Several employees at a Mesquite, Texas, IHOP were terminated after a Black couple was refused service due to their race.

Keisha Mitchell told CBS News that she and her boyfriend, Elvis, were informed by an employee that a waitress did not want to serve them “because of our color,” leaving her in “shock.” They went to the restaurant to have a birthday breakfast for Elvis on Dec. 26.

Mitchell decided to record the conversation and captured the manager describing the waitress, who has worked there for nearly three decades, as “picky,” according to the report.

“She didn’t want to say she was racist; she said she’s ‘picky.’ No, that’s not being ‘picky’ if you’re selecting only a certain group of people that you want to serve,” Mitchell stated.

Mitchell said she learned via social media that the waitress, the manager and another employee were fired. In a statement to CBS News, the breakfast chain’s franchise, Anthraper Restaurants, said they investigated the “isolated incident” and confirmed the three workers’ firing.

“Additionally, we will be providing additional anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training to ensuring that all remaining Team Members understand the company’s unwavering intolerance of any prohibited form of discrimination,” the statement continued.

For Mitchell and her significant other, the experience has had a lasting impact on them.

“That is a very traumatic experience. You don’t know what your thoughts or reactions are going to be until you experience something like that,” she said, adding, “Have we, have we come as far as we think? Or is it just being hidden more?”

The incident is reminiscent of the two Black truck drivers who claimed they were denied service while dining at a South Dakota Denny’s last summer. Attorney Harry Daniels, representing Damon Whitfield and Hector Madera, announced in September that they were filing a lawsuit.

“We need to send a message to Denny’s… that you’re not going to treat a person… and discriminate against them based on the color of their skin or treat them inhumanely just because you don’t like the way they look or the way they talk,” Daniels said at the time.