Texas bar owner reluctantly takes down 'shut up n*gger' sign -- but insists he didn't know slur was racist

A Texas bar owner agreed to take down a sign that reads "shut up n*gger" after two customers circulated photos of the slur on social media.

The sign was intended as a tribute to a regular customer, Teresa Kidwell, who died in January 2016 -- and the owner of Jim's Rodeo Tavern in Fort Worth insisted the message wasn't intended to be racist, reported the Dallas Morning News.

Kidwell, who was white, loved the phrase and used it with everyone, said bar owner James Emerson, including other white people.

"It was kind of a joke," Emerson said. "It was never indicative of anything racial."

The sign was up for two years, but came down this week after the owner of the nearby bar Jesse's 50/50 and a friend stopped by Monday for beers.

"I got very uncomfortable very quickly," said customer Owen McGrath. "I took a picture because I couldn't believe it was there."

The pair asked the bartender what was up with the sign, but she shrugged it off, and the two men ultimately decided to share the photo on Facebook.

"This isn't a situation of us trying to mess with their business," McGrath said. "This is a situation of us seeing something that we feel really strongly about, something that's wildly inappropriate to us."

Emerson insists everyone is welcome at his bar, and he insists he's unaware of the N-word's specifically racist connotations.

The bar owner told the newspaper that he believed the slur meant "worthless person."

"We have a good clientele, we have good people," Emerson said. "We have few, if any, problems."

He complained that Jesse Bunting, owner of the neighboring bar, and his friend hadn't lodged a complaint before sharing a photo of the sign.

"To my knowledge, they're just out to make trouble," Emerson said.

Emerson, however, didn't say whether he planned to take down his bar's large Confederate flag.