A South Florida restaurant patron believes she and her friends were singled out for bad service at a New Year’s Day brunch excursion because they were all in their early 20s.
Declaring, “My money is just as good as anyone else’s,” TikTok creator Kristina Ronan (@krissyronan) took to the platform on Monday to detail her experience at Elisabetta’s Ristorante in West Palm Beach, Florida. As of Wednesday afternoon, she’d drawn more than 774,900 views and 73,800 likes for complaining about this particular brand of alleged ageism.
She starts by saying, “I just got home from brunch with my friends and never have I ever had such disgusting and, like, horrible service in my life at a restaurant.” She goes on to share that she was fond of this restaurant—in fact, it was where she and her boyfriend had their first date. But after this experience, she’s pledging never to darken its door again.
Ronan said the issues started when her party ordered food, with a few of the women in the group also ordering bottomless mimosas. An hour later, food hadn’t arrived, and “bottomless” apparently equaled two. One of the men in the party alerted the server to the delay, saying, “This is getting a little ridiculous; like, where’s our food?”
The server allegedly responded by saying, “Actually, it’s not ridiculous at all,” and laughed at the party. While the food came out shortly after, Ronan said she and another person in the party did not get their food. Since they’d ordered avocado toast and pizza respectively, she felt it was a quickly-correctable oversight.
“45 minutes, we never got checked on by our server after getting our food,” she reports. “My food never came.” She maintains that she finally called the server’s attention to the situation but ended up getting no food and only one martini, served 25 minutes after ordering it at the start of the ordeal.
“We’re all dressed appropriately,” she points out. “None of us are being like loud, obnoxious, anything. I’m just like so disheartened because this is a place I love to go to, and I’ve never just been treated with such—like, he was literally rolling his eyes at me and my friends.”
She observes that older patrons in the restaurant appeared to be getting better service and notes, “I can’t change my age, but, like, we are people who tip well. Like, we understand the service industry. So I just don’t understand why I don’t get the same service as someone else.”
She concludes the video by declaring, “I’m dressed nice! I’m in a dress right now!”
@krissyronan Is this a thing that typically happens to people my age? I will not be going back. Also we are all between the ages of 21-23, when i keep saying 20 im meaning we are all in our 20s. #restaurant #westpalmbeach #palmbeach #serviceindustry ♬ original sound – kristinaronan
Commenters were sympathetic.
“And we tip BETTER than the older people!!! Ughhh,” one observed.
“Avocado toast takes 5 mins at most,” observed another, latching on to the missing food part of the video. “That’s even if it includes an egg. Pizza takes 15. That’s definitely ridiculous lmao.”
Another suggested, “I would have walked out lol. They wouldn’t have noticed anyways.”
Some did, however, take issue with Ronan’s assertion that 20-something diners are great patrons. “Former server,” one started, before sharing, “I would have thought it would be the older people to give me a hard time.. no it’s the ones 20-30. MY AGE RANGE. (I’m 26).”
Another said sarcastically, “Definitely not early 20s girls,” following that with a laughing emoji and adding, “You guys tip like crap and always nitpick everything.”
Ronan defended her demographic in the comments section, responding with, “Speaking about myself and my friends I always tip 20% minimum as well as clean up the table upon exiting.”
But someone else chimed in with, “20 years in the Industry. 2 young couples eating together are ok. 9 drunk brunch girls. I’ll let you take that table all day.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Ronan via email and to Elisabetta’s via Instagram direct message.