The video was posted to Twitter on Thursday by a user named Masud Ali, who captioned it "can a group of young well established African American get a bite to eat after a long workout session?"
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In the video, the manager of the St. Paul restaurant tells the hungry customers "you gotta pay because you never have money when you come in here."
After multiple views and having tagged the popular restaurant, Chipotle replied to the video stating that "what happened here is not how our employees should treat our customers." They also added that the manager captured on camera has since been terminated and the staff has undergone re-training to prevent this incident from happening again.
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Following that response, on Saturday, Chipotle added that the manager had mistaken Thursday's guests for another group of gentlemen that were unable to pay for their meals earlier in the week.
Eyewitness News reached out to Chipotle for further details in regards to the incident and received the following statement:
We are committed to treating all of our customers fairly and with respect. Regarding what happened at the St. Paul restaurant, the manager thought these gentlemen were the same customers from Tuesday night who weren't able to pay for their meal. Regardless, this is not how we treat our customers and as a result, the manager has been terminated and the restaurant is being retrained to ensure something like this doesn't happen again.
After the tweet went viral, Twitter users began to post old tweets believed to be from Ali's account that appear to show that he and his friends have eaten at restaurants without paying in the past. Chipotle tells Eyewitness News that it is aware of the tweets and continuing to investigate the situation.