Pizza customers, ”the statement said.
“We believe that good food brings people together and it is our goal to bring people together.
‘We hope we can continue to be good stewards of the communities we serve and dedicate our business to ensuring that.
‘We hope our customers will forgive us and give us the opportunity to serve them, because we are grateful for the opportunity to do better. Our customers deserve better. ”