Subway complaint: Open and blantant discrimination against Black men.

07242021

I’d like to share an occurrence a colleague and I experienced at a Subway store, in a south Loop. We both work for a local well known school bus company. The Subway is located in Chicago’s South Loop, near Roosevelt road, between Clinton and Canal Street.
During the hours between 3 and 5 pm. Saturday afternoon.
( Canal is a common staging area for Charter buses.)
I want to describe the area to level the playing field between me as a customer, and the attitude of the business owner or proprietor of Subway at that location.

The area has a multitude of vagrants and homeless people frequenting the shopping centers that housed numerous stores, restaurants, and businesses.

My collegue was wearing a bright Blue jersey bearing the name of our bus company and I was wearing a Black and gold shirt bearing the name of a local school bus Teamster’s union.

As soon as we entered the Subway store there was an Eastern Indian gentleman behind the counter who was already accessing if we were going to make a purchase or not. I asked if I could use the restroom before ordering. The gentleman immediately told me the restroom was out of order and I could not use it unless I was buying food. (RED FLAG)

We over looked his assertion and proceeded to order our food anyway.
We inquired about the special of the day, that is normally displayed in other Subway stores and he replied something sarcastic that we ignored once again.
My collegue asked for extra ingredients on his order and the guy blatantly refused to comply indicating he would have to charge him extra as in double order, where as, there were signs that indicated extra ingredients was available on other sandwiches.

This overall experience was racially charged towards us. (Black Men) As we set there and other Black males entered the store, we both noticed that there was an extreme bias towards Black males and their orders. It was ironic that other Black males were treated and told much of the same things in the same sarcastic manner we were treated.

An Asian lady walked in Subway, off the street, DID NOT ORDER FOOD and was given the code and allowed to use the lady’s room with no problem.
Minutes latter the same gentleman who told me the restroom was out of order typed in the code for the men’s restroom and used it. As we set and witnessed his actions.. It seemed he had a problem with any Black men entering the store.