'We only tip citizens': Customers Left Waitress Hateful Message

Sadie Karina, 18, was working at Jess' Quick Lunch in downtown Harrisburg Monday when a man scrawled the message 'We only tip citizens' on his receipt.

The young waitress at a Virginia diner was left 'rattled' after one customer left her a hateful message rather than a tip.

Karina - who was born in America - was shocked by the note, but it was her granddad who took it public to shame the nasty customer, WHSV reported.

Karina is an American of mixed Mexican and Honduran descent, and has rarely encountered direct racism in Harrisburg.

Still, she said, the couple gave off an odd vibe when she served them their gyros and drinks.

'They wouldn't talk to me,' she said. 'They would just nod their heads.'

But it wasn't until she read the note at the bottom of the $26.11 receipt that she realized how hostile they were.

'It shouldn't even matter, I just feel like it's rude and disrespectful,' she said. 'I've never met, I've never done anything to them.'

But her reaction was nothing compared to the fury her grandfather John Elledge, who is white, felt.

On Monday Elledge posted on Facebook that he'd 'happily do the jail time' if he 'could get just one solid punch in to the face of the son of a b***h' who left the receipt.

He later posted a photograph of the receipt itself - along with the message, the last few digits of the card used to pay for it, and the signature.

Elledge, a lawyer, has friends who are professional investigators: They soon turned up the woman who paid for the meal - who turned out to be friends with Karina's mom.

She probably didn't write the note, he said, given the difference in handwriting between the signature and the message - 'it was probably the toad that the surveillance cameras showed was with her.'

The woman later said that it was indeed her companion who left the note.

Karina told WHSV that she would still serve the customers again: 'It makes me the stronger person to not let these things bother me because I know I'm a good person.'

But her boss says the pair are banned until they show remorse.

The pair later visited the diner to complain, and they ran into Elledge, whose reaction was far less relaxed than his granddaughter's.

'We didn’t talk much,' Elledge told The Washington Post. 'She was mad that I posted it … the guy, he was being really belligerent.'

He continued: 'She was asking me why I posted it. I said "Obviously, it was an insult - your signature against my granddaughter - darn right I’m going to post it. And no apologies."'