Restaurant that denied woman entry over revealing dress was not prepared for her reaction

Despite all the conversations and steps taken to address bias and achieve gender equality, there are still elements in society that police women for what they wear. When a Louisiana nurse named Y’Mine McClanahan was treated unfairly at a restaurant, she decided to speak out publicly. McClanahan, who goes by Miney M Mac on Facebook, shared a post in July about a discriminatory dress code at Stabs Prime Steak and Seafood in the Baton Rouge area. Despite having worn the same dress to the same restaurant multiple times before, this time the woman was refused entry because it was “too revealing.”

In her post, McClanahan posted a video of herself wearing an off-white top and matching skirt. She said she had worn it on multiple occasions to the establishment and had never had any issues. She also caught the restaurant owner explaining that McClanahan’s outfit was too revealing on top and that she should cover up or leave. However, the nurse soon noticed that the restaurant’s servers were wearing similar outfits. When she pointed out the miniskirts and fishnet stockings the servers were wearing, the owner said, “I’m telling you, we have a dress code. It’s been this way for a while.”

McClanahan was frustrated that the restaurant’s recent focus on its “dress code” policy was clearly biased. “The craziest thing about Stab’s is that the hostess was about to seat me until the ‘owner’ stopped her,” the nurse noted in her post. She emphasized that her outfit was too revealing, while the waitresses’ were not appropriate for the “vibe they were trying to create.” Many people in the comments criticized the restaurant’s actions.

“What kind of atmosphere? And there’s no soul in it? The nerve,” said Janae T. Jones. “Very focused. They’re going to lose so much support,” added Breshea Wheeler. “They’re ridiculous. That’s why it’s empty there now,” chimed in Jessica Mccray.

Although McClanahan had a better experience at another restaurant that day, she felt “humiliated, violated, ashamed and really degraded,” as reported by WAFB. “It’s just really disheartening that there’s no accountability and no remorse for what was done to me,” the nurse told the outlet. According to the restaurant’s website, their dress code doesn’t allow athletic wear, sweatpants, tank tops, clothing with offensive images or language, revealing underwear, revealing clothing, cut-off shorts, flip-flops or ripped jeans. “Their policy says no tank tops, but there she was (the owner of Stab) telling me to leave, standing there in a tank top. I just have no words,” McClanahan said.

In response to the post, the restaurant released a statement to the news outlet, saying, “We spoke with a guest yesterday about her attire and she pointed out that we have wait staff that are dressed in a manner that may not meet our dress code standards. In fact, over the past few weeks, we have been working on a different uniform so that we are not requiring a different standard of our customers than we are of our staff.” But McClanahan wasn’t going to let this go. The Stab’s owner didn’t know that she was harassing the vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Baton Rouge. So, the NAACP condemned the restaurant’s actions toward McClanahan and called for a meeting with them, demanding a valid response to what they had done.