WASHINGTON – US pizza company Papa John’s has issued an apology to a New York woman of Asian descent who was given a receipt that referred to her as “lady chinky eyes.”
Minhee Cho, a communications manager for the journalism site ProPublica, posted a message with a photo of the offending receipt on her personal Twitter account after visiting one of the chain’s restaurants.
“Hey @PapaJohns just FYI my name isn’t ‘lady chinky eyes,'” she wrote – prompting outrage on the popular microblogging site.
The message itself was retweeted some 500 times and the photo quickly garnered over 150,000 views – hours later Saturday, Papa John’s posted an apology on its Twitter and Facebook pages.
“We are very upset by recent receipt issue in New York and sincerely apologize to our customer,” the company wrote on Twitter, adding that the employee involved “is being terminated.”
On Facebook, the company said it was “extremely concerned” to learn of the incident.
“This act goes against our company values, and we’ve confirmed with the franchisee that this matter was addressed immediately… We are truly sorry for this customer’s experience.”