Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
I had a situation once, similar to jsearles', regarding dining and dashing, in the mid-2000s.
It was at Bubba Gump Shrimp on the Santa Monica Pier, with my then-girlfriend Miri.
Service was suuuuuuuuuuuuper slow the entire way. Like among the worst I ever had. At the end, we were sitting there for eternity when it came time to pay. After nobody came to present the bill, I had enough. I got up to look for someone to help me. The waitress was nowhere to be found, so I grabbed the first server I encountered and told them of the situation, and they got the manager for me.
After about 10 minutes more passed (I was very close to just walking out), the manager finally came. "Oh... I'm sorry, but your server has to close out the bill, and she's on break now," I was told.
This wasn't any kind of passive-aggressive jab against me. We hadn't had any issues there and hadn't complained about anything. The whole place was just a giant clusterfuck.
I told the manager that I absolutely refused to wait any longer. "I'm stating right now that I'm willing to pay what I owe. But I'm not waiting any longer. You're the manager. Either find a way to print my bill and accept payment, or I'm leaving. You can't hold me hostage here because you're refusing to take my payment in a timely fashion."
The manager kept asking me to "just please wait a little longer" and I refused. I told her I had waited like 45 minutes already, and was done.
After about 5 minutes of arguing, the manager actually erased my bill, as there was no way she could take it in place of the server (!!). I was actually in a generous mood, and was willing to still tip, but not that waitress.
"You know... I would like to tip someone, but not this server, who was terrible and absent," I said. "Can I give this to you to give this to the guys who wash dishes in the back, or some of the assistant cooks?"
"Ohhhh, sorry, that's against our policy," she replied.
"Okay, see ya", I said, and walked out without tipping.