A restaurant has cancelled the dinner reservation for an anti-LGBT Christian group after waiting staff refused to serve them.
Between 15-20 members of the organisation The Family Foundation had booked a table at the German inspired Metzger Bar and Butchery in Richmond, Virginia, US.
But the restaurant called them to cancel about an hour and half before they were meant to arrive.
A spokesperson from the restaurant said they had "refused service" after finding out it was for a "group of donors to a political organisation that seeks to deprive women and LGBTQ+ persons of their basic human rights in Virginia."
The Family Foundation, which has been led by Victoria Cobb since 2004, has a track record of campaigning against same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBT people and abortion rights.
Posted the evening after the cancelled reservation, a statement from the restaurant read: "In eight years of service, we have very rarely refused service to anyone who wished to dine with us."
It continued: "We have always refused service to anyone for making our staff uncomfortable or unsafe, and this was the driving force behind our decision.
“Many of our staff are women and/or members of the LGBTQ+ community.
"All of our staff are people with rights who deserve dignity and a safe work environment. We respect our staff’s established rights as humans and strive to create a work environment where they can do their jobs with dignity, comfort and safety.”
In a blog post Ms Cobb wrote that her foundation’s vice president of operations was called an hour and a half before the 7pm reservation.
Linking to the restaurant's Yelp page, she wrote: “As our VP of operations explained that guests were arriving at their restaurant shortly, she asked for an explanation.
"Sure enough, an employee looked up our organisation, and their waitstaff refused to serve us.”
After being bombarded by negative reviews, Yelp disabled the review function on Metzger Bar and Butchery’s page.
A notice from Yelp on the website read: "This business recently received increased public attention, which often means people come to this page to post their views on the news.
"While we don’t take a stand one way or the other when it comes to this incident, we’ve temporarily disabled the posting of content to this page as we work to investigate whether the content you see here reflects actual consumer experiences rather than the recent events.
"Please note that we apply this same policy regardless of the business and regardless of the topic at issue."
Anyone hoping to leave a review was asked to check back later.
When asked by Virginia Business about the deluge of negative reviews, Ms Cobb said: “I hope that their tone and approach is honourable. Even food service has now been polarised. It’s just disappointing that we can’t have a meal together.”
It isn't the first time a company has refused to serve Family Foundation, with Cobb writing that a website design company declined to work with them for political reasons.
And customer relationship management software, EveryAction, also cancelled a contract when it was bought out by a new parent company.
In the wake of the cancellation and ensuing scandal, the restaurant introduced a new cocktail called “Cracks in the Foundation" and said all proceeds from it on Friday would be donated to a local LGBT group Equality Virginia.
