When his granddaughter received a 'helpful' xenophobic note in lieu of a tip while working at an eatery last week in Harrisonburg, Virginia, John Elledge did what any reasonable grandparent would do: He took a photo of the receipt and posted it to Facebook with the comment, "You are a complete and total piece of dung."

What exactly happened to make Elledge so irate? A short comment explaining the reason the patrons chose not to tip his granddaughter, who works at Jess' Lunch. It read: "We only tip citizens."

Ironically, the server is an American citizen.

18-year-old Sadie Karina Elledge, John's granddaughter, spoke out about the incident herself later in a video interview with Isabel Rosales of WHSV News. She told Rosales that she is an American citizen of Mexican and Honduran descent who was born in the U.S.A., and that she believes that everyone should be treated the same — so much so that she would even serve the receipt-writing duo again if they came to the restaurant.

"[Y]ou can tell that I'm Hispanic," Elledge said of the incident in the interview. "But that doesn't mean anything bad. Treat me as the same way you'd want to be treated."

She also had a message for the person that wrote her the note:

"Everybody needs to be more respectful. It doesn't really matter if I'm Hispanic or American. [...] I'm still a person and you still need to treat me with respect."

The manager of Jess' Lunch agrees, and told WHSV News that one of the offending customers had been identified and banned from the restaurant.

"Coward is the word to describe what they did," said Angeliki Floros, Elledge’s supervisor, to WHSV News. "I have worse words to use, but let’s go with coward."