My wife and I saw this in the early 90′s, and we still shake our heads about it.
We went to a moderately upscale restaurant in coastal California and were seated next to a party of four, two men and two women, who were in their late 30′s. They had finished their appetizers and were getting their entrées as we ordered. As we worked through our meal our neighbors finished up with coffee and dessert. Then the fun began.
A fifth person joined their table just before the bill arrived. From what we could overhear, he was the boyfriend of one of the women and planned to take her out after she’d eaten. However, the other diners persuaded him to order his own entrée. As this delayed their departure by at least another half hour, their waitress was obviously upset and we overheard her tell them she had another party ready for the table. They went ahead with their extra order anyway, and added a dessert for him, too.
At the end of the meal, we overheard the principal instigator of the extra meal claim that the waitress was “rude” and didn’t deserve a tip. The other original man at the table said no, she deserved something and put a significant amount of cash on the table, but the host ended up gathering all the money and leaving it to the penny – no tip on a meal close to $150! Since her other party was put elsewhere she lost two substantial gratuities. And to top it off, the second woman at the table, who had had chocolate mousse for dessert, threw up her meal on the table just before they left.
I assume they went back to their trailers for the evening.
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