The owner of the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, penned an op-ed in the Washington Post Friday defending a Chicago server who spit on Eric Trump.

Stephanie Wilkinson, who co-owns the restaurant known for kicking out former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, wrote in the op-ed while “no one in the restaurant industry condones the physical assault of a patron,” Trump administration officials can be targeted for assault and battery in public places.

Wilkinson added:

Restaurants are now part of the soundstage for our ongoing national spectacle. Whether the bar or restaurant serves merely as the backdrop, as in the cases last year of Kirstjen Nielsen, Stephen Miller, and Mitch McConnell, or takes an active role in the drama, as was the case with Cracker Barrel, Aviary or my own restaurant last June.

Eric Trump had been sipping cocktails at a Chicago cocktail lounge known as the Aviary on Tuesday when an employee of the bar spit on him.

Breitbart News reported that the U.S. Secret Service took the employee into custody and released her after Eric Trump did not press charges.

Owners of the Alinea Group, which manages the Aviary, said human resources officials with the restaurant placed the employee on leave and are dealing with the matter internally.