Restaurant employee’s incredible act of kindness goes viral
Restaurant employee’s incredible act of kindness goes viral
Restaurant employee’s incredible act of kindness goes viral
Restaurant employee’s incredible act of kindness goes viral
A simple act of kindness from an employee at a Mexican restaurant has gone viral after another customer secretly recorded him helping a woman with disabilities eat her food.
Dr. David Jones said he was visiting the Qdoba Mexican Grill in Louisville, Kentucky, several weeks ago when he noticed a woman in a wheelchair trying to enter the restaurant.
“We helped her get in because she was out in the parking lot,” said Dr. Jones told WAVE 3 News in Louisville.
But, it’s what happened next that really got Jones’ attention. He said a restaurant employee assisted the woman through the line at the counter, got her a napkin and utensils, and set her up at a table when she made one last request: could he help her eat her food?
“He didn’t stop to think about, ‘Well, should I help her, should I not,’ — he just went over, put the gloves on and started feeding her,” said Jones, who immediately pulled out his cellphone camera and started recording the touching scene.
“I said, I don’t know, I think I’ll just send it out to some of my friends and say, ‘there’s still some good people in the world.'”
Little did he know that the video would quickly go viral, with many praising the kindness and consideration of the Qdoba employee.
The video has garnered so much attention that the employee in question, Ridge Quarles, was sought out by local media.
He said he was just helping out a loyal customer.
“By now, she’s actually been in so many times that we know what she likes to eat,” Quarles told WAVE 3 News about the woman, whose identity is being withheld for privacy’s sake.
Quarles has worked at the Qdoba location for over five years, long enough to get to personally know many of the store’s regular customers – including the woman in the wheelchair.
He said a Transit Authority of River City (TARC) bus would drop her off from time to time outside the restaurant, where she would wait for an employee or fellow customer to let her in.
“She didn’t get to get out of her house very often, but whenever she did, she always told me, ‘Ridge, this is my most favorite place to eat,'” Quarles said.
“I had helped her through [the] line and sat her out in the lobby, got her a drink, got her utensils and napkin and kind of started to walk off and I was like ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’ and she turned around and she was like, ‘Sir, if you don’t mind could you help me eat?'”
Jones said he was surprised by Quarles’ generosity.
“It seems to me that if everybody in the world would just use the little simple gift that they have to maybe benefit somebody else, think what the world would be like,” Jones said.
But Quarles said he didn’t give a second thought to helping a person in need.
“I mean, she needs help and if I wasn’t going to do it, no one was. Who else is going to do it?”
