Working at a restaurant is hard stuff. For more than one reason. And, it seems there’s now even more reason to be unhappy with it as was shown by this one waiter.
A Texas Roadhouse waiter recently went on TikTok to vent about not having gotten a tip. Not a pleasant situation to be in on a large order, apparently some restaurants have rules on sharing tips and that order ended up costing the waiter.
Tipping has become toxically controversial, reaching a point where it's flat out demanded from customers
Image credits: MargJohnsonVA
"Zero f******g dollars! That means I had to pay out of pocket to serve those fools"
Image credits: kevenmanochi
A waiter recently ended up having to 'pay out' a $98 bill at the restaurant he worked at
The story goes that waiter Keven Manochit (@kevenmachochit) recently served a table that ended up racking a $98 bill. They paid the bill, all fine and dandy there. However, there was no tip.
Soon after this happened, Keven posted a 6-second video showing the receipt and cursing the clients out for leaving nothing beyond what was due. He went on to say that he will now have to cover the clients with his own money.
But tips are optional, right? Yes. But the problem isn’t in the lack of tip itself. It’s in how tipping is done at this particular joint.
Some restaurants have different tipping policies, which force waiters to pay out a part of their sales as tips to the rest of the staff
You see, the traditional way of how tips work is that the customer leaves a tip, the waiter pockets it, and that’s that. However, because everyone from the hosts to the chefs are also intimately involved in the process, some places decide to divide up the tips among them too. Seems fair, right?
A Redditor explained in detail how it works, and basically waiters have to pay out a portion of their sales as tips to the rest of the employees that were also part of the restaurant experience.
Without complicating it, say there’s a $100 bill, of which 5% is the tip, so $5 would go to the chef. If you get a $20 tip on this, hey, $15 for you as the waiter and $5 for the chef. But if you got nothing, you still have to pay $5 to the chef. And at this point, if you have zero tips, you are paying it out of your own pocket.
Needless to say, this sparked a debate among commenters, picking sides of the tipping argument
Some commenters were quick to point out that tipping is optional and that it should be done based on the service—not the bill amount. And if they can’t handle that, a job switch is recommended.
Those on the other side of the barricade argued that folks have to work there to truly understand the struggle. And considering that some states still have a $2 minimum wage for tipped workers in force, you really need those tips to actually earn something.
Yet others pointed out that this is just one table—it’s out of context for the entire night. One table might tip nothing, while the other might go for $30. So that could cover both bills.
It is important to note that one commenter said she’d likely tip $30 to $40 for that $98 bill, but she didn’t feel like it was sufficient. The creator reacted to it saying that that would be more than enough.
Whatever the case, we’d love to hear from you. How much would you have tipped? Share your takes and stories in the comment section below!
Besides reactions, folks provided more information on why this is a problem
Some were in support of it
Others were against it
