FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - A chef has filed suit against the city of Fort Lauderdale and a city inspector after he allegedly said several racist comments towards him.
Chef Tony Lui said it takes around six to eight months to open a restaurant, but he said it took more than a year to open his eighth restaurant, the Red Door Asian Bistro & Hibachi on Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale.
“I just love to serve, and I meet a lot of friends,” Lui said. “It was like a nightmare. If we don’t have backup from New York, we go bankrupt. That’s it, we’re done.”
Lui added that opening the restaurant was going smoothly until a city inspector named Robert Gonzalez started red-flagging equipment. He first flagged the hood vents in the kitchen and then the hibachi stations, despite the appliances being stamped as “properly certified.”
However, the chef said, Gonzalez had a personal issue with his ethnicity.
Michael Pizzi, Lui’s attorney, wrote in the suit, “Gonzalez also let him know that at least one of the reasons for discrimination was his negative attitude toward Asians.”
“He made a number of comments that were ethnic-based and totally inappropriate that have no basis in a civilized society,” Pizzi said.
The opening of the restaurant was delayed for months. Meanwhile, the bills kept piling up, and Lui was several hundred thousand dollars in debt.
In addition to the mounting bills, one of the restaurant’s windows was vandalized.
Lui, now at his lowest point, said he was ready to give up on the restaurant.
“I told my partner, ‘Forget it,'” Lui said. “It’s like life-threatening here. I told my partner, Tony, ‘Forget it. Forget about here. We’re going home back to New York.'”
Red Door Asian Bistro & Hibachi has since opened, but they are suing Fort Lauderdale and the inspector — who has since retired — for $5 million in damages.
The city has filed a motion for dismissal citing no basis for municipal liability and said they are confident that the claims will be rejected.
Lui added that he is glad to be in a kitchen doing what he loves, but he said the Las Olas restaurant may be his last one.
“I think this is the last one we’re gonna build,” Lui said. “I don’t wanna go over this again. That’s it.”
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