WASHINGTON - A Virginia restaurant was inundated with reviews from both ends of the political spectrum Saturday after White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said its owner asked her to leave because of her job.

On Friday, a Facebook user claiming to be a waiter at The Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia - around 70 miles southwest of Charlottesville - said he served Sanders "for a total of 2 minutes" before she and her party were asked to leave.

His post went viral when Brennan Gilmore, a musician, activist and former US diplomat, uploaded a screenshot to Twitter alongside an image of a handwritten note which read "86 - Sara Huckabee Sanders," supposedly from the restaurant.

To "86" someone is a slang term meaning to refuse to serve a customer.

"Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left," Sanders tweeted on Saturday, confirming the incident.

"Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so."

The restaurant continued to be flooded Saturday afternoon with five-star online reviews praising the restaurant's stance - and one-star reviews accusing the owner of "discrimination."

"Sarah, you're a class act. I'm so sorry you were treated this way," was State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert's response on Twitter.

It comes after US Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen was heckled as she dined at a Mexican restaurant in Washington on Tuesday.

Protesters chanted "shame! shame!" repeatedly at Nielsen, a frontline defender of the Trump administration's practice of separating migrant children from their parents, until she left the restaurant.

Two days earlier, according to the New York Post, White House adviser Stephen Miller was branded a "fascist" while dining at another Mexican eatery in Washington.