Three workers at the state restaurant El Cochinito, located on 23rd Avenue in El Vedado, in Havana, were fired for "cleaning" a table to eat with a dirty blanket with which the floor of the place had first been mopped;The official media reported this SundayCubadebate.
The event became known through a complaint made by the journalist and university professor Iraida Calzadilla on her Facebook profile, whichCubadebate he replied last March 6. "My friends, whether you take the advice or not, but here it goes: do not eat at the El Cochinito restaurant, yes, the one on 23," he warned.
"It turns out that on Monday, February 28, standing on the sidewalk, I saw an action that horrified and overwhelmed me: a service employee 'cleaned' a table facing the street with the blanket that was passing to the floor at that moment. and after squeezing it into a bucket of blackened water with the approval of two young shop assistants sitting right there," Calzadilla said.
The journalist approached the employees and called them "filthy and indolent" and told them that it was a "lack of respect" for customers. "In response I had the laughter of fools who only know how to defend themselves with mockery," he revealed.
"But there is always a saving angel. That's when that angel who had seen everything arrived and told them: 'Make fun of the old lady because she is a journalist.' Immediately the two clerks who were further back from where the incident occurred, came out. to hide inside the restaurant and the other two who allowed the 'cleaning' of the table became serious and tried, now kindly, to give me an explanation," he said.
"I did not accept it, I did not listen to them. There is nothing that justifies such an act of disrespect towards people who will innocently eat at a table to which a dirty floor blanket was passed. Intolerable," added Calzadilla.
Given his story, the Board of Directors of the Habana Restaurant Company created a work committee to analyze the case and met with the labor group and managers of El Cochinito.
"In the analysis it was found that on Monday, February 28, the unit carried out the technical day and therefore did not provide service to the population, the workers recognized the error made, both the cleaning assistant who, violating all health and hygiene standards , cleaned the table with the floor blanket, like two other workers (employees) violating the ethical precepts of a public servant, they mocked at the call for attention from the person who could not bear to see such an embarrassing fact," explained the note from the governing company spread byCubadebate.
As a measure for the absence, the cleaning assistant and the two clerks who made fun of Calzadilla were permanently separated from the entity, while the room captain, the unit administrator and the director of the Base Business Unit were removed from their positions.
"The Board of Directors of the Habana Restaurant Company, together with its Directors of Base Business Units, Restaurant Administrators and groups of workers, repudiate these events, foreign to the ethics and professionalism demonstrated for years, with the efforts of the Government and the effort made in the repair and remodeling of the facilities," said the institution.
After being closed for several months due to the coronavirus pandemic, El Cochinito opened to the public in September 2021, andfrom the first days it was the subject of criticism. "Today, Saturday, September 25, 2021, at 12 noon, I have witnessed the biggest culinary disaster of my life. I have never seen such unprofessionalism and little knowledge of the minimum essential elements of gastronomy. This was in the first shift of the "El Cochinito" Restaurant, a customer commented on Facebook at that time.
The man had been served a plate of pork with about four centimeters of skin and hair from the animal. "For the first time in my life I have to tell a waiter 'can you change my meal, because I'm not going to pay for this,'" he emphasized.
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