Photo: frantic00 / Shutterstock
He still got a hefty tip from them.
By Nia Tipton
Last updated on Apr 03, 2024
A server revealed how he was able to get the last laugh after a customer refused to tip him.
In a TikTok video, Dean Redmond shared how he was tasked with serving a large party of people. However, while serving them, one of the women in the group, who Redmond labeled as a 'Karen,' acted horribly toward him throughout their dinner, and threatened to tip him poorly.
Redmond's 'difficult' customer tried to tip him nothing, not realizing gratuity was automatically added.
In Redmond's video, he explained that while he was working, 26 people entered the restaurant looking to have dinner. He recalled that the group had come in only an hour before the restaurant closed and were rude to him throughout their meal. The party of 26 people immediately asked to be seated all together, despite Redmond informing them that they would need "two separate tables" since they didn't have enough room to accommodate everyone.
“This woman starts screaming that I have no idea what I’m talking about and 'where’s my manager'," Redmond said.
After getting his manager, they were able to find a long table for everyone to sit at in their back room.
"By the time we come out, they’re like, ‘We’re actually going to go somewhere else.’ At this point, I didn’t care because we were already 40 minutes until close; there was no way we were going to be out until 9:30," he continued.
However, 20 minutes later, the party came back and asked to be seated once more, but this time Redmond politely told them they might not able to serve them due to the restaurant closing soon. Again, the same woman yells for the manager to come back — and again, the 26 people are finally seated to order.
Redmond quickly greeted their table, asking the group if they had their orders ready since the establishment was scheduled to close in 20 minutes, which immediately angered the woman, who called him "rude" for rushing them.
Photo: Priscilla Du Preez
"By the time I get all of their order, it’s literally past close," Redmond explained. "They ordered seven champagne bottles because they were [upset] we didn’t have hard alcohol. I get those for them, drop them off, and put their food in."
During the 40 minutes that it took for the table's food to be made, Redmond added that "every 10 seconds" the table inquired about whether their food was ready or not. Once their food came out, the woman started complaining about the quality of the meal.
"It's literally 40 minutes past closing at this point, and this woman starts screaming, 'There's a hair in my food!'," Redmond recalled, adding that he told the woman that all of their chefs are bald, so it couldn't have come from the kitchen, causing the woman to insist that the hair must've come from his head, which Redmond profusely denied.
Once the table was done eating, Redmond and his manager didn't bother offering them the dessert menu and instead brought them the check. After giving them their check for the meal, the woman began screaming once more, complaining about the price of the champagne bottles they had ordered, which were $40 each. She reprimanded Redmond for not telling them the price of the alcohol, to which he apologized and directed her concern to his manage, who apologetically comped all of the unsatisfactory other meals, including the dish with a hair in it.
Redmond continued, saying that the woman then complained about the price of the entire bill, despite the party being 26 people. But after telling Redmond not to expect a tip because of the high bill, Redmond was awarded the last laugh because their bill automatically included gratuity.
"Little did she know that automatic gratuities are added to parties of 14 or more, so 25% was added to this, and we got about $170 out of this Karen," he concluded.
While mandatory gratuity at restauraunts is highly debated, it serves as a layer of protection for servers who don't make minimum wage.
Tipping culture in the United States has become hotly contested as more and more people experience tipping fatigue, with a 2024 Wallet Hub survey finding that three out of four people agreeing that "tipping has gotten out of control."
Though tipping is optional, restaurants have found a way to ensure customers tip their servers by building "mandatory" gratuities into their checks. These mandatory gratuities are often used in cases of large parties, as servers often have to put in extra work and lose out on getting more customers when such a large party is seated, preventing them from earning tips from other tables.
While some have suggested that oxymoronic mandatory gratuity isn't legal, restaurants have every right to add these "service charges" to bills, according to the IRS — as long as they're transparent about it.
“It is entirely acceptable and indeed common, for a restaurant to add an additional 20 percent gratuity charge on a bill with eight or more guests,” Abe Cohn of trademark lawfirm Cohn Legal, PLLC told Reader's Digest. “But such a fee is only permissible if the policy is made abundantly clear to the customers before the order is placed.”
Until the pay structure at restaurants change, tipping will continue to be part of service culture.
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Keep up with her on Instagram and Twitter.