CNN) – Everything was going fine, until the bill came.
But it wasn’t the amount on the check that angered Joseph Gibson, who had stopped at a St. Louis sports bar to chow down.
It was a line on the special order section for his young son that set him off.
Under “1 — Wing Sauce” the receipt read: “F—in Needy Kids.”
The name of the bar? Friendly’s.
Denny Domachowski, the general manager of Friendly’s Sports Bar and Grill, told CNN the waitress meant it as a joke and intended to delete it before handing the bill to Gibson. She’s been reprimanded, he said.
“I apologized to them, and he called later and I apologized again,” Domachowski said.
Gibson, who had a soda and chicken dinner, was still offended.
He posted a picture of the receipt to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Facebook page. He wrote that he was upset by the explanation that it just a joke among co-workers.
“So customers with children are a joke? This place isn’t so friendly. I got nowhere with management,” he wrote.
Domachowski explained that he made a Father’s Day exception for Gibson to bring in a child even though the bar was for patrons 21 and older.
The restaurant has no children’s menu so the waitress had to manually type in the boy’s order of one chicken leg.
“The incident shouldn’t have happened, and I made sure she understands that,” he said. “She didn’t mean to offend the gentleman and his son. She had a good experience with them as customers. She was just in a hurry and forgot to take that off.”
He added that he doesn’t understand why Gibson is “making a mountain of a mole hill.”
But he conceded. “I wouldn’t want anyone calling my granddaughter, who is four, that.”
