A Glasgow restaurant has come under fire over a sign about “surprise sex” being the best thing to wake up to “unless you’re in prison”.

Khublai Khans Mongolian Barbecue Restaurant in Merchant City put the freestanding board in the street a few doors down from a rape support service.

Glasgow Rape Crisis posted a picture of the sign with the statement: “A rape joke outside a restaurant just yards from Glasgow Rape Crisis’s door – no joke.”

A complaint was made to the city council’s licencing board and the sign which said: “surprise sex is the best thing to wake up to…unless you’re in prison” was later removed.

Isobel Kerr who manages the Glasgow Rape Crisis said: “The worker who manages our social media put up the picture of the board on Twitter at my request.

“At best it’s inappropriate and insensitive and at worst it looks as though the person who wrote it and the company is condoning rape.

“I’m really reluctant to believe that anybody would want to do that but when to put something like that on a busy street is completely trivialising the experiences that many survivors have had.

“Our centre is around the corner, so is the children’s panel, Glasgow Women’s Aid and another organisation that offer services to young women who have been sexually abused.”

The owner of the restaurant Andrew McRobbie said he was unaware that such services were nearby and insisted he does not condone rape.

He said: “I was trying to put a smile on people’s faces. It’s a joke. Jokes are made about all sorts of different subjects. It doesn’t mean to say you condone or agree with the subject matter.

“I’m sure the Rape Crisis Centre does a lot of fantastic work and is a very valuable institution however I think that a very vocal minority have overreacted. We have had lots of people who have also said they think it’s funny.

“It wasn’t deliberately intended to offend anybody. I do these boards regularly with what I hope are amusing jokes or sayings. This one, obviously some people have taken offence but there is no way that anyone can imply or accuse me of condoning rape from that sign. That’s just ludicrous.”

He added: “A report was made to the Glasgow licencing authority and a very nice gentleman came round and asked me to take the sign down and I was very happy to do that.”