The ultimate decision comes to the owner, though. Should he bend to the customer’s expectations? Or is it only his idea of the customer’s expectations; because at least on Lemmy it looks like people don’t care about the look of the staff. Probably not a representative sample, though.

I see a lot of people responding with “you don’t have to be Japanese to cook Japanese food”. I think this comic raises another interesting point (whether it’s the intention of the author or not).

The analysis would be valid if it was a random set of nationalities: Asian, European, African, etc. But in the comic, all of the employees are Asian. I think there’s a criticism that the restaurant owner is racially biased and only hires Asian staff. Why? I don’t see another explanation that the staff must “pass” for Japanese, which would be problematic of the owner.

Usually, people outside the anglosphere don’t think about how an American is going to read their name or if they’re going to find it funny.

We had a new joiner quit on his first day because of this. Didn’t even get to eat the burrito he ordered :( So it definitely happens.