Most people who walk into a restaurant expect to pay their bill. Apparently, that doesn’t include these Olive Garden customers.
In a video with over 83,000 views, TikTok user Saydie (@realslimsaydie) shares an experience she had with customers who were unable to pay their tab at the end of a meal at Olive Garden.
“I saw a TikTok explaining that servers get in trouble if a table walks out on their tab, and this is true, but the only time it hasn’t been true, and has happened to me, is I had a table go through their entire meal, and then I bring them the check at the end, and they go, ‘We’re really sorry, we actually don’t have any money.’”
Olive Garden customers can’t pay
This wasn’t a simple case of being short a few dollars, or missing their wallet, Saydie clarified for viewers. Everyone at the table simply did not have any money to spare to put toward their bill.
“Like, not, ‘I forgot my wallet, oh my god, I’ll go get my wallet.’ They were like, ‘We just checked our bank account and we don’t have any money, so we’re going to have to go,’” she says. “And I was like, huh?”
She continues, “So I get my manager and my manager goes to the table and they’re like, ‘What’s the problem?’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, we don’t have any money.’”
But the manager didn’t respond as Saydie expected. “The manager was just like, ‘OK, have a good one,’” she says. “It’s the craziest [expletive] that ever happened to me.”
Fortunately, Saydie did not get in trouble for the incident.
So what actually happens if you can’t pay your tab at a restaurant?
A research study found that one in five diners have walked out on a tab. Some of these incidents are attributable to a waiter to forgetting to provide the bill or customers simply forgetting to pay.
According to Lifehacker, some states have laws that protect restaurant employees from having their wages impacted by customers who do not pay their bill. However, if your state does not, restaurant policy might dictate that the difference has to be made up from that server’s pay, as long as it does not cause their pay to go below minimum wage.
A restaurant owner might go to the trouble of tracking down a customer to force them to pay the bill. However, as reported by Lifehacker, it is more likely that a restaurant will retain names, descriptions, and other identifying information about non-paying customers. Effectively, they’re blacklisted.
Viewers weigh in
Several viewers shared that their managers would have taken a much more hard-nosed approach to these customers.
“My managers would’ve been like pay or we’ll call the cops,” one commenter wrote.
“That happened once and my manager called the police and made all the cooks block the exits,” a commenter wrote.
Others shared similar experiences with customers who did not pay their bills.
“One time, I had just started at a restaurant, and there was a guy who they knew walked out on the bill,” wrote another user. “And the manager told me that he shouldn’t have been seated, but I had to stay on top of it and if he walked out that I would be responsible. I had other tables. I still don’t understand how they thought it should be my problem.”
“One time this table’s food was taking forever so they asked for it to-go,” wrote another user. “And then those people dipped as soon as they got the food.”
@realslimsaydie It was so weird lmao they said it so matter of fact, good ol olive garden days
♬ original sound – Saydie 💌🪩💫
The Daily Dot has reached out to Saydie via TikTok comment, and to Olive Garden via email regarding the video.
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