In a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday, a group of four women allege that they were chased down and accosted by bouncers after refusing to prepay for their meal at Rewind By Decades, a late-night eatery beneath the retro-themed club Decades in Dupont Circle.

The women argue in the suit that the prepayment policy is directed at Rewind by Decades’ minority customers and are seeking $2 million from owner Antonis Karagounis and his company, Panorama Productions.

According to the lawsuit, the patrons—who are described as “olive-skinned, petite women, with visibly recognizable Latina features”—came downstairs from Decades at around 2:45 a.m., and placed a food order at Rewind. Shortly after, the suit claims that one of the servers asked the group to prepay for the meal.

After refusing, the women left Rewind and were chased into the street by the waitress who pointed them out to two bouncers, they allege in the lawsuit. The bouncers “chased after plaintiffs in a threatening manner, and accosted them on the sidewalk,” the suit says.

They say bouncers blocked their path, yelled at them, and repeatedly insisted they stay and pay. The encounter allegedly ended after another employee told the bouncers to let the women go.

The plaintiffs are claiming false imprisonment and “egregious racial profiling,” claiming that they were asked prepay on account of their race, ethnicity, or national origin.

Attorney Claudette V. Ferron, who represents the four women, tells DCist this isn’t the first time Rewind has been called out for the practice, citing a Google review in which a black customer noted the prepay policy early this year. The reviewer wrote that a waitress refused to take her party’s order unless they provided credit cards. She added, “I just wanted to know if this you all policy or was the blonde waitress racist towards a group of black women there to pay for their dinner.”

The company replied: “We apologize that you perceived our policy as racially biased. I can guarantee you that our protocols are not intended to discriminate against any age, race, ethnicity, or sex.”

Ferron says that the policy seems to be enforced for minorities. “I don’t see any white people that are making complaints,” she says. “This is one of the major entertainment enterprises in D.C., and I can only imagine how many other minorities have been asked to prepay, and how many did. My client just happens to be a lawyer and said, ‘No way.’”

The suit, however, does not provide specific evidence that white Rewind By Decades patrons were treated differently from the plaintiffs.

Issues around prepayment and discriminatory treatment against have come up in courts before. Denny’s settled with a black couple after demanding they pay in advance and providing slower service than other customers at a Los Angeles location (in the early 1990s, the company also agreed to pay $54 million in a racial bias suit). A black Oregon man sued a local diner chain after he was asked to prepay for his orders but white patrons were not. And in Canada, a Chinese restaurant was forced to pay $10,000 after making a group of black patrons pay for their meal, when no one else in the restaurant had been.

Decades management declined to discuss the incident with DCist on Tuesday because they had not yet received a lawsuit or subpoena regarding the case. A summons was served on Wednesday, according to court documents, and since then, the company has not returned requests for comment.

Plaintiff Diana Valle, a Maryland attorney, commented about the incident on the restaurant’s Facebook page in February. An administrator for the restaurant’s Facebook page replied: “I apologize for your negative perception of our establishment. I can guarantee you that we do not discriminate against age, sex, or race.” And in a response on Yelp to a comment from a “Diana V.”, the company wrote: “Our employees are trained to take every customer’s credit card and ID to open a new tab.”

The plaintiffs are seeking $2 million in damages for the “the injury, pain, emotional distress, public humiliation, and embarrassment” the incident caused. The lawsuit alleges that one of the plaintiffs was so distressed that a blood vessel in her eye broke and she suffered a subconjunctival hemorrhage.

Several incidents of alleged race-based discrimination at bars and restaurants in D.C. have made headlines this year.

Over the summer, Alero Restaurant faced backlash after a server reportedly asked black diners to provide a photo ID until their bill had been paid—the customers told Washington City Paper that servers didn’t make the same request of a white man seated nearby. And in a September incident at H Street’s Copycat Co., a bartender was fired after a customer accused him of colorism and sexism.