A bartender is being praised for offering two female customers a way to remove themselves from a potentially uncomfortable situation.

Last week, Trinity Allie shared a photo of the bartender Max Gutierrez, and a fake receipt that he handed her at No Vacancy bar in St Petersburg, Florida, in which he offered to have another customer who was hitting on the women removed.

“This man was harassing me and my friend and the bartender passed this note to me acting like it was my receipt! Legit the type of bartender everyone needs,” Allie captioned the photo.

In the picture, Gutierrez can be seen holding out a note that looked like a receipt that reads: “If this guy is bothering you, put your ponytail on your other shoulder, and I will have him removed. He’s giving me the creeps.”

In a follow-up tweet, Allie revealed that the Florida bartender eventually kicked the man out anyway after yelling at him to get away from the women who “clearly are not interested”.

“He ended up having to literally yell at the guy, he said: ‘You need to get tf away from these girls who clearly are not interested’ and the dude said: ‘That was a little aggressive’ and he said: ‘Well you’re aggressively hitting on them and you need to leave,’” Allie recalled, before explaining that she asked Gutierrez to pose for the incident after the man in question had been removed.

Allie’s original tweet has since been liked more than 212,000 times, with many people praising Gutierrez for his handling of the situation.

“Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear Hawaiian shirts,” one person commented, in reference to the Hawaiian button-down the bartender is wearing in the photo.

Another said: “We need more people like him in this world.”

The story of Gutierrez’s helpful offer also made its way to Reddit, where it eventually captured the attention of the bartender himself, who revealed that the trick and reading body language is one he had picked up from “mentor bartenders” and that he only gave the fake receipt after he noticed the patron giving off “weird vibes”.

“It’s something you just pick up from mentor bartenders. Eventually you become pretty good at reading people, body language etc,” he explained. “This guy was giving off very weird vibes for quite a while, kept an eye on him, tried to give him a chance, tried to let the girls tell him no and leave it at that, but he didn’t take no for an answer and kept pestering them.”

According to Gutierrez, he eventually ended up yelling at the customer, which he said he doesn’t like to do, but has found that it is “one of the best ways to handle creeps”.

“Calling them out in front of people is usually enough to get them to turn tail and walk away,” he continued, adding: “I just don’t need my guests feeling uncomfortable.”