Supporters of President Trump held a sit-in at a Starbucks location in Charlotte, North Carolina, after an employee was overheard making fun of a customer’s pro-Trump T-shirt.
Nearly 50 people poured into the coffee shop, wearing Trump merchandise and waving pro-Trump signs.
It was unclear how caffeinated they were in the planning and/or execution stages.
The group presented no demands. The Charlotte Observer reported that the mood in the shop lightened when protestors began ordering drinks with the names of members of the Trump administration, including Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions.
“I gave them the name Trump and…they were very gracious about it,” Shellie Anderson told Charlotte TV station Fox 46. “We just wanted to reverse the little negativity…It’s really good to come together and take something negative and just come in here and be respectful.”
In the initial incident, which happened earlier this month, a woman wearing a pro-Trump T-shirt received her drink marked not with her name but the phrase “Build a Wall!” Embarrassed, she left the shop.
“We wanted the staff to see that Trump supporters are just as human as anyone else,” said James Tatro, a MeckGOP board member who participated in the event. “We live in a diverse city. It’s unacceptable in a modern society to make a customer feel uncomfortable, whether it’s a liberal business mistreating a conservative customer or a conservative business mistreating a liberal customer.”
Reggie Borges, a spokesman for Starbucks’ corporate office in Seattle, said the company was working with the barista and using the incident as a teaching moment. “This experience is absolutely not consistent with our standards or the respectful experience we want to provide to our customers,” Borges said.
