Not Tip for Illegal’: This LAX Server Got a Racist Note on a Receipt, And He’s Not Letting It Slide
A server at Planet Hollywood at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) received a racist note on a bill. After serving a couple at the restaurant, Guillermo Ortiz opened the check and saw the racist note. The couple had fled the restaurant before he was able to confront them. Unfortunately, this has become a regular story of Latine servers being handed offensive notes on bills.
A couple refused to tip a server at LAX and instead left a racist note
The note reads “Not tip for illegal (sic). Go back to Mexico.” Guillermo Ortiz, the server, said he opened the check after the couple left in a hurry and read what they left. Clearly ashamed of their behavior, the couple allegedly paid in cash so they couldn’t be tracked down.
Ortiz told KTLA that he has been working at Planet Hollywood at the Tom Bradley International Terminal since 2014. This is the first time he says that he has received a hateful note.
“Twenty minutes after [they left], I opened the checkbook and I found the message, and it made me feel bad,” Ortiz told KTLA about the note he received on March 21, 2025. “I’m not even Mexican, I’m Puerto Rican, but my wife is Mexican – there’s no right to treat people like that.”
While disheartening, he was aware that something was amiss with the couple as he was waiting on them. During their meal, Ortiz says, the couple’s behavior made him uncomfortable.
“The way they were looking at me, you can tell when something is not right,” Ortiz told KTLA.
Ortiz believes that rhetoric from the federal government is feeding this kind of hate
“Probably ’cause they saw me, they know I’m Hispanic, they thought I’m Mexican or illegal or I don’t know what they’re thinking,” Ortiz told KTLA. “This is happening because of what’s happening with President Trump right now… I think that’s the reason people are acting like this.”
This isn’t the first time people have been brazen enough to leave notes for servers steeped in xenophobia. Earlier this year, a realtor in Ohio was caught in her own scandal. Stephanie Lovins refused to leave a tip for a server at a Mexican restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. Instead she wrote “I hope Trump deports you.”
She paid by credit card and it wasn’t long until the internet tracked her down. She originally tried to claim that her credit card was stolen to distance herself from her actions. However, the restaurant looked at CCTV and learned that it was indeed Lovins who left the note. The backlash led to her losing her job.
Last year, a restaurant in Pennsylvania got in trouble after using the N-word on bills for Black customers. The owner of the restaurant, and the kitchen staff, claimed that it was a joke that got out of hand.
Ortiz reported the incident to corporate and there is an investigation into the couple behind the message. Planet Hollywood at LAX is set to close for good in a week leaving Ortiz feeling like the matter will not be fully resolved.
