Content warning: This article contains language that might be upsetting for some readers.
On June 1, a video uploaded to Angelini’s Ristorante’s YouTube channel titled “At Angelini’s they prefer male server” featured the owner, Tony Angelini, and three other men make discriminatory remarks about female servers and has recently come under intense fire online.
At the 1:18 mark in the video, Angelini’s owner Tony Angelini asks Matt Johnson, one of the men in the video, if he prefers male or female servers when he goes to a restaurant before turning to Kevin Opalka and saying, “He wants female ’cause he’s a horn dog,” while an image of a dog having sex with a goose is flashed on screen to laughter from the men in the video.
Shortly after, Opalka said, “I’d rather look at a nice female, but males are much better.”
Carm Fiore claimed his women colleagues in the past became overwhelmed easily and couldn’t handle the pressure of working in a restaurant, saying they “overreact a lot.”
“This is…don’t want to be some sexist s—, but that’s, you know, from what I’ve seen,” said Fiore. He continued by saying he prefers being served by men because they can “handle a joke,” while women “get offended really easily.”
At around the six-minute mark in the video, Angelini said he prefers hiring men over women “all f—–g day.”
“‘Cause these females, they’re b—–s. They just b—- about everything. And then when they’re in that time of the f—–g month, forget about it. Nobody can talk to them,” said Angelini.
On the r/lacrossewi Reddit community, one user posted the video with a title of “Angelini’s Misogyny,” captioning, “Please avoid Angelini’s if you have any respect for women. My goodness, how is this real???” with another user commenting, “Yikes, how embarrassing to have this establishment and these 4 individuals in our community.”
The comment section on the YouTube video shared similar backlash, with users commenting things such as, “Never eating here again, disgusting,” and “Thanks for telling me this so I know to avoid your restaurant.”
Angelini had an interview with News 8 Now on Tuesday, June 9, in which he doubled down on his statements, saying that he didn’t think he said anything bad in the video, and went on to say he would hire a female server if she was qualified. In a now-deleted Facebook post, Angelini’s Ristorante said, “These social media rats picked the wrong guy to mess with,” although a post of two men from the video pointing at a TV screen covering the controversy with the caption “To all my haters, thank you for the free advertisement,” is still up for the time being.
A video titled “Part one response” was uploaded to YouTube around 8:30 p.m. on June 9, once again featuring Angelini, Johnson, Opalka and Fiore, this time discussing the negative response they received from one of their friends’ wives regarding the previous video.
“I don’t think I degraded women, I just said why I like male servers better [than] female servers,” Angelini said in the new video.
Angelini continued, “She goes, ‘You think you’re untouchable, I can start my own thing, we’re gonna target you, we’re gonna come after you,’ well guess what, come on, f—-r. You think a f—–g person like you is gonna take me down? I’ll take that challenge. So then she goes, ‘You need to be stopped…’cause you’re rude.’ I said, ‘No, that’s not rude then. You know what rude is?’ I [said] ‘Go f— yourself,’ and I hung up the phone on her.”
They went on to talk about an interaction they had with this women in-person at the restaurant. According to Angelini, she said she was going to retire soon because she was a millionaire, which the four men in the video found to be a confusing thing to brag about. Fiore said this proved his point from the earlier video that women are too emotional.
“Now she’s saying, ‘All women are not stupid,’ which I didn’t say that…I didn’t say all women are f—–g stupid, I said why I like our male servers over female [servers],” said Angelini. Fiore added, “Even if you did say that, we live in a country, there’s freedom of speech. Let me be free to think whatever the f— I want to think.”
Angelini asked Johnson why he felt this woman had “turned on them” over “some stupid comment or whatever she thought she heard.” Johnson responded by saying he felt their friend probably liked being served by women when he went out, and his wife became jealous and had an argument with him.
“To me, it seemed like she had a hard-on for me for a while,” said Angelini. “To me now, I see true colors, and there’s no trusting her now…she’s part of the f—–g problem in this world that sees the story in the way she wants to see it, not the way the story’s been presented.”
“You know the difference between me and everybody else? I speak the truth. I don’t lie. I call it the way I see it, and if I f— up, I will apologize. But for you to say who you think you are, you can’t get away with this, enough is enough, you crossed a line, go f— yourself,” said Angelini. “‘Cause see, you know what, you look like a f—–g guy…I don’t know what the f— your husband sees in you, I would f— a guy before I f— you. How’s that you f—–g rat?”
In a Facebook post on the morning of June 10, Angelini’s Ristorante shared a 2013 letter from Angelini’s attorney to the mother of former employee, Gina Caravelli. The post stated Caravelli had a one-hour employment with the restaurant and shared a “mainly fabricated” Facebook post that was “sympathy grabbing.”
The letter stated that Caravelli missed her first day of employment and seemed unenthusiastic on her second day, and Angelini “politely terminated her employment.” The letter then says Carvelli returned and threw her work shirt in Angelini’s face, causing the shirt’s buttons to hit him in the eye. Caravelli was issued a cease and desist to delete “any remaining defamatory and derogatory posts” from her Facebook page after she had posted and then deleted Facebook posts calling out Angelini.
The Wisconsin Fair Employment Act prohibits employers from discriminating against employees because of membership in protected categories such as sex, according to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. When sex or gender causes a decision regarding employment, it is considered unlawful discrimination.
A protest has been organized on Facebook for Saturday, June 13 at 4 p.m. Protestors will meet at the roundabout on Highway 35 near Angelini’s Ristorante to protest against “the sexist, disgusting video created by the restaurant owner and staff.”
