ANTELOPE, Calif. (KTXL) — Video of an angry customer vandalizing the inside of a Wingstop restaurant in California has gone viral.
What started as a tense exchange between a Wingstop employee and an angry customer on Saturday quickly turned into expletives and a cash register being tossed to the floor and through a window.
Tharon Trujillo did not expect to witness and record what happened that day.
“We’re coming up here to get some ranch,” Trujillo recalled. “That’s all I came here for, was some ranch.”
While his wife and friend waited for Trujillo to pick up some extra sauce, Trujillo said he walked in to find a heated situation unfolding.
“I guess they had messed up on his order twice,” Trujillo recalled. “He was arguing. He was like, ‘Hey can you get my food remade?’ They said ‘Yes, we’re remaking it.’ Honestly, he only gave them maybe five minutes, and he’s like ‘The food is still not done? I don’t want you guys to spit in my food or whatever. Give me my food back.’”
The man then asked for his money back but found that was not going to happen either.
“Now, I know it was an online order,” Trujillo said. “I guess there’s no refunds on online orders.”
According to Wingstop’s refund policy, customers must call and file a report with corporate first before getting any money back for in-store and online orders.
“He grabbed the sign and threw it kind of by me,” Trujillo said. “I was like, ‘Dang bro’ … you need to chill.”
Trujillo said that’s when the irate customer picked up the register and tossed it through the window, a moment also caught on his friend’s phone who was still waiting outside.
“I was like ‘Dang really?’ Over $12 wings or whatever it was,” Trujillo said. “I don’t think it’s worth it.”
Troy Cerra, who does food delivery for a business next door, said he believes built-up frustration during hard times may have led to the explosive outcome.
“We have a lot of orders that just get made wrong and seeing a customer get like that is kind of crazy, scary,” Cerra said.
“I was trying to tell him, ‘Hey, don’t go to jail. You don’t want to go to jail over some wings. Just leave,’ you know?” Trujillo said.
Nexstar’s KTXL reached out to Wingstop for comment but has yet to hear back.
According to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, deputies did show up 30 minutes after the incident happened.
Investigators said they are still waiting for an official report to be filed by the owners of the Wingstop, who have the customer’s information already on file.