Emily Duprie
A recently posted TikTok went viral after a server encountered a real-life Karen and her 26 person entourage. The party originally came in 40 minutes before closing, which for a smaller party would be fine, but 26 people is a lot to take care of in less than an hour.
As if 40 minutes of time wasn’t enough, the party “changed their mind” and stated that they would be eating elsewhere… until they changed their minds again and came back to TikTok user, Dean Redmond’s place of work, this time with only 20 minutes remaining before the restaurant was scheduled to close.
Despite this horrible restaurant etiquette, sometimes parties like these can end up being enjoyable and will often tip well for the trouble. This party however, was being dictated by the Karen of all Karens, who decided to make Dean’s life a living hell from the moment she walked in the door.
User Dean Redmond’s whirlwind story about a large party that came to the restaurant he works at shortly before closing has captivated viewers.
Redmond says that when she first walked in and requested a party of 26, he said they would have to conjoin two tables, since they didn’t have one long enough to accommodate that number of people.
I’m like, ‘We’re going to have to break you up into two separate tables because we don’t have a table long enough,’ This woman starts screaming that I have no idea what I’m talking about and where’s my manager. So I get my manager, the manager comes out and she’s like oh, OK, yeah, we can try to make that work for you. So we go and we set up this giant table in our back room. By the time we come out they’re like, ‘We’re actually going to go somewhere else.’ At this point, I didn’t care because we were already 40 minutes until close; there was no way we were going to be out until 9:30.
As mentioned before, despite the party allegedly saying they were going to go to another restaurant, they changed their minds 20 minutes later and asked to be seated once more. Redmond says that when he told the woman that may not be possible due to the restaurant’s closing time, the group (Karen) once again requested a manager.
Redmond says he asked to get the party’s food and drink orders together, the same customer also had an issue with that, calling it “rude.” He says he began profusely apologizing and that the customer said his tip would reflect the service she felt she was receiving. Redmond continued,
By the time I get all of their order, it’s literally past close. They ordered seven champagne bottles because they were pissed we didn’t have hard alcohol. I get those for them, drop them off, put their food in. The food’s taking 40 minutes. In the span of these 40 minutes that they’re waiting, every 10 seconds they’re like, ‘Excuse me, where’s our food?’
When the bill came the woman was shocked to find that the champagne they ordered came out to $310, and a grand total of $610, since some items were taken off because the party did not like them.
She starts screaming at me, ‘Well don’t think you’re going to get a tip, buddy.’ Well little did she know that automatic gratuities are added to parties of 14 or more, so 25% was added to this, and we got about $170 out of this Karen. She even thought writing a note being like, ‘Yeah, you did a horrible job’ on a napkin was going to do anything. I crumpled that shit up and burned it, threw it right in the trash.
The TikTok went viral with over 22k likes and 120k views. Watch it below:
Dean later posted a part two to the situation, revealing the Yelp review that the Karen ended up leaving about her experience.
Viewers in the comment section of the post had a lot to say about the Karen and about Dean’s submissive manager, stating that “Managers really be rewarding this type of attitude.”
Moral of the story, don’t be a Karen! If you decide to go out to eat, be prepared to pay for it without complaints, and don’t take 25 other people to a dine-in restaurant that closes in less than an hour and expect the servers to fall all over your feet!
