Restaurant Hands Black Customers Bill Inside Book Containing N-Word

An England-based restaurant chain issued an apology on Sunday after two black customers were handed a bill in a book which featured a racial slur on one of its pages.

Louise Ankle and Matthea Fearon had dinner together at The Botanist in West Bridgford, Nottingham, where they reportedly received a bill inside a hardcover book designed for patrons to open and find their receipt inside. The restaurant is "a place where antiquities and trinkets hang from the walls," according to its website.

After flipping through the bill holder, they discovered a page that bared the words "The N——r Question," according to the Nottingham Post.

"Having just had a lovely meal it is disappointing to know that #ignorance and #racism are very much still alive!" Fearon wrote on Facebook after the incident. "For a company whose menu had Caribbean influences, I would have thought you would be more careful with the content of your 'props.'"

"We did realize at the time we were the only two black people in the restaurant. Although it did not bother us, we were aware," Ankle told the Nottingham Post. Ankle added that Fearon found the page and hesitated to reveal what she saw.

"[It was] at the back of the book," Ankle added. "We both were in shock, we were both flabbergasted. The initial reaction is shock then it quickly turns into anger and upset. It's something we have never encountered before."

The book was believed to have been a series of essays written by Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, an advocate of slavery in the 1800s.

The restaurant since issued an apology on Facebook, calling the incident a "horribly unfortunate situation" that wasn’t intentionally meant to cause discomfort. The book was a prop used by the restaurant, hollowed out, with pages glued together.

Ankle said they were then granted permission by management to leave without paying the bill, though, she doesn't want this to happen to someone else.

"We have [since] been emailing the manager of the restaurant and we are talking with them at the moment," she said. "There's nothing in particular I want. I do not want an item or to go back to the restaurant. We want to make people aware that these things do happen."

The eatery announced in a statement to the Nottingham Post that all copies of the books had been pulled from all its locations across the country.

"We have withdrawn the books from across the sites and will not reinstate them unless we can be 100 percent satisfied that an incident like this will not reoccur," said Chris Hill, CEO of the New World Trading Company, which owns the restaurant chain. "We will be going back to the supply chain to understand how this would have happened."