I had heard a bit about the Tall Shiva Hookah Bar on College Ave at Penn State. So, some of my friends and I decided to try it out after eating at the Indian Pavilion. This bar was in the basement and was a little dingy. We waited out by the bar for 5 minutes before wandering into the attached hookah paraphernalia store to inquire about someone taking our order. We found one person inside helping a couple of Americans looking to buy pipes. One of my female Arab friends asked if there was any one else working at the bar apart from him. His response was very sarcastic, and we immediately felt that he was high on something. We shook that feeling off and went back to the bar to wait for him. We had just asked him a simple question, and he came about with bad attitude which was uncalled for. Then when he actually come to take our order, the first thing he says, “I don’t want to serve rude students”. We were taken aback because I have never been spoken to like that, as had none of the others with me. We were foreigners alright, but we did nothing to provoke this reaction. So, we ignored the jab, and ordered. All of us paid 5 bucks for the different flavors, and then found seats and waited. We were talking about him being rude, and his attitude, and I’m sure he couldn’t hear us. So, after 15 minutes, he walks to us with the first hookah set for three. Then, he goes on this tirade about how he thinks every foreigner he has served is rude to him and his staff, and about how we don’t know how to talk to people in the service industry. We were stunned to be talked to like that. We had almost left before when he was rude the first time, but we gave him the benefit of the doubt, basing his erratic behavior on his drug induced incapability to handle himself, and the last bit just confirmed it. After his racist monologue, we told him that we were treated no differently that anyone else, and that this was the first time that this issue had come up. While he was handing out the hookah, one of the girls just told him to leave her hookah, because she didn’t want it right away, but he wouldn’t listen. So, I took hers in hopes that he would just leave, but as he left, he said something that truly shocked me. This was as bad as my racist encounter (I was spit on) at A&M Consolidated High at College Station. He told her, “If I put burning coal up your ass, you’ll still dime me.” That was the last straw, we all got up and left. The two girls were fuming, but unfortunately, there was nothing we can do about the situation because the person who was being obnoxious while being obviously high was the owner of the bar as far as we could tell. It just looked like he had something against brown people
I am never going back there.
