Restaurant manager fired after video of confrontation with employee goes viral

The manager of a restaurant in Utah has been fired after a video of her rant toward an employee and the employee’s family went  viral . ...

The manager of a restaurant in Utah has been fired after a video of her rant toward an employee and the employee’s family went viral.

Connie Fuentes Aguirre is the employee being confronted in the video by her manager, identified only as Trina, at CoreLife Eatery, a restaurant in Salt Lake City. According to a Facebook post, Aguirre was promised a raise once she was moved up to a position in the restaurant’s kitchen. Since receiving the new job title, however, her pay hasn’t been changed.

Aguirre’s son, Omar Fuentes, tells Yahoo Lifestyle that his mother doesn’t speak English fluently, which is why he and his siblings decided to visit the restaurant to help facilitate a conversation between his mother and Trina about Aguirre’s raise. Once Aguirre’s daughter started to ask Trina about it, however, the manager became upset.

“My sister waits until [Trina’s] not busy, goes to the side and asks what the details are to then translate to my mom,” Fuentes explains. “[Trina] then tells my sister, ‘Don’t tell me what to do, if your mom isn’t getting a raise she’s the problem.’”

Fuentes says that once his sister came back to the front of the restaurant and explained how Trina responded, he asked another employee for the corporate CoreLife Eatery number.

“I did not want to talk to Trina, so I asked another employee for the corporate number, and that same employee goes to the back and asks Trina,” Funtes says. “She then comes from the back kitchen area to the front, demanding us to leave and starts to talk to my mom with a lot of disrespect. That is when i can’t believe this is really happening and I start recording.”

The video, which was posted to Facebook by Fuentes’s brother, captures Trina confronting the family in the dining area of the restaurant and telling them to “get the hell out of my restaurant.”

“You are full of drama,” Trina tells the family. “You just got your mom fired, I hope you know that.”

Trina then turned to the employee and attempted to speak to her in Spanish, telling her that she didn’t work at the restaurant anymore.

Fuentes tried to rationalize with Trina by saying, “We’re trying to talk to you in a nice way and you’re just trying to kick us out. For what reason?” But the manager refused to respond, and instead placed a call to security and had the family escorted out.

CoreLife Eatery didn’t immediately respond to Yahoo Lifestyle’s request for comment. However, the restaurant’s Mountain West President Rick Timmons told KSTU that the store has since terminated the location’s manager.

“The actions of our manager were completely unacceptable and do not represent our commitment to a dignified environment for our employees and patrons. We apologize to our employee, her family, patrons in the restaurant at the time of the incident and all others who were offended by the actions of our manager,” the statement read in part. “We will not tolerate this type of behavior and have taken swift action. We initially placed the manager on administrative leave while we investigated in more detail and have since terminated her. More importantly, we are in the process of reaching out to our employee to apologize and begin to take steps to make the situation right.”

The family has since set up a GoFundMe for Aguirre in order to cover her expenses while she’s looking for a new job. People have even responded to the donation page with employment offers.