Emily Bauer San Antonio waitress $2K tip denied by Texas restaurant. Red Hook Seafood & Bar says it can only process $500 tips max. Calls to boycott outlet.
A victim of a cruel joke? A Texas waitress has told of recently being tipped $2,000 on a bill, only for her restaurant employer to refuse giving her a single cent.
Emily Bauer a young mother of two, had only been a server for about two weeks when she was scheduled for a busy Sunday shift at Red Hook Seafood and Bar in San Antonio, KVUE reports.
While working all the tables, she kept apologizing to a man seated in her section for ‘being slow.’
‘He was just like, ‘I understand.’ He also mentioned he owned restaurants, so he knew how hard it was to be a server,’ Bauer told the media outlet.
Adding, ‘He was like, ‘Just cancel everything. Cancel everything and give me the ticket.’ So, I said okay. I gave him the ticket.’
‘Oh my God! My kids! I’m going to spend it all on my kids,’’
Bauer said she didn’t notice until he left that he had given her a $2,000 tip and wrote a note that said, ‘Merry Christmas! Keep working hard!’
‘I was like, wait. I just opened it and started crying. I was like, ‘Oh my God! My kids! I’m going to spend it all on my kids,’’ said Bauer, who has two sons, a 2-year-old and a 5-month-old.
‘I was like, ‘Oh my God. I’ve never had a Christmas where I’ve been able to like splurge on them.’’
But the worker said her excitement was quickly dashed when the restaurant told her it can’t process a tip larger than $500.
Other servers suggested that the restaurant give her four separate tips of $500, but the seafood joint refused, KVUE reported.
It is unclear why the restaurant couldn’t process $500 of the $2,000 tip to give to Bauer, in line with its limits.
‘I don’t think it’s our responsibility as a server to say, ‘Oh, you can’t tip me that much, I’m sorry. Oh no, there’s a limit, I’m sorry,” Bauer said.
Calls to boycott restaurant
‘If that’s the case, there should be signs posted on the restaurants or the receipt to say there’s a limit of $500.’
Bauer said the customer received word that she won’t get the tip and called the restaurant to express his disappointment, KVUE reported.
When she asked to call him to express her gratitude, her manager said his information hadn’t been taken down.
Instead, she’s shared the message to Facebook in hopes that it reaches the customer.
‘Even though I can’t receive it, thank you. Thank you for having such a big heart,’ Bauer said.
Bauer has since been flooded with comments, with well wishers advising her to pursue her rights, while others said that the restaurant should be boycotted.
‘Please stop harassing our company’
And then there was this response by Redhookseafood below, which asserts the outlet had tried on a number of occasions to have Emily’s tip processed but was unable to, along with staff now being harassed. And the ugly ultimate realization that Emily Bauer was played by the customer who seemingly used a fraud card. See what you think?
‘Hello San Antonio first off we would like to thank all our loyal customers for standing by us! Kens5 posted a story on one of our employees whom received a $2000 tip from a Gentleman on Saturday. Unfortunately not all the details were stated on the news post.
Let me say the Gentleman’s card would not let us post the tip. We tried multiple times, Emily tried, managers tired and the owner called visa to ask what we can do. Visa could not force a $2000 tip on his card it was invalid then later declined. We can not charge a card $500 four times it’s impossible and it’s fraud.
The Gentleman called after he left that evening asking if Emily would be able to receive her tip he was told by management that the tip would NOT process and if he could come by & pay her in cash or a check written out to her he said “ok” then hung up quickly. He has not been by to the restaurant to pay her. Below is proof that Red Hook was NOT able NOR received the $2000 tip but only the amount of $69.01. Please stop harassing our company. We did not steal anything from Emily or any of our employees. We can not force a $2000 tip that a bank is declining. Now it’s Christmas if you would like to help Emily please call the restaurant. But the threats & harassing will not be tolerated. Thank you have a Merry Christmas
We have 45 other employees that work here they do not deserve this they have families to provide for as well. Do they matter? Writing bad reviews on our Google for something we have no control over is wrong.’
Children get $2,000 tip after all
But there was more to come.
By Wednesday night, Bauer took to social media where she explained everything kind of worked out well. But not in the way everyone would have preferred.
Posted Bauer: ‘I’m the server everyone is commenting about on here and although I would like to thank all of you for trying to help me out, leaving bad reviews ad harassing the business is not the way. I intentionally reached to find the man that had left the tip but discovered today, sadly, there was no tip.
‘His credit card had insufficient funds and never had the $2,000 in it. Yes I saw proof of this today when I met the owner. He grants me the $2,000 always for everything I had to go through.
‘I can never thank him enough he just made he best Christmas possible for my babies. Like I said, again, I never intended to cause pain to this business and to get them harassed. I had good intentions but sometimes the media has a mind of its own, thank you but please stop leaving bad reviews and posting ugly stuff.
I have since the beginning I love my job. This was just an unfortunate situation that turned into a blessing.’
