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| - I don't write this post with any pleasure, and I hope management uses this as constructive criticism for the bar and restaurant. Also, in full disclosure, I have been cut off from drinking by bartenders before and even kicked out a time or two in my younger days, and I can tell you in each of those instances I deserved it.
Pizza Milano's is a two-story bar located right next to the arena downtown, an outstanding university, and one of the bigger African American neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. It should be a lively establishment that serves great pizza, boozes up the casual sports fans who couldn't make it inside the arena for a game, and accommodate the diversity that surrounds them.
I stopped by Pizza Milano's on St. Patrick's Day Saturday around noon time with about 7 of my friends who are all Duquesne graduates. We are all responsible adults in our 30s, and I was pacing myself to make sure I didn't over drink as I cannot stand hangovers and have Memorial Day goals for my body. Even though my tab showed that I ordered 2 pitchers of green Bud Light and some wings, none of the 8 of us were drunk at any point of the 3.5 hours we were in that establishment, and I had the least amount to drink out of all of us as I shared everything I ordered. We were there to ourselves, and we were there to enjoy each other's company, listen to music, and watch the basketball games that were happening across the street while eating food and having a few beers. (By the way, none of us enjoyed the selection of music we could choose from TouchTunes. They filtered out Drake, Kanye, Jay-Z, and anyone the establishment felt would bring "that type of crowd".)
Midway through the Duke - Rhode Island game, one of the bartenders started to collect our empty cans and glasses. At the time, I thought that she was being polite as I even said "thank you" to her while I was sitting down texting someone on my phone. After collecting everything, the server told one of my friends that she recommended us to go. One of my other friends questioned this, and he went to the bar to ask all the bartenders why we were getting kicked out. Paraphrasing, one of the bartenders then said something on the lines of, "no, no, no. We are not asking you to leave. Just the guy in the green hoodie." And of course I'm the only black guy in the building, wearing a green hoodie of my alma mater (Great season Gators...tough loss against Texas Tech.)
To be transparent, I never talked to the bartenders when all of this was going down as sometimes it is best to walk away, but I understood what was going down based on my friends' reactions, being livid at the bartenders and encouraging me and each other to provide them $0 for a tip. After paying for their "services", we walked next door to Shale's, where I felt welcomed and enjoyed great tasting beverages while continuing to discuss basketball with my friends.
I don't write this to get revenge on Pizza Milano. I'm a businessman that completely understands that a business has a right to makes its own decisions and that social media can destroy a business. If there is a business decision that was made where I felt cheated and wronged, I have always discreetly addressed the problem with a manager and never blasted the entity on social media. Nine times out of ten, the problem gets fixed, and I show my appreciation by continuing to be a regular customer and tipping well (by the way, everyone knows I tip well. I have customer service job today. I understand how hard it is, and for being in the place for one and a half basketball games, I was going to tip more than 25% to show my appreciation when signing my check.)
I was not aware before my visit to Pizza Milano yesterday that they made the local news a few months back when a manager beat a woman of opposite color on camera. I try my damnedest not to see color when talking to people or visiting a bar or working for an entity as love has no color. But I truly want management to understand how violated I feel. I'm from Alabama. I have been involved in plenty of awkward situations living in the South for 26 years, but it's been an awfully long time since I have felt this violated due to the color of my skin.
I write this review in the hopes of you fixing this problem. You make good late night pizza, and you are in a predominantly African American neighborhood. You can obtain much more business by accommodating the folks that are around you.
Businesses are people too according to current interpretation of the law, with all of the rights and freedoms that individuals have, and you have the right to play whatever music you want and serve whomever you want in your establishment. I also have the right to do everything I possibly can to make sure that everyone I talk to do not give another dime to your establishment ever again until the owner and manager addresses this, and the community you do business in, appropriately.
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