A California woman has divided viewers after sharing a less-than-stellar dining experience at a sports bar. Her clip has sparked outrage among servers, despite the TikToker being a server herself. Was the backlash warranted, or did she have every right to complain about her experience?
What Happened At Chumash Casino?
In a 6-minute clip, Joanna Rodriguez (@joannarosee_07) says she and her family of six went to Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, California. Not being gamblers, Rodriguez and her dad decided to go to the Sports Bar at Chumash instead, while the rest of the family stayed downstairs at the casino. The hostess led them to their table, where a server took their order—a soda, a beer, and an appetizer. All was well when their order arrived, until Rodriguez needed a napkin. There were none on the table, and at this point, it had been 32 minutes since she had last seen her server.
Rodriguez wanted to leave, but the rest of her family decided to join them for some food and drinks. They moved to a larger table—with the host’s permission—but once Rodriguez filled her family in on what was going on, they decided to bounce.
At this point, Rodriguez still hadn’t seen her server, making it close to 50 minutes since she had disappeared. The rest of the family leaves while Rodriguez waits to flag down her server. No luck, so she waits at her original table. Finally, her original server appears, and Rodriguez is able to close out her tab.
Then She Gets The Check
The TikToker ends up paying $26, and not a penny more, because she “didn’t want to tip this girl anything.”
“I was above and beyond frustrated,” she adds. Rodriguez didn’t notice until later, however, that the server had added a $4 gratuity to her bill that read “party of 6.”
“I was being petty over those $4.08 that she did not deserve,” she says. So what did Rodriguez do? She filed a complaint.
“They told me they would get back to me the next day,” she adds.
Indeed, a restaurant manager reached out to Rodriguez, inviting her and her dad to dine in and enjoy two non-alcoholic drinks, two entrees, one appetizer, and one dessert—on the house.
“Thank you again for allowing us the chance to make things right,” the email read in part. However, Rodriguez admits she doesn’t know if she will go back to the bar after her experience.
What Do Viewers Think?
The fact that Rodriguez mentioned multiple times that she was a server herself angered viewers. They believed she should have shown the server grace. Others thought she was well within her rights to complain.
“Your saying your a server but you didn’t want to leave her anything?” one asked. “I was a server for years and even on my worst experiences I still leave SOMETHING you have no idea what her situation was give her some grace like damn it’s 4$ your just being petty.”
Another speculated, “Their policy is probably to add gratuity to a party of 6 or more so when you said the party had 6 people, she added it. Thats not trying to pull a fast one on you if that’s their policy.”
One server pointed out how auto-gratuity is common for large parties, while another thought that wasn’t a valid excuse. “She even went in and changed the guest count to 6 lmao. Yeah I’d ask to speak to a manager immediately and tell them to look at the cameras and confirm that it was a 2 top,” they wrote.
@joannarosee_07 As a server myself, I don’t know what went wrong but I lost my patience 😭🏈💫🍻 #servertok #serverlife #fyp #casino #bar
Tipping Culture In America
The debate over whether to tip or not to tip has only become more heated in recent years. For example, in a recent article by BroBible, a customer shared how a server was coercing her into tipping while she was still eating.
“She’s trying to force me to make a tip, to pay her a tip. And I’m just trying to figure out, I still got my food in front of me,” the creator said in that video.
Viewers, much like in Rodriguez’s video, were divided. But most of them could agree on one thing: It was weird to ask for it mid-meal.
BroBible reached out to Rodriguez via Instagram direct message and to Chumash Casino via email.