Posted on 02/26/2010 7:48:42 AM PST by dennisw
WINSTON-SALEM -- A woman who a local restaurant manager refused to serve claiming she is a habitually poor tipper told WXII Wednesday she is in the process of consulting an attorney.
Monica Covington was recently banned from the Kanpai Japanese Steak and Seafood House on Stratford Road after manager Michael Lam said servers and chefs refused to serve her because of her less-than-expected tipping history at the establishment.
Covington, who started a boycott petition against the restaurant, said the restaurant slandered her in the WXII report, which has set off a firestorm of opinions surrounding the issue of tipping.
"At this point, I am securing an attorney to address the slander against my name and character," Covington said in a statement to WXII. "I have always left a good tip at Kanpai Restaurant , even when I was given poor and less than honorable service."
Covington said her spat with the restaurant began in 2008 when she was told she would have to pay an 18 percent gratuity to dine.
"Yes, because we can't keep continuing to serve her anymore because the servers and chefs are not willing to serve her," Lam said Tuesday when asked if he refused Covington service.
On Wednesday, Lam said his establishment has never tacked an 18 percent gratuity on to her bill without her knowledge.
So far, 300 people have signed Covington's petition. Supporters of Lam's restaurant have also started an online petition.
Oh man, what next? How about suing because they don’t give you a discount? Hey, I like that one...
“We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”
She needs to hit the door.
African Americans are notoriously bad tippers. Sorry, I really don’t mean to be racist, I think it’s just a wired cultural thing.
"This soup tastes different, what's in it?"
I wonder; did the lawyer demand payment up front?
A friend of mine is from Australia. Tips are included in the tab there and she was horrified to find out (after she questioned why I left so much money on the table, most of the time people don’t leave cash on a table-just put the tip on the card receipt) that not only do waitresses and waiters make like $2 an hour instead of the minimum wage, but that the gratuity is not included in the check here in the states. She said “Oh my GOD! I’ve been shafting people for months now!!”
I have been a server, and you are correct as a general statement. I will add they act as though they are entitled.
It's not racist, it's just an observation.
Ask pretty much anyone in the restaurant industry.
ROFL!
Went to a restaurant in December with the family. Group of AA young people behind us. They left before us but we had already paid and waiter had already retrieved our receipt. Husband took the kids to wash hands so I was the only one at the table. Waiter comes up to me and says that we left more for our $30+ meal than they did for the $100+ meal.
Gawd, the humiliation!
Well even if she wins, she can never eat there again. God only knows what would end up in her food. Other restaurants might do the same thing now. *gag*
What kind of drop is in this egg drop soup?
yup. I’ll pass on the “pest stick-um strip surprise”.
I highly doubt that is true. Waiters and waitresses do a slow burn when a customers keeps returning and stealing from them each time. I tip so I end up subsidizing the greedy a-holes that don't
My cousin from England was really amazed when he visited Orlando a few years back that everyone expected a tip.
We always tip 20% IF the service and food is extra good. Then we get extra service the next time we go back. 15% if it is average. And if it is not, we do not go back, ever.
You know the patron is bad when your staff refuses to wait on her. Then it’s really, really bad when the chefs can’t stand her either.
Back when I was a waiter at Pargos in Nashville I did not notice this but...my wife’s waitress work at TGI Fridays in Columbus, Georgia is different. She gets stiffed or undertipped by Blacks constantly.
Many go in with an attitude and don’t accept the first table offered as if they are a Rosa Parks wannabee. Then they send food back because the decided they didn’t like it (after eating 90 percent of it) and are always cruising for complimentary dessert or appetizers. Even the Black wait staff don’t like Black customers.
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/ISUPPORTKANPAI/
Petition Site
I Support Kanpai, Shame on Monica Covington
Yes, sadly you are right. Not racist, just an observation. I had an entire section filled by a group/family or something of all black people. They were there for 2 1/2 hours and pitched a FIT when finding out that gratuity was added to a group their size. So they argued with the manager for seperate checks so gratuity wouldn’t be included and then left me zero dollars for a tip. I had no tables except theirs for three hours and with my hourly wage I made a total of $6.60. I was praying the stereotype I had heard of wasn’t true, but the other waitresses were giving me sympathetic looks the whole time.
I quit that night because I felt like my manager should have agreed to give them seperate checks, but since they were obviously together, the group policy should have applied. He was intimidated by them though, I could tell. So I told him to shove it and left.
It seems like all I am reading this morning is news about ‘poor, unfortunate victims’ who just out of the blue have terrible things happen to them. And are going to sue.
Turns my stomach. The Land of ME.
The restaurant has a right not to serve her.
But if the service is so bad, why does this lady return? I bet she’s some sort of nut.
Here’s a related article—different person/restaurant:
I Was Banned For Not Tipping
Thu 07 Jan 2010
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2423167/posts
UGH!!! I used to like the slimy “drop” in my egg drop soup... until your post! LOL
Here’s an idea. How about the restaurant pay their waitstaff enough so tipping isn’t expected. I’ve been to places that specifically state NOT to tip and the service, surprise!, is much better.
The result? I typically avoid the sit-down restaurants.
“Yes, because we can’t keep continuing to serve her anymore because the servers and chefs are not willing to serve her,”
If I own a resturant... and one of my employees refuses to serve a customer, they’re fired.
Tipper Gore?
Remember it was reveled prior to the 2000 election, Al and Tipper, on an income of millions gave almost NOTHING to charity.
And with carbon futures crashing, maybe they don’t have anything left.
I completely missed the part about the chef.
yeah, its ridiculous.
Sorry. Love Asian food but ‘Drops’ have always been a turn off for me.
Depending upon the reason, maybe but you’re going to be cook, server and host/hostess with that attitude. The customer may always be right but a good manager support his staff when the situation calls for it.
A woman I knew, who waited tables at a very nice, very expensive restaurant in Washington D.C., told me that she regularly spat in the cappuccinos of diners who were rude or who had under-tipped on previous visits. This practice brought her great joy.
She said she wasn’t the only server who did such a thing.
It’s always a good idea to treat the waitstaff politely and to tip at least 15%.
That place is just down the road from my office. My kids have eaten there, but I never have. You’d think if this lady really liked the food, and she must, going there often enough to be singled out as a bad tipper, that she’d “give some props” to the staff, as they say.
In this case at a Japanese steak house, imagine a hibachi table setup where the chef cooks and puts on a bit of a show at the same time and is the primary server. Not the same as if it were the kitchen staff joining in.
Ironically, they kept coming.
I wasn’t going to post this but...my wife and I used to own 4 Pizza restaurants. We had several customers that our drivers, even the one AA delivery guy, would not deliver to. You can guess which customers those were, right?
Finally, after getting yelled at and threatened by two of those customers, I paid the drivers out of pocket. But, I took them off of my mailing list, which is where I gave the discount coupons. Soon afterward, they no longer called us. I guess they drove to Caesar’s. {yuk}
I managed a restaurant for a few years (the Hell years).
I had to threaten to fire a young waiter for refusing to wait on black people-—he was a young black man as well...
At TGI Fridays the wait staff have to give three percent to the tip pool based upon their gross sales. So if their sales were $1000 for the night then they should have gotten around $150 for the night of which they have to give away $30 to the pool (goes to other staff). So when a customer runs up a bill of $90 because of drinks and so forth and then stiffs the waiter or waitress he is actually costing him/her money since their salary is $2.05 per hour.
I should sue because the Taco Cabana guy keeps giving me a senior discount and I am only 53! ; )
**African Americans are notoriously bad tippers.**
Only 20% of African Americans are bad Tippers..
79.9% are NON tippers.
Driven taxi (sporadically) for 35 or so years.
I have two big problems -
1. I am flat-out against mandatory tips. If that is necessary, then just raise your prices and pay your darned employees instead of expecting me to make up for their $1.50 per hour wage you cheat them with...
I have been known to be a cheapskate when tipping, but have also been extremely generous by any standards. When service meets minimum requirements (I don’t have to ask for refills of my tea, and food is brought out still hot, etc.), then I usually stick around the traditional 15%. If I have to constantly ask for my tea to be refilled and/or have to wait for a very long time to even place an order, etc., then the tip goes down from there based on just how bad the service was (I don’t penalize the wait staff for kitchen problems). On the other hand, I have given 25%+ tip when staff went so very far above-and-beyond any expectations I might have had.
If the service would have been better had I served myself, should I give an 18% “tip”? I will say this - the few times I have found myself with a mandatory tip added to my check, I pretty much have a rule that I don’t give anything extra beyond that, no matter how good the service was. So the staff is actually penalized by the management charing a mandatory tip. As well - if you are going to charge me an 18% premium, the service had better be better than average!
2. What ever happened to a business being able to serve whoever they want? If I open a mechanics garage and just flat don’t want to service a particular brand (for whatever reason I choose), then can I be made to service them anyway? And whatever happened to consumer’s ability to choose who THEY do business with? If a restaurant doesn’t want your money, then move on down the road. There are many others who would be more than glad to have it.
Foot- what would be any different if one opened a buffet restaurant but had a strict limit - no-one over 300lbs could eat... or you charged people by their starting weight? Don’t like it and enough people agree - then I go out of business. What the heck happened to our freedom to do business?
Same here, I just want to budget a lunch, I don't want to get involved in computing some portion of employee wages after I finish.
Tipping is just too liberal or European for me, just write down what the cost is for lunch and let's git'r done.
I remember working for a company once that when you were writing the bill you were supposed to include a five dollar "truck charge" I hated that and tried to raise cain with the company by pointing out that we should just be up front and include it in the service call rate rather than play games.
ping
yes, there are extenuating circumstances.... but none of my employees will ever say that they refuse to serve a customer.
Now if the customer is sitting there naked... if the customer has a bomb strapped to them... if the customer smells like a homeless garbage diver.... yes, these are instances.
But as far as tipping.... you have a whole day with good tips from good customers and part of the business is putting up with that small fraction of bad customers WITH A SMILE.
I am not in retail service but I do deal with customers all day. I take the good with the bad.
You are right a manager should support his staff. But I imagine his staff has a few customers who tip more than required and they surely are not fussing about that.
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