A restaurant refused to serve Sarah Sanders and her family

    Tanya Edwards
    White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. (Photo: Getty Images)

    Sarah Sanders had a hard time getting dinner in the D.C. area on Friday. She and her family were asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Va.

    Jaike Foley-Schultz, who says he is a waiter at the Red Hen, shared a post on Facebook that said his boss kicked out the press secretary and her party.

    The post went viral when the director of Clean Virginia, a left-leaning energy nonprofit, shared the post on Twitter, along with a handwritten note, purportedly from the restaurant, with the note: “86 — Sara Huckabee Sanders.”


    The term “86” is restaurant shorthand for cutting people off, asking them to leave, or throwing them out.

    Sanders confirmed that she was asked to leave in a tweet this morning.

    “Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for [President Trump] and I politely left,” Sanders tweeted.

    She also got in a dig, noting that being asked to leave said more about the owner than her.


    As has become common when a business stirs up controversy, the restaurant’s Yelp and Facebook pages have been flooded by reviewers weighing in on Sanders being given the boot.

    On Yelp, one person from Texas wrote, “Decides who can and who cannot dine based on their employment or political affiliations. What a despicable business model! Poor decision by owners and management.”

    Another, from California wrote, “I was dining at the Red Hen and witnessed them rudely refuse service to Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I was disgusted and appalled by the incident. I will never eat at this establishment again.”

    Facebook was not much different.

    There were also some positive comments, with one Yelper writing: “Best restaurant in the world. Owner has her head screwed on straight. I only wish I lived closer so I could eat here every night. Thank you for being brave, I’m sure you’re going to be threatened by all sorts of troglodytes. Stand tall, there are more of us than there are of them.”

    Another seemed to draw a parallel to the Colorado baker who won his case in the Supreme Court after refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple, writing: “Glad you stood up for your moral convictions. This used to be against the law, but we all know who changed that and what’s good for the goose…  well, you know the rest.”

    In a similar incident, Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen was heckled by activists as she dined at a Mexican restaurant on Tuesday. The protesters chanted “shame!” repeatedly at the woman who has become the frontline defender of the Trump administration’s widely condemned practice of separating migrant children from their parents.

    “How can you enjoy a Mexican dinner as you’re deporting, imprisoning tens of thousands of people who come here seeking asylum in the United States?” one of the activists cried out in a 10-minute video the group posted on social media.

    Nielsen left the dinner early.

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