A downtown restaurant says it launched an investigation into allegations of discrimination against staff members.

Three former employees of 1909 Modern Tavern claim their recent firing was racially motivated.

All three ex-workers are visible minorities.

They were all hired in October when the Tavern opened, but the restaurant has since had a change of management. It is operated as a partnership by Cara Operations and the Montreal Canadiens.

Last week the three employees were all dismissed. Each one claims they were called into the office and told that management had an issue with their work ethic, and told their "appearance" was not as satisfactory as that of two white francophone employees.

All three employees said they had never been the subject of any complaints about their work until the day they were fired.

“He tells me, ‘If everyone was like them, I'd be happy,’” said one of the complainants, Fahmida Khatun, who speaks five languages and said her work record was spotless.

“I felt kind of very strange at that point because he talked about their appearance and I was like, ‘What was wrong with my appearance?’” she said.

All serving staff at the restaurant wore the same uniforms, and was trained in how to wear it and serve customers.

The Tavern has since hired new waiters -- who are white francophones.

One fired employee, Terry Ngala, feels he is the victim of discrimination, and has joined his former co-workers in filing a complaint with Quebec's Human Rights Commission.

"I didn't want to go to that extent yet. I wanted to make sure we laid down the facts first. Did we do anything, were we lacking in certain things, for us to be fired right away. I couldn't find a reason," said Ngala.

CTV also spoke with a third server who confirmed she too was dismissed under similar circumstances.

“The same week, I was told by a friend who still works there that the replacements happened to be white and that's what makes it fishy,” said Ngala.

The director of operations of the Tavern, Otman Amer, issued a statement that the restaurant is going to hire a third party to investigate the dismissals, adding that they take the complaint very seriously.

"The investigation will aim to verify that our values of respect and equality contained in our code of conduct have been met, as our restaurant relies heavily on diversity in the hiring of its staff," wrote Amer.

Khatun said the matter has taken an emotional toll.

“We're in 2018, we're in Quebec, we're in Canada. This is not supposed to be happening,” she said.

Ngala said he’s looking forward to hearing the results of the investigation.

“I'm ready to be wrong. If I'm wrong I'm happy, but if I'm right we have a lot of work to do,” he said.