The Cheesecake Factory suspends workers after a customer was reportedly harassed and threatened for wearing a 'Make America Great Again' hat

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The Cheesecake Factory suspends workers after a customer was reportedly harassed and threatened for wearing a 'Make America Great Again' hat

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The Cheesecake Factory is under fire after a customer was reportedly harassed for wearing a MAGA hat.

  • A 22-year-old customer says that he was harassed and threatened by employees at The Cheesecake Factory for wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat. 
  • The customer was reportedly yelled at and threatened, with Cheesecake Factory employees allegedly saying things such as "I'm going to knock his head in so hard his hat's going to come off." 
  • The Cheesecake Factory told Business Insider that workers involved have been "suspended pending the results of our investigation."

 

The Cheesecake Factory has suspended workers following an incident in which a customer says he was harassed by roughly a dozen employees for wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat. 

Conservative news website The Daily Wire reports that a 22-year-old named Eugenior Joseph was targeted by Cheesecake Factory employees for wearing a MAGA hat. According to The Daily Wire, roughly a dozen workers at a Miami, Florida location approached Joseph, who was dining with his girlfriend's family, and began making comments about the hat. 

"All the employees started standing there, saying things out loud, like, 'I'm going to knock his head in so hard his hat's going to come off," a witness told The Daily Wire. 

Joseph told the publication: "He got behind me and another coworker came by and they were staring at each other and he fist bumped him and then he started looking at me, balling his fists, smacking his fists, trying to scare me."

The Daily Wire reported that employees also yelled at and booed Joseph when he walked to the bathroom. The incident was so upsetting, one witness said, that an "elderly woman who was present had to take medication to calm herself down."

The incident sparked backlash on social media. 

The Cheesecake Factory said in a statement to Business Insider that the "individuals involved in the incident have been suspended pending the results of our investigation."

"No guest should ever feel unwelcome in one of our restaurants and we are taking this matter very seriously," Alethea Rowe, The Cheesecake Factory's senior director of public relations, said in a statement. "Upon learning of this incident, we immediately apologized to the guests in person."

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