After a viral video accused an Indy restaurant’s server of discrimination, the owner fired her

An Indianapolis restaurateur said she is still feeling the effects of a widely viewed video of diners alleging they faced racial discrimination from a server.

A couple says a server at Thaitanium Restaurant and Bar discriminated against them by telling them they needed to tip. Since then, restaurant has since been the target of people who believe the Mass Ave. spot promotes discrimination, co-owner Kanlaya Browning said.

In the video posted to TikTok over the weekend, a Black couple visiting the 735 Massachusetts Ave. restaurant could be heard asking non-Black customers if their server had told them they were required to tip in order to dine in, as they were. Browning said the server claimed she mentioned tipping because the couple had dined there before and not tipped.

‘I fired her immediately’

Browning said she was made aware of the video Sunday and called its author, apologized, and fired the server.

Browning and the female customer who initially posted the video on TikTok — and has since made her account private — on Sunday recorded a video together with the restaurant operator publicly apologizing for the incident and the two sharing a hug.

The original video has been reposted to other social media platforms.

“We’ve never had a policy like that about tipping or discrimination,” Browning told IndyStar. “And I fired her immediately.”

“We would never discriminate. We welcome everyone to our restaurant. We are here because of the support for the locals, no matter Black, white, Indian, Chinese or Thai,” said Browning, a native of Thailand who, with partners, has opened about a dozen Asian restaurants in Indiana. “I had to have a talk to the rest of the staff that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated.”

The server worked for the restaurant for three or four years and had never been discriminatory toward customers, Browning said. IndyStar was unable to reach the server for comment.

“I never saw that she discriminated or anything,” she said.

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Browning said the server told her the diners who authored the TikTok video had been in earlier and not tipped and she asked the couple what she could do to improve service.

“But the couple told me that she told them not to sit,” Browning said. “That’s what she told me, but I don’t know whether what she said is the truth. There is no video to prove it.”

Although the video of Browning with the Indianapolis TikToker is posted on Thaitanium’s Facebook page, Browning said she’s still fielding phone calls complaining about the server.

“I so sincerely apologized, and I’m so sorry. And I fired a girl. But some people, they still don’t understand,” she said. “I’ve gotten hateful phone calls. We’re a small business. We never discriminate. We are minorities ourselves.”

IndyStar could not contact the server for comment.

Yelp reviews disabled temporarily for restaurant

Meanwhile, reviews on the restaurant’s Yelp page have been temporarily disabled due to the attention.

“While racism has no place on Yelp and we unequivocally reject racism or discrimination in any form, all reviews on Yelp must reflect an actual first-hand consumer experience (even if that means disabling the ability for users to express points of view we might agree with),” the Yelp alert said.

Contact IndyStar reporter Cheryl V. Jackson at cheryl.jackson@indystar.com or 317-444-6264. Follow her on X.com:@cherylvjackson or Bluesky: @cherylvjackson.bsky.social.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis restaurant fires server, apologizes after viral video