A black server at a Cracker Barrel restaurant near Nashville is accusing the company of retaliation, claiming she was fired after she complained that co-workers were insulting her with slurs like “burnt biscuit,” according to a lawsuit filed last month.
Roberta Mendez – a longtime server who was hired at Cracker Barrel in 2015 – alleged she was treated less favorably than her white counterparts, according to the suit, which was filed in the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.
White employees at the restaurant regularly called her “nappy headed n—–,” “burnt biscuit,” “monkey” and “b—-,” and Mendez was also physically pushed and hit at work, the complaint said.
Management at the Tennessee location went so far as to segregate its black workers from white ones, according to the suit.
Some of the remarks came directly from supervisors, like Tre Thomas – a shift leader at the Cracker Barrel restaurant – who, on multiple occasions, told Mendez “I don’t like black people,” the suit said.
Cracker Barrel did not immediately respond to noti.group’s request for comment.
Mendez said she reported these incidents to her managers, assistant managers and the store’s general manager, Jack Kinle – but Kinle wrote up Mendez after her complaint in 2023, according to the suit.
When Mendez reached out to Cracker Barrel’s human resources team with concerns that the write-up was retaliatory, they simply told her not to sign it, the lawsuit alleged.
Around August 2024, Mendez submitted an official complaint to the company’s corporate HR department regarding her treatment and the treatment of other black employees at her location, according to the lawsuit.
The following month, she was fired for “allegedly ‘breaking company policy,’” though none of her white co-workers were terminated “for similar or worse conduct,” the complaint alleged.
The lawsuit does not provide details on the alleged behavior that led to Mendez’s firing, claiming that she always “met or exceeded” performance expectations.
Mendez is seeking her job back, or front pay for wages, as well as compensation for lost wages and benefits, attorney’s fees and damages for violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
