14 DAY TRIAL // Michael Garcia, a waiter at a restaurant in Houston, Texas, is making the news this week for refusing service to a family.
Garcia was working his shift at Laurenzo’s Prime Rib, when he noticed that a family refused to eat near a booth where a child with special needs was sitting.
Kim Castillo came to the restaurant with her son, Milo, and the rest of her family. 5-year-old Milo suffers from Down's syndrome. As the other group noticed him, they immediately moved to another section of the restaurant.
"So we were sitting there and all of a sudden I noticed that the family across from us got up and moved to the back of the restaurant. [...] I thought, I wonder if they're moving because of us?" Castillo tells reporters at local channel KTRK.
Garcia heard them as they were debating their decision, and motivating their actions.
"I didn't think much of it until I heard him say, 'Special needs children need to be special somewhere else,'" he says.
He has been working at Laurenzo’s for two years, and this is the first time that he refused to serve a party. The family left the restaurant immediately afterwards.
“It was very disturbing. [...] My personal feelings just took over and I told this man, 'I'm sorry, I can't serve you.' [...] It upset me because he's a five-year-old little boy. He's an angel. He's precious," he recalls.
Castillo found out about the waiter's protective gesture towards her son later that day. She was astounded and promised to remain a loyal costumer of the restaurant's.
"What went through my mind was that I was just so impressed and felt so good that somebody would stand up for another human being. [...] He's good in our book," she responds.