Adding insult to injury the restaurant chain Hickory Tavern fired a gay waiter from its  in Indian Trail restaurant in Union County, NC after the waiter shared a copy of a check receipt that had anti-gay comments scrawled on it despite the fact that all of the customer information was redacted.

““Our gay waiter made me wanna throw up my food!” the patron wrote on the Nov. 30 receipt “Ruined my experience tonigth. Will not be back!”

Via The Observer:

After the Observer emailed the restaurant chain on Tuesday to confirm the authenticity of the receipt and that the server had been fired, Hickory Tavern released a statement confirming the firing and that “insults” aimed at the server had been left on a receipt.

“We strongly condemn the insults directed at one of our team members in remarks left by a patron on their credit card receipt,” Hickory Tavern said. “We value diversity and do not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation or for any other reason. We also value the privacy of our patrons, and posting of credit card receipts violates our confidentiality policy.

“Although the team member was initially terminated for violating this policy, after further discussions with the team member, we made the decision to offer his job back. We strive to strike the right balance between supporting our team members and protecting the private information of our guests.”

Lucia Stetson, another patron of the restaurant also posted a copy of the receipt on Facebook on Sunday, saying: “A sweet young man was fired from his server job at Hickory Tavern after sharing a bigoted note left by a customer. Let’s help him find a new job.” Her post has been shared over 1600 times.

Here is the LINK for Hickory Tavern’s Corporate Comment/Complaint section.  Please use it.