Racist incident at Five Guys in Grand Junction goes viral online | Business

In the video, a man who has just received his meal yells at the employees, “F— you, you damn bean eaters!” The Europeans colonized this damn country, and you damn bean eaters are invading it! You are damn invaders! You should be damn ashamed of yourself!”

As the man and woman leave the restaurant, the man tries to slam the door while continuing to shout insults. The door is built in such a way that it cannot physically be slammed, so the man's slamming motion caused the door to slowly close anyway, which one of the verbally abused employees noticed and laughed at.

A video recording the incident names the men and women who harassed employees. However, the Daily Sentinel has not independently confirmed their identities, so no names will be mentioned in this story.

The Reddit posts contain speculation that one of the people involved is a medical professional at a clinic at Community Hospital in Grand Junction.

In a statement to The Daily Sentinel, Community Hospital said the person some say is a clinic employee is not employed by the hospital but is connected to the hospital through his work at one of the hospital's clinics. The Sentinel has not confirmed this person's identity or occupation.

“We have reviewed the video and in no way condone disrespectful behavior toward another person,” the hospital said.

Mario Quijano claims to be one of the employees who filmed the encounter. He posted a video on the social media platform TikTok on Thursday further discussing the incident and confirming that the filmed incident took place in Grand Junction.

“He came up to me and said, 'Who did you vote for as a Latino man, who did you support?' I said it was Kamala and he asked me why,” Quijano said. “I told him my reasons for not supporting Trump. I guess he didn't like it and then he called me the racial slur. I then told him to leave, he refused, and that’s when I started recording.”

This incident occurred on Tuesday evening, while the election results were still in. The next day, Quijano said, he was fired from the restaurant after a complaint. He said in his video that he had a witness to his firing.

“I go to work (Wednesday) evening and unfortunately I was laid off. They fired me because apparently someone else shared the video that contained his and his wife's actual names, where they worked, and all that personal information. I was accused of doing that, but it wasn't me. I showed my manager the proof, I showed her the video and they said, 'Well.' I begged to keep my job because I need it because I have a family,” Quijano said.

“Today they claim that I quit, that I became very emotional, that I got angry, gave up and left. I'll be honest: I got emotional. I was fired for trying to stand up for myself. I didn't think I did anything wrong. I’ve never been called that before.”

Grand Junction Five Guys owner Jeff Parker issued a statement to The Daily Sentinel on Thursday:

“We are not at liberty to discuss personnel matters and we continue to investigate the situation.” We expect our employees to treat all customers with respect, and we expect our customers to treat our employees with respect as well. We do not have all the details, but we are concerned about what we are seeing and will investigate the matter and take action if necessary.”

This story will be updated or followed up when The Daily Sentinel can confirm information such as the names and occupations of the people involved.