Server fired after identifying customers at Dallas restaurant as '5 black guys'

Our partners at NBC5 reported this week that an employee at a Dallas restaurant has been fired after he identified a group of customers as "5 black guys" on a bar tab.

The restaurant, Zenna Thai and Japanese, is located in Far North Dallas, near the Dallas North Tollway and the George Bush Turnpike. Zenna also has locations in downtown Dallas and Plano. It's known for its low-priced happy hour specials that include 50-cent beers and sushi rolls under $4.

NBC5 reporter Jocelyn Lockwood says during busy hours at Zenna's popular happy hour, bartenders identify customers so they can quickly locate their tab when it's time to pay. But "5 black guys" wasn't an appropriate description, said the men involved.

"You could have just put '5 guys at the bar,'" customer Michael Brown tells the local station. "That should have been sufficient right there. You didn't have to put 5 black guys.  ... As an older, African-American male, that's offensive to me."

The owner told NBC5 that ethnic descriptions are not up to the company's standards and that servers are instructed to identify people based on their clothing.