A day after the story grabbed national attention, a Texas Popeye’s franchise is offering pregnant mom Marissa Holcomb her job back. She claimed she was fired after she refused to pay back $400 that was stolen by an armed robber.
As previously reported, Holcomb was a shift manager at the Channelview, Texas Popeye’s on March 31, when an armed robber entered the store. He forced her to give him everything that was in the cash register.
Holcomb told local station KHOU that she was fired 36 hours later for not paying back the money. However, Z&H Foods Inc., which owns the franchise, said that Holcomb violated policies in the past and that she was fired for leaving too much cash in the register.
Now, KHOU is reporting that Z&H Foods owner Amin Dhanani had a meeting with Holcomb on Wednesday. “He just apologized and pretty much offered me if I wanted to go back to his business and work there again,” Holcomb told the station after the meeting.
“We deeply regret the way this matter was handled,” Dhanani’s company said in another statement. “We are committed to continuing to work with Ms. Holcomb, and we apologize to her, our employees, the public and other franchise operators of the Popeyes system. We have let them down and are committed to do better.”
Popeye’s CEO Cheryl Bachelder later issued a statement, confirming that Dhanani has tried to fix the situation and apologized. “We deeply regret the distress this situation has caused,” Bachelder said.
Holcomb is already a mother of three, but is debating taking the offer, which does include $2,000 in back pay. “I don't want to go back to a business where I'm treated the same and I just get pushed back out if something else happened,” she told KHOU.
image courtesy of Popeyes.com