Too cruel for April Fool’s Day.
On April Fool’s Day, a restaurant in Texas sent a customer’s $27 bill back with a $100 tip written on it. Written in marker on the note was the message, “April Fool’s Dummy, no chip 4!”
photo of receipt at El Cacique Taqueria The incident in Baytown, Texas, went viral on social media and sparked a debate about whether fake tips should be charged to customers’ credit cards anyway.
Isis Gomez, the restaurant manager who responded to the prank, told the Post that although the receipt was signed, she did not receive a tip.
“I just didn’t charge the $100 so they wouldn’t come back and ask for the money,” said Gomez, 20. Gomez’s mother, Yesenia Sanchez, runs a 60-seat restaurant near Houston.
“I wasn’t sure if I should do it because it was a lot of money and it was a joke. I also talked to my mom about it, because she’s my boss, and she said, ‘No, I won’t charge you because I don’t want you to charge me later. Please do so.”
Gomez said the customer in question was a man in his 30s who was eating breakfast alone.
She went on to explain that since no one at the restaurant took photos of the receipts, she assumed the customers themselves took photos of the receipts, which were then spread to various pages on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. .
“I saw a lot of people reposting it. I didn’t think it would go that far. Restaurants were like, ‘Hey, is this the restaurant where the girl didn’t get a $100 tip?’ There were many people calling. “All of a sudden, everyone knew about it,” she explained.
A woman who called the restaurant said she felt bad for the waitress and wanted to start a GoFundMe campaign to get her lost tip back, but Gomez declined the offer.
El Cacique Taqueria has found a silver lining from a rude and disappointing transaction: more customers.
“We got a little bit of business out of it,” she said. “There were a lot of things going on and we ended up with two tables. They were saying, ‘I saw your post,’ and reposting pictures of our food.”
Daron Cardoza, a Queens-based waiter who goes by the Instagram handle Bitchy Waiter, said: posted on his page “If they signed it, I think the tip is valid. What do you guys think?”
The post received more than 600 comments from his followers, many of whom were servers, most of whom said they would receive cash.
“I signed it and added it up…just kidding,” one person said.
“It’s terrible that anyone even finds this funny. Take my $100,” another added.
Cardoza, who has worked as a waiter in New York City for 25 years, told the Post he would have received the money.
“Because it’s a signed contract, we make 100% of that tip cash. Sometimes customers leave a tip, go home, change their mind, and call the restaurant or credit card company to have it removed.” he explained.
“There’s very little going in the server’s favor, so we want to take advantage of this opportunity as much as we can.”
