All servers should get medals for bravery, full stop. Just look at one restaurant server’s recent TikTok video for proof in which he says a customer tried to get her food for free after she’d already eaten her meal.
Creator Christopher Paul (@xchristopherpaulx) recent posted the video which he captioned, “Restaurant Rant: Taking someone’s food.” The clip currently has more than 119,000 views and 9,000 likes.
@xchristopherpaulx Sorry I took your half a bite of broccoli 😅#serverlife #bartender #storytime #rant #restaurant #funny #fyp ♬ original sound – Christopher Paul
Christopher goes into story-time mode. He says he was on his last table of the night and was about to walk out of his unnamed place of employment as soon as that table paid. As he cleared the table, he asked the party how things were and if they wanted dessert. He notes that everyone seemed content.
He then asked one customer at the end of the table if she was done with her food.
“She had a small piece of broccoli half the size of my thumb left, and everything else was polished clean,” Christopher said in the video. “And she goes, ‘Oh yeah, I’m all good, thank you so much. It was amazing.’”
A few minutes later, Christopher said, the host of the restaurant came up to him and said the table was mad because he took their food without asking or letting them finish their meals. Christopher was perplexed and explained his side of the story to his manager. The manager went over to the table.
“When I tell you this woman was livid,” Christopher told viewers. “Livid like I had just smacked her firstborn child of two years old.”
The customer went on to complain to the restaurant manager that Christopher was rude to take food away before she was done. She said she wanted her bill comped, Christopher recalled.
Christopher then tried to defend himself but the woman told him he had no right to be there while she spoke with the manager.
Christopher summed up the whole situation up for his viewers. “If your servers asks if you’re done with your food and you’re not, don’t say you can take the plate, even if it’s a bite of broccoli. Because if you say yes, I’m going to take it. Got it? Good.”
He also added, “Don’t cause problems for your servers, because we have enough bull crap to deal with on a daily basis with people like you anyway.”
Christopher isn’t alone in his struggles as a server. One restaurant worker and TikTok creator recently shared the “most annoying thing customers can do” when placing orders for food while another expressed exasperation at a customer who left an angry note after he took away beers that they carried into the restaurant.
If only the folks in the comment section had been there to back Christopher up.
“As a server myself, I feel that she was definitely trying to get free food and skip paying the bill/giving a tip,” one person wrote.
“Karen’s not mad about your taking her ‘plate of food.’ Karen simply doesn’t wanna pay,” another commented.
“The MOMENT someone complains and says ‘I want it comped/free’ I KNOW they are full of it,” agreed a third.
The commenters might be onto something. According to Yelp, “unscrupulous customers may figure out that small complaints get them free meals, so they take advantage of the situation. This is not common, but it does happen.”
One person suggested the server, “Go to trash and put the half eaten broccoli piece in a box and slam it on table. ‘There’s your food madam.’”
“People will do anything to try and get free food,” lamented another.
The Daily Dot reached out for comment from Christopher via email.
