Obnoxious Customer Banned For Berating Autistic Driver

The customer is not always right, and this week an Alaska restaurant has received an outpouring of support for publicly "firing" an obnoxious customer for heaping an unwarranted amount of verbal abuse on an innocent delivery driver who is living with autism.

It's good to see a restaurateur stick up for his or her employees, and according to Fox News, P.J. Gialopsos, the owner of the Little Italy Ristorante in Anchorage was very upset at a customer who called to complain about a delivery driver who had mixed up an order.

According to Gialopsos, the driver had simply picked up the wrong order from the car, and when the customer complained he just went back to the car and got the right food. No harm, no foul. The customer, however, was not satisfied, and allegedly called the restaurant to vent his spleen.

"The customer wasn't simply complaining, he was ranting and foul. He informed us our driver was an idiot and strung out on drugs and was furious," Gialopsos said in a Facebook post.

Gialopsos says the customer was calmly informed that the driver was not drunk or high, but that he was autistic and had a slight speech impediment. She says the customer insisted that was a lie.  

The driver was very upset when he returned, because the customer had also harangued him over the delivery and called him names.

When Gialopsos heard that, she decided she had enough and flagged the customer's name, address, and phone number in her computers so that the restaurant will never deliver to him again.

Gialopsos' post has received an outpouring of support. More than 27,000 people have liked it on Facebook, and it has been shared nearly 7,000 times, with people all over the country giving Gialopsos a virtual high-five and making plans to visit her restaurant if they are ever in Anchorage.