Customer Demands A Free Meal After Server Took Her Plate That Had One Piece Of Broccoli Left
He made sure to ask the customer if she was done before taking her plate away.
TikTok A server revealed that he was reprimanded for taking away a customer's plate after assuming she was finished with her meal.
In a TikTok video, Christopher Paul, who works as a waiter at an unnamed restaurant, explained that he was finishing up his last table of the night before he was supposed to clock out. While the table of patrons hadn't been giving him problems all night, it all seemed to change once he went to collect their dirty plates to bring back to the kitchen.
One of the customers demanded a free meal after Paul took her plate that had a piece of broccoli on it.
"We need to have a little talk about when you're done with your food and your server is taking plates," Paul informed viewers at the beginning of his video. He continued, saying that he had been clearing plates away on his last table of the night.
While cleaning, he asked the customers if the food had been good and if they wanted any dessert. "Everybody's so happy, and [saying] everything's so fantastic. I get to the last woman and I go, 'Can I take his plate out of the way? Are you all set?'"
The woman in question had only a piece of broccoli on her plate, so small that Paul demonstrated it was the size of his thumb. She had eaten everything else on her plate and was clearly finished. She told Paul that she was done, and allowed him to take away her plate.
"Fast forward six minutes, I'm back in the kitchen giving them some time to chitchat and the host [of the restaurant] comes up to me going, 'Hey, your table is really upset you took their food without asking first or letting them finish.'"
Confused, Paul asked the host to clarify, and when she told him that it was his last table of the night, he went to his manager and told him what happened, and that he had made sure to ask if they were done before he cleared their plates. When his managers walked over to the table themselves, Paul immediately noticed how livid the woman whose plate he'd taken was.
"She was saying how I was so rude and disrespectful for taking food away from her. She was paying for it and now she feels she shouldn't when she practically polished her plate clean," Paul pointed out. "She wants the entire check on her end comped."
Upon hearing the woman's complaint, Paul reminded her that she only had a tiny piece of broccoli on her plate, and even told him that she was finished eating. At his argument, the woman began berating him, telling Paul that he had "no right" to try and rebuttal her concerns.
"So, if your server 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 gonna take it," Paul told viewers. "Don't cause problems for your server because we have enough to deal with on a daily basis."
In the comments section, people theorized that the customer was trying to pull one over and get free food.
"As a server myself, I feel that she was definitely trying to get free food and skip paying the bill/giving a tip," one TikTok user pointed out.
Another user agreed, adding, "As a restaurant worker herself this is actually true. People will do anything to try and get free food! Hopefully the manager [was] smart and didn’t comp!"
"Even if you took my plate without asking and I hadn’t touched it... I could never have that much attention on me... my anxiety could never," a third user chimed in.
A fourth user claimed that the same thing happened to them, but they refused to complain about it. "Sorry, but I have had this happen to me where I go to the bathroom, and when I come back my plate [was] gone. I don’t complain because I have been a waitress."
Nia Tipton is a Brooklyn-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.