‘Little Fat Black Shirt’: Subko Faces Backlash After Bengaluru Customer Finds Body-Shaming Description On Receipt

A Bengaluru customer has criticised popular coffee chain Subko after discovering that a body-shaming description had allegedly been entered in place of his name on a receipt at the brand’s Koramangala outlet.

The incident at Subko The Craftery sparked discussion online after the customer shared his experience on Reddit. The post subsequently drew Subko’s attention, prompting the coffee company to issue a public apology and announce disciplinary and procedural changes.

Customer says his name was replaced with a body description

Sharing photographs of the café and the receipt, the customer posted his account on Reddit under the headline, “Subko didn’t use my name. They used my body to describe me.”

According to his post, he had visited the Koramangala café, placed an order and paid for his meal. When he later checked the receipt, he noticed that the customer details section did not contain his name.

Instead, it reportedly read: “Little fat black shirt.”

“I went to Subko The Craftery, ordered my food, paid my bill, and later looked at the receipt. Under Customer Detail, instead of my name, I found: ‘Little fat black shirt.’ Yes. That was apparently enough to identify me,” he wrote.

The customer said what particularly upset him was that the description appeared to have been deliberately entered rather than being an accidental reference.

“Not my name. Not ‘the gentleman at table 12.’ Not even a simple order number. What makes this worse is that someone had to consciously type that into their system. Someone looked at a customer and reduced him to ‘fat’ because apparently basic dignity wasn’t part of the service,” he added.

Customer calls out double standards around body-shaming

In his Reddit post, the customer also argued that body-shaming should not be treated differently depending on the gender of the person targeted.

“If this were a woman and the receipt described her body instead of using her name, I doubt anyone would call it a harmless joke. Body-shaming isn’t funny just because the person on the receiving end is a man. Subko, your staff can identify customers without humiliating them. Do better.”

The post attracted considerable criticism from other Reddit users, with commenters describing the incident as inappropriate and unacceptable.

One user urged the customer to leave a Google review so that the café management could address the matter, while another expressed sympathy, writing, “Omg this is horrible! Sorry you had to go through it.”

Other commenters echoed the same sentiment, with remarks including, “This is totally not acceptable” and “Body-shaming is never okay.”

Subko issues public apology

Subko later responded to the incident through a statement shared on its official Instagram account. Rather than waiting for the controversy to become widely viral, the company said it wanted to address the matter because it believed accountability was necessary.

“Today, we're not addressing this because it's gone viral. It hasn't, yet. We know that publishing this could give it more attention than it currently has. But we're posting this because it genuinely bothered us. Taught us how far we have to go. And accountability is more important to us than sheltering ourselves from judgement when our team member was unequivocally in the wrong,” the company said.

Subko acknowledged that a customer at its Koramangala location had been identified on a printed bill by his body type instead of his name.

The company further stated that the employee had knowingly entered the description.

“Fat shaming is wrong. Every form. Every time. No exceptions. There's no clever way to say this. It was cruel, and it happened under our roof,” Subko said.

Company announces disciplinary action and policy changes

In its statement, Subko said it had tried to reach the customer directly to apologise and had taken “the strongest disciplinary action possible” against the staff member involved.

The coffee brand also said it was reviewing how customer information is recorded at its counters. Changes to the process are intended to prevent employees from using inappropriate personal descriptions to identify customers.