While it might seem unlikely that the customer who stiffed a waitress and wrote on the receipt that he or she didn’t agree with the lesbian waitress’ lifestyle would think, “Hmm, now’s a good time to go back there to eat,” if the patron decides to do so, it’s not like the restaurant could, or would, stop them from doing so.

“My initial reaction was a little angry, but if they come here we can’t stop them,” the general manager told the Courier-News in Bridgewater, N.J. “This is a public place. By law we can’t stop them.”

Meanwhile the waitress at the center of the media storm says she never expected to get as much attention as she has — customers are coming in just to see her and express their support, or leaving tips as “the tip she should have received.”

Thus far the Marine Corps veteran has gotten about $1,700 in tips and donations, and says she’ll donate most of that to the nonprofit Wounded Warriors Project, which advocates for injured service members.

“It was never about the money in the first place,” she said of posting the receipt on social media.

Because waiters depend heavily on tips in New Jersey, where the hourly minimum wage for servers is $2.13 instead of $7.25, the general manager said the restaurant later discounted an entrée on the family’s check so the waitress would end up with a tip.

And while people are asking him to name names and out the family that disapproved of the waitress, he’s not going to do it. And if they came in today? He simply wouldn’t seat them with the waitress.

“We don’t want to attack the family,” he said.

That’s called taking the high road — even when you don’t approve of someone. Well, that and operating a restaurant in accordance with the law. But still.

Restaurant won’t turn away family that stiffed lesbian waitress [Courier-News]

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