When dining out alone, there are a few circumstances a woman might take into consideration. Were any other customers watching them in a way that made her uncomfortable? Should she have tried to park closer to the restaurant so she does not have to walk as far to get back to her vehicle?
But rarely would a customer dining alone think to be wary of the staff.
However, one Chili’s customer says she is not going to dine out late in the evening after an experience at the restaurant that left her reeling.
In a video posted to TikTok, content creator @juliasaysstuff says she was picking up a late night to-go order from her local Chili’s when an employee manning the to-go side of the business made her uncomfortable.
“This is your sign not to go to Chili’s at 10pm by yourself,” she says in the video. “Tonight I decided to go to Chili’s to get my chicken bacon ranch quesadilla. I go up to the to-go station and this old man comes up me. He’s like, ‘What’s the name?’ Seems pretty normal. I said it’s under Julia and he goes ‘Ok,’ goes back and gets it, reads the label, and he’s like, ‘Oh these quesadillas are so good.’ I’m like, OK, we’re connecting, this is great, we’re friends. I’m like, yeah, they’re so good, I get them every single time. I’m thinking this is so awesome, right, he’s so nice.”
Chili’s worker says something inappropriate
She says her initial impression of the man was off, after he said something she found extremely uncomfortable, and sent her running out of the restaurant.
“He hands me my order and I’m about to walk out and he goes, ‘Wait, be careful tonight,’” she says. “I was like, OK, I will, and he was like, ‘No, be careful.’ Then I turn around and I was like, what do you mean? He goes, ‘You better be careful I don’t follow you home because I love those quesadillas so much.’ …I never ran so fast in my life. What do you mean?”
The Daily Dot has reached out to @juliasaysstuff via comment on the video and via email as well as to Chili’s parent company Brinker International via email regarding the video.
This is not the first time someone has come to TikTok to air their concerns about the way a restaurant employee spoke about them or other people. In 2022, a woman put her manager on blast for describing the appearance of underage employees being similar to that of exotic dancers. On the flip side, employees of restaurants have used the platform to document customer preferences in their hairstyles related to tipping, finding that they often get more tips when they wear more youthful hairstyles such as pigtails.
These posters are far from alone in their experiences with harassment. In 2018, about 81% of women were estimated to have experienced sexual harassment by the National Sexual Violence Research Center, compared to 43% of men.
Several posters encouraged the original poster to make a complaint to either her local law enforcement entities or to the company over the Chili’s employee’s behavior.
“As the mother of an 18yo.. PLEASE say ‘cool, I’m just gonna..’ & then call 911,” one commenter wrote. “Then while you’re on the phone with them let the guy know you need the manager to come up. Take his job, get him charged.”
“Oh I would have made a phone call !” another commenter wrote.
“no no no you had to have CALLED BACK IN THE MORNING and tell the manager or someone,” a commenter wrote.
Other women shared similarly disturbing things they had been told in restaurants, either as employees or as customers themselves.
@juliasaysstuff Just a little psa #chilis #psa #dontdoit #foryoup #foryou ♬ original sound – Jules :)
“I used to work at Olive Garden, and one of my last tables was two old men,” one commenter wrote. “One asked for a box and asked if I could get in it. I said I wouldn’t fit. He said he had a rope and sack in his truck..”
“my mom went to lunch alone at our local Mexican restaurant and the guy paid for her lunch and slipped her a note that said meet me in the bathroom,” another commenter wrote.
“I had to go to the bathroom in the ghetto and I couldn’t get out the door and the clerk and some other guy said he’s trying to keep you in here run and they all laughed,” a commenter wrote. “I literally cried.”
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