Texas restaurateur defends hiring for attitude, not ethnicity

A viral video from a Texas restaurateur turned a staffing philosophy into a discrimination debate. Rashmi Bhat, who runs 7 Monk’s Cafe in New Braunfels with her mother, said she hires for attitude, reliability and willingness to learn, not ethnicity, and told viewers, “I don’t hire Indians at my Indian restaurant.”

The remark, posted on Instagram, reportedly drew nearly one million views and split commenters between those accusing Bhat of discrimination and those defending her focus on trainability and fit. Bhat, who is Mumbai-born and Indian-origin, framed the restaurant’s hiring around building a diverse team rather than a staff chosen from one ethnic group.

That matters in a business where every hire affects the floor. Bhat said her crew includes high school students, college students, single moms and retirees looking for a second chance. Some workers had never tried Indian food before joining 7 Monk’s Cafe, but Bhat said they now learn the menu and can tell customers the difference between dishes like tikka masala and korma, with samosas also part of the training.

The operational upside is obvious: a broader applicant pool can help a restaurant fill shifts in a tight labor market and build workers who can cross-train faster. The risk is just as clear. A hiring stance tied to ethnicity or nationality can create legal exposure and damage trust inside a restaurant, especially if employees or applicants start wondering who is welcome before they even submit an application. In a business already strained by burnout, turnover and constant retraining, that kind of message can make recruiting harder, not easier.

The timing also lands in a rough stretch for Texas restaurants. In April 2026, operators warned that immigration crackdowns were pushing workers away, raising costs and threatening survival, and only 50% of restaurants in Texas were profitable last year. Against that backdrop, a filter that narrows hiring by nationality cuts against the sector’s need for every available hand, from the prep line to the dining room.

Bhat and her mother launched 7 Monk’s Cafe in 2019, just before the pandemic hit the restaurant industry. Five years later, the restaurant is still being held up as an example of how one owner’s hiring line can expose the fault lines between diversity, discretion and discrimination in a labor market that already gives operators little room for error.