Nick's restaurant manager apologizes for using racial slur

Half a week after a video recorded at Nick's Original Filet House went viral, showing a confrontation between customers and Nick's manager Jack Moltz, each of those chiefly involved has responded publicly.

Speaking to WVUA-TV on Wednesday evening, Moltz, who operates the Tuscaloosa restaurant with owner Carla Hegenbarth, his wife, made his first statement about and apology for the racially charged incident.

More: Video showing confrontation at Nick's in the Sticks goes viral

"There is no excuse or justification that can be made for my characterization, nor the hurt it has caused," Moltz told WVUA after admitting that he used a racial slur on July 26 at the Culver Road restaurant.

"I accept all the condemnation and criticism which I have evoked, all of which is justified towards me. I sincerely apologize to the African-Americans who were present at the restaurant that night and I specifically apologize to the young man who was having his 22nd birthday."

Hunter Sartain, the man who stood up to Moltz on behalf of friends, posted a statement Wednesday evening on Facebook.

Sartain's post read, in part: "I have been deeply saddened over the past several days to see the genuine hurt experienced by so many in our community, state, and country.

"This was never about me. I only reacted in protection of others and what I thought was the right thing to do.

"I hope the recent events will allow people to see most Americans are good and desire to work together. We must make it our mission to treat each other with love, kindness, and respect. "

The viral video opens with a heated discussion already in progress, out front of Nick's Original Filet House. Sartain says to Moltz: "You messed up, man." He's standing with friends, some of whom are Black. He'd been sitting and talking with those friends inside the restaurant when Moltz allegedly spoke the N-word slur, in a remark directed at Sartain.

On the video, Sartain says to Moltz: "You say 'So you condone this?' That's what you asked me, 'You condone this?' You condone the Blacks? Ain't no condonin' about it. They're my friends. They're just like us. You just didn't want 'em in there. And I'm not for that.

"And you know what, as far as I'm concerned? Everybody that eats in here that I know will probably never be back."

Other voices chime in and overlap, including a guest who says: "Today is my son's 22nd birthday, and he has to encounter this, really?"

Reaction was swift and widespread, with various versions of the roughly 2.5-minute video shared on Youtube, Facebook, X, TikTok and elsewhere, garnerning countless views, already in the hundreds of thousands Sunday, from IP addresses around the world.

Angry condemnations were written and posted, some urging a boycott or shutdown, hundreds flooding onto Nick's own social-media presences. Tuesday, those Nick's Original Filet House pages began shutting down, or shutting off responses.

Widely used crowd-source review sites such as Yelp and Tripadvisor shut down commentary about Nick's Original Filet House, known as Nick's in the Sticks since a previous owner briefly opened another Nick's downtown, due to floods of invective.

Many other commenters wrote in praise of Sartain, for standing up and doing the right thing.

Protesters have gathered out front of the steakhouse since the weekend, even on the Sunday and Monday that Nick's Original Filet House closes each week, and again on Tuesday evening as it re-opened for business.

Councilors Matthew Wilson and Kip Tyner spoke about the incident, and the video, at the top of Tuesday evening's Tuscaloosa City Council meeting.

"... we believe that, you know, cultural diversity is who we are as Americans," Wilson said. "And whether you're Black, white, Japanese, any other ethnicity, you know all of us share differences and similarities. And we are all one Tuscaloosa, and I'm grateful and thankful for the knowledge that we are one Tuscaloosa, and we are working for the betterment of our community."

Tyner knew founder Nick Del Gatto, who died in 2003 at age 94, from both his many years at the restaurant — the Hell's Kitchen-born transplant stayed on as unofficial greeter and host long after selling the business, in the mid-'70s -- and as a fellow resident of Alberta. Tyner had spoken with family members, including son-in-law Warren Davis, who publicly posted that "Nick and Frances (Wilson, Del Gatto's wife, who died in 2000) are probably crying in their graves over the crap that has happened. He would never do anything like that."

"If you knew Nick Del Gatto," Tyner said " ... he was the most welcoming person to everybody. ... It is not Nick's anymore. Not the Nick's that we knew."

Sartain's Facebook post concludes:

"My prayer moving forward is that we can all work together for the good of our communities. If each person strives to stand for what's right and work together, I can only imagine how wonderful our society would be.

"God Bless America!"

Reach Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Nick's restaurant manager apologizes for using racial slur