Racist Blackface Piñata Was Marched Through A River North Club
By Stephen Gossett in News on Jan 19, 2017 5:05PM
A River North nightclub/restaurant is in hot water after employees reportedly allowed a racist, blackface piñata to be strutted through the club by white attendees on Sunday night.
Roger Morales, a local video producer, was at the club, El Hefe (15 W. Hubbard St.), that night and captured video. As Morales noted, the "minstrel show" piñata was walked through the club the night before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
@WORLDSTAR @KidCudi this just happened at @ElHefe_Chicago a minstrel show piñata. The night before MLK's holiday. pic.twitter.com/GpDRfHUuJ2
— Roger Tino Morales (@AykidShots) January 16, 2017
Witness Matt Solida said employees saw what was going on. They told Solida, who was at the club with some friends who are African-American, that the piñata was an inside joke, according to reports.
“I felt embarrassed having brought them there. They were offended,” Solida told WGN. “No one at the table seemed to be offended. They were passing it around, taking pictures, posing and stuff like that.”
Riot Hospitality Group, the Arizona-based company that owns El Hefe, did not immediately return a request for comment. But a spokesperson told the Tribune that El Hefe did not provide the piñata, will the incident as a "teaching moment" for staff and apologized "to anyone who was offended."
The company told the paper in a statement:
"Arizona-based Riot Hospitality Group, the hospitality management company behind El Hefe, has been made aware of the situation occurring at El Hefe Chicago on Sunday, January 15. After discussion with our management team onsite, we learned that the piñata in question was brought in by a private group for a birthday celebration. No one within our organization either purchased or provided the piñata to the group. Nonetheless, we apologize to anyone who was offended by the situation. We will use it as a teaching moment for our staff as it concerns the allowance of such party favors into our establishments. El Hefe like all Riot Hospitality Group venues is a place of public accommodation. It does not nor ever has it discriminated against anyone on the basis of race or for any other reason. To the contrary, we strive to at all times treat our employees and our guests with the utmost respect."