SAN FRANCISCO – A San Francisco restaurant says it has fired an employee after he left a racist message on a customer’s receipt. The customer told KTVU she was visiting the Bay Area from the East Coast when she received the shocking news. The restaurant told KTVU it responded immediately.

The family trip to California was marred by something a family saw on their receipt from Pica Pica Arepa Kitchen in San Francisco’s Mission District on Monday afternoon.

After ordering food, Whitney Washington said, her family sat down, waited for their order and looked at the receipt. “My daughter is actually the one who notices what it says in the upper right corner. ‘Here’s the N-word,'” Washington said.

Washington and her family checked other customers’ receipts and realized they were the only ones in the restaurant whose receipt contained the racial slur. “We were the only black people in the restaurant,” Washington said. “She showed us her receipt and in the same place where ours said ‘here the N-word,’ hers just said ‘here.'”

Washington said she returned her food and demanded her money and an explanation. “I pointed to the ‘N-word here’ and asked, ‘Do you know what that means?'” Washington said. “He didn’t say no, he said, ‘I don’t know how that got there.'”

Washington said the employee took the receipt from her, but not before she took a photo of it. She also said when she asked for a manager, the manager told her there was no manager on duty.

On Tuesday, a manager at the restaurant said she learned of the incident shortly after it happened and took immediate action. “I’m so glad I can speak to you to resolve this matter,” said Vena, a woman who identified herself as a manager. “Because this is completely unacceptable.”

“We fired the employee immediately. I didn’t know what was going on,” Vena said.

The manager also said the former employee had no explanation for his behavior. And to make matters worse, he tried to turn the tables when she fired him. “I fired him, paid him everything in full and he wanted to sue me,” Vena said. “But I say, ‘Come on!’ I have it in writing.”

Washington and her family flew home to Maryland after the incident. She says after reflecting on what happened, she is even more shaken now than when she first heard the slur. “I know some people use that term culturally interchangeably,” Washington said. “That’s not a term I use at home. I don’t use that word, we don’t call people that and nobody calls us that.”

San Francisco police confirmed to KTVU that they received a report about the racist message. It is currently unclear what will happen next.

Washington says that while she was shocked by her experiences, she also saw the beauty and diversity of San Francisco. When she was confronted with racism, she felt it was important to speak up and fight back, she says.