(CNN) An IHOP restaurant in Maine retrained its employees after a waitress asked a group of black teens to prepay for a meal.

The eatery in Auburn, about 40 miles north of Portland, closed on Thursday for employee training and the waitress was disciplined, according to IHOP spokeswoman Stephanie Peterson.

The controversy started over the weekend after a waitress at the restaurant asked a group of black teenagers to pay for their meal beforehand.

This was witnessed by a person at a nearby table who wrote about it on Facebook.

"I heard them order their food, and they were respectful and were not loud or rude etc. We paid and sat there for a few minutes and I heard an employee tell the table that they were going to need to pay upfront and that it was 'a new generation thing,' Avery Gagne, who is white, wrote in his post , which was shared thousands of times. "I called over the group and asked them if they were seriously being asked to pay upfront and they said yes. So my father, mother and I stood up and began to question why this was happening."

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