Employees of Karen’s Diner – the novelty restaurant chain that’s based around bad service – are taking legal action against the company over the bad treatment they’ve experienced from customers.
The concept of Karen’s Diner is that it’s a deliberately unpleasant dining experience where customers will be berated and insulted by staff throughout their meal. Patrons of the restaurant can expect to be berated by the staff, experience terrible service and even be asked to clean their own tables.
The name references the recent ‘Karen’ phenomenon; a word that’s being used to describe women who are entitled and rude. Urban Dictionary describes a ‘Karen’ as, “a pejorative name associated with uptight, middle-class, do-gooder types of white women.”
The ABC has reported that several employees have called the eatery an unsafe workplace and said that they were forced to sign a waiver preventing them from pursuing injury claims against Karen’s Diner when beginning a job there.
Former employee of Karen’s Diner Kaliya Arumugam told the publication that she joined the restaurant hoping to acting experience with a hospitality job. However, she said that she experience abuse and insults from customers shortly after beginning her tenure.
“These incidents have ranged from my personal image, like insults about my physical appearance, body shaming, racial slurs and sexual harassment and physical assault,” she said.
“I had a group of young men physically threaten me, and once they left, they waited outside the front of the venue for me for about an hour or so,” she said.
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“There were incidents where we had to call the police and get people removed … and they just were never really taken seriously by management.”
Arumugam told the publication that she was required to sign a document which “basically said that we would waive any rights to pursue injury claims, even in the case of negligence.
“The manager of this venue at the time told us that we had a deadline to sign it and it was non-negotiable.
“Some staff members that raised concerns with managers and then had their shifts cut and then subsequently were fired.”
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