A server in Bentonville, Arkansas was fired on December 3rd after a generous large group of diners left a $4,400 tip for her.
Ryan Brandt was one of two servers who took care of a party of over 40 people at a restaurant called Oven and Tap. The second server unfortunately had to go home sick that night, so Brandt was responsible for the large party by herself.
Grant Wise called about the large party ahead of time, wanting to make sure that everything would go smoothly, especially when it came to tipping. He had a plan. Wise, who owns a real estate company, wanted each one of the guests in his meeting party to tip $100. While he didn’t divulge his plan, in his phone call, he asked about the tipping policy to ensure that all of the money would go directly to the waitress or waitresses that served his table.
“It was an incredible thing to do and to see her reaction was awesome, to see what that meant to her, the impact that it’s had on her life already,” recalled Wise.
But unfortunately, things did not go according to plan. Despite the fact that the restaurant did not have a policy that required servers to pool their tips, the shift manager decided Brandt needed to share the money.
“I was told that I was going to be giving my cash over to my shift manager, and I would be taking home 20%,” said Brandt.
The server informed Wise of her manager’s decision, which made him change his mind. He said that pooling tips with people who didn’t wait on his party wasn’t his intention, and asked the restaurant to return the gratuity.
Wise then asked Brandt to come outside, and gave her the cash there.
Upon going back inside, Brandt was fired, leaving her with no way to pay her bills.
“It was devastating, I borrowed a significant amount for student loans. Most of them were turned off because of the pandemic but they’re turning back on in January and that’s a harsh reality,” she said.
Brandt said that the restaurant claimed she was fired for violating policy by telling Wise about pooling the tips. Local news outlet KNWA asked Oven and Tap if that was true. While they declined an interview, they did provide the outlet with a statement, which read:
“After dining, this large group of guests requested that their gratuity be given to two particular servers. We fully honored their request. Out of respect for our highly valued team members, we do not discuss the details surrounding the termination of an employee.”
Since news broke of this incident, Oven and Tap has been bombarded with negative reviews on Google and Yelp, and has had to shut down their Facebook page. Most of the reviews follow a similar pattern, telling the restaurant that they had a chance to go viral with a feel-good story, and instead chose to damage their reputation and try to destroy a woman’s livelihood.