A Starbucks customer said an employee smacked her in the face with a wet rag after she asked for her drink to be remade, according to reports.
The incident took place in a Philadelphia Starbucks store on Saturday afternoon, NBC10 reported.
The customer, who wished to remain anonymous, told NBC10 the altercation began after she asked the employee to remake her order.
“They were made wrong, so I asked him to remake it and he caught an attitude,” she said. “When he remade it, he had an attitude about it. Filled my cup halfway with caramel and slammed it on the counter.”
The woman then said she asked to speak to a manager but was told there wasn’t one around, NBC10 reported. She said a male employee, identified by the station as Robert Freda, then “took his wet rag, smacked me in my face with it, and he swung at me. So we started fighting. I was shocked for a second. Then he swung at me so I swung back,” the news outlet reported.
However, the employee denied the accusation, telling NBC10 that he had “waved a wet rag in her face that I had in my hand.” He explains that he wasn’t “trying to hit her or anything” but that his “fight or flight response kicked in.”
The employee alleges the altercation left him with a black eye and marks on his body, according to NBC10. He told the news outlet, “If anybody was left with more damage, it was me.”
A Starbucks spokesperson confirmed to NBC10 that the employee was fired after the company’s initial investigation, which included reviewing the video of the incident from inside the store. Starbucks will not release the video, NBC10 reported.
The customer plans on filing charges, telling NBC10, “What he did should not have happened at all. You don’t do that at all.”
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