Louisiana restaurant kicks out black woman for ‘revealing’ outfit she wore to restaurant ‘multiple times’ in the past, while waitresses were seen in shorts and fishnets

In a post that has since gone viral on Facebook, a Baton Rouge woman wrote how she was kicked out of a local restaurant because an outfit she had previously worn to the restaurant violated the dress code.

Y’Mine McClanahan wrote on her Facebook page that she is a regular at Stab’s Prime Steak and Seafood. It wasn’t until she visited the restaurant on Tuesday that she was subjected to unusual treatment when the owner told her her outfit was “too revealing.”

McClanahan disputed the owner’s response, saying she had worn the outfit on previous visits to Stab’s without issue and pointing out waitresses wearing “fishnet stockings with half-exposed buttocks.” The owner told her only that the restaurant had “backed off” on its dress code, which has been in place for “some time.”

“How long is ‘a while’? I was here two weeks ago with the same outfit,” McClanahan asked.

“I can’t explain what happened two weeks ago when I wasn’t there,” the owner replied.

McClanahan’s Facebook post included videos of her conversation with the restaurant owner and the floral two-piece ensemble featuring a strapless crop top and maxi skirt that she wore during her visit. She also posted a few short clips of one female server wearing black fishnet shorts and another wearing a short skirt.

Her post went viral, garnering thousands of comments and shares. Many commenters sided with McClanahan, saying they felt her outfit wasn’t “revealing” and believed she was being “targeted” by the owner.

“Very targeted. They’re going to lose so much support,” someone noted.

“So you can’t wear that, but the waitress can wear what she was wearing, so that makes sense,” wrote another commenter.

McClanahan, a family nurse practitioner, is also the vice president of the Baton Rouge branch of the NAACP. The day after she was ousted from Stab’s, branch president Tia Mills sent a letter to the restaurant’s staff, stating that McClanahan’s treatment caused the department to “question the consistency and fairness of your policies.”

“This incident has caused significant concern within our organization and among our members who regularly visit your restaurant,” the letter reads. “We believe this situation warrants further discussion to ensure that similar incidents do not occur in the future and to restore trust and respect between our organization and your establishment.”

The chapter requested a meeting with the Stab’s management team to “discuss the matter in detail.”

“I hate to make it a race issue, but sometimes as a black woman you almost feel like you have to prove that you deserve to be in spaces,” McClanahan told The Advocate. “And I shouldn’t have to go anywhere and feel like I have to prove it. It should be automatic, because I’m human.”

In a statement to The Advocate, Stab’s owner Dori Murvin said, “We have a dress code policy that we ask our customers to adhere to. Several times a month we speak to our guests about their attire, including asking them to remove baseball caps in our restaurant.

Contrary to what is being said, our dress code is not new, it has been in place for over three years. We spoke to a guest yesterday about her dress code and she pointed out that we dress wait staff in a way that may not meet the standard of our dress code. In fact, over the past few weeks we have been working on a different uniform so that we are not asking for a different standard of service for our customers than we are asking for from our staff.”

Stab’s website states that the dress code requires guests to wear business casual attire that is “appropriate for an upscale family restaurant,” and that does not include “athletic attire, sweatpants, tank tops, clothing with offensive images or language, revealing underwear or clothing, cut-off shorts and flip-flops, ripped jeans.”

“If you’re holding me to a certain standard for the atmosphere that you’re trying to create, why aren’t your staff members holding themselves to that same standard? And the lovely hostess had her shoulder to the wheel as well,” McClanahan told WAFB.

“I think it’s very helpful because if it was, it should have been started already. It doesn’t take that long to repair a uniform.”

Since McClanahan’s initial post went viral, the Stab team has promoted their dishes and events on social media, but nothing about their encounter with McClanahan. Hundreds of comments have been written under their posts, vilifying the team for their treatment and reaction to her clothing.