On Valentine’s Day, Ellie Parker and her girlfriend Lucy celebrated with dinner at Asahi Japanese Steakhouse in Lafayette, Indiana. Unfortunately, the festivities were dampened by some garden variety homophobia, courtesy of one of the restaurant’s hibachi chefs.


According to Grub Street, this gleaming representative of humanity “decided to greet customers on Valentine’s Day by asking each person to state their relationship status.”

Wow, patrons must have loved that! But rather than answer “none of your motherfucking business, chum,” Parker and her girlfriend amiably responded that “they were each other’s Valentines.”


The chef was not content with the women’s answer and remarked in turn, “It’s such a waste to not have a man.” He even “offered to join the pair at home to ‘heat things up.’” Gross, right?

But the ladies won the day. When the check came, they left, in lieu of a tip, a nugget of wisdom: “Don’t tell lesbians they need a man on Valentine’s Day.” (The check is pictured above.)

Parker later posted an account of the evening on Facebook, along with the photo of the tip-less bill:


“I cannot believe I paid over $50 to have my relationship insulted and sexualized,” writes Parker. Grub Street reports that “Asahi offered Parker a refund — if, that is, she agrees to remove her Facebook post that’s now reached 7,000 shares.” Parker’s remarks still have not been deleted, and, as is evident from this post, they’ve garnered significant attention. Good. And well done, Ellie Parker.

Contact the author at rachel.vorona.cote@jezebel.com .