EDISON – Applebee's is looking into a complaint that an overweight waitress received a check from a customer Sunday night that stated in the tip line: "Stop eating, b—ch!"

The incident occurred about 11:30 p.m. at the Applebee’s at 1045 U.S. 1 and involved a customer seated alone who ordered $30 worth of food and paid with a Visa card.

The unidentified customer left zeros in the tip line, then printed the offensive statement above in capital letters.

A friend of the waitress posted a photo of the receipt online, where it drew hundreds of responses within hours.

"My (overweight) friend got this as a tip," the online user wrote on Reddit.com.

A manager at the local Applebee’s said he alerted his supervisors when he became aware of the situation.

“Everything is being forwarded to the corporate office,” said the Edison manager, who identified himself only as Rohan. “These things don’t come up that often, but when they do, corporate looks into it.”

Applebee’s spokesman Dan Smith said Tuesday he had seen the receipt but would not comment on the situation.

"It's unfortunate," he said. "But Applebee's has hundreds of thousands of great guest interactions every day. We'll focus on that instead."

The waitress, who is identified on the receipt as Arielle B., did not work Monday or Tuesday and could not be reached for comment.

But that didn't stop several hundred Reddit users from making their feelings known.

“I actually know Arielle, worked with her for a number of years before she went to Applebee’s,” wrote Zomguz. “Incredibly sweet girl. She's been through a LOT of hard times and I've never once seen her without a smile on her face. The fact that the person called her a b--ch is astonishing and shows that they were just classless trash.”

Another user with the login name Meatspun went a bit further.

“If this happened to me my imagination would probably get me in a lot of trouble in the long run,” Meatspun wrote. “It's not as hard to find people as it used to be.”