A gay waitress who claimed she had been stiffed on a tip because of her lifestyle is no longer employed by the NJ restaurant at which she’d worked, according to a statement posted on Saturday.
Dayna Morales, a former Marine and waitress at the Gallop Asian Bistro in Bridgewater, NJ, claimed last month that customers left a note on their receipt disagreeing with her lifestyle in lieu of a tip. The story went viral when bloggers and media outlets picked up on it after a message from Morales and a photo of the receipt were posted on a Facebook page.
But the customers in question later came forward to refute Morales’ story, providing their copy of the receipt and a credit card statement showing not only that they never wrote such a note, but that they tipped the waitress.
Gallop Asian Bistro posted the following statement on its Facebook page on Saturday afternoon, indicating that it has parted ways with Morales:
The Gallop Asian Bistro has taken seriously the allegations made by Ms. Dayna Morales, and those made against her. Despite news reports to the contrary, this is not a simple, straight-forward matter and we have conducted our own internal investigation. The results of that investigation are inconclusive as to exactly what happened between Ms. Morales and the customers that night. However, in light of the investigation and recent events, both Ms. Morales and Gallop Asian Bistro have made a joint decision that Ms. Morales will no longer continue her employment at our restaurant. We wish her well in the future.Overall, this has been an unfortunate incident for Gallop Asian Bistro, our employees, and our customers. We are dedicated to providing excellent Asian cuisine and superior service. We have the utmost faith in our management and staff and we welcome the opportunity to serve our customers.
Before Morales’ claim had been publicly refuted by the customers, the restaurant initially stood behind the waitress. When the story first broke, a manager at Gallop Asian Bistro said, “We support Dayna 100 percent. She’s a wonderful person and a wonderful server, and we are extremely proud of her and the way she handled this situation,” reported NBC News4 New York at the time.
Donations for Morales then started pouring in, according to CNN. Morales had indicated that she intended to donate the funds to the Wounded Warrior Project, while the restaurant planned to give matching donations to a local LGBT organization.
But once the customers came forward and Morales’ story was publicly refuted, the restaurant announced it would launch an internal investigation. Its statement this weekend indicated that the results of that investigation were “inconclusive.”
Last week, several news outlets reported that the Wounded Warrior Project could not verify that it had received any donations from Morales. Meanwhile, some of the donations made to a PayPal account set up in Morales’ name have been refunded, according to NBC News4 New York.
(Featured image credit: NBC 4 New York video)
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