Yesterday, we heard the story of Marcy Richardson, a (now former) waitress at Tonic East who claimed three guys consumed $120 worth of beer and food and stiffed her on the check Tuesday night. She said she was subsequently forced to pay for the customers, and ended up writing an angry screed about the experience on Craigslist—you can read the whole account here. But a manager at Tonic refuted her story, and we ended up hearing two very opposing narratives about what happened that evening and who was to blame. Now to add to this Rashomon-like saga, the mother of a former waitress at Tonic also thinks the manager is lying!
We received an email from the concerned mother, who claimed her daughter also worked at Tonic East for a year (much longer than Richardson, who was only there for a week or so). She told us that she wasn't surprised by Richardson's story, and had heard several similar tales from her daughter:
The Manager is lying to you. My daughter waitressed there for a year and had many similar stories to tell. Crazed management with high turnover, forced the girls to buy special outfits themselves and dress like hookers, required retipping servers and bussers based on Total Sales which means if even one tip is not left or too low or someone skips out, the person eats it all and worked all day, sometimes double shift, for nothing. No help from the bouncers in collecting when people skip. Forced to stay longer than shift, through clean up until 3-4 am. No support from employers at all. I don't like the racist stuff that comes through in this article but I wish the guys who walked out would see it and that the place would get shut down or sued. Many of the comments to this article are as disgusting as the management of Tonic.
She further addressed some of the language in Richardson's original post: "I wish the woman had not included the stuff about ghetto and thugs because there were plenty of white people who stiffed my daughter or tried to leave without paying." She also noted that this type of management style is likely "typical" for waitresses, but she was still taken aback by Richardson's account, enough to write in to us.
After we read Richardson's Craigslist posting, a manager from Tonic East told us that nobody walked out on their bill, but many of the customers had stiffed her on tips—he implied it was because of poor service, but added that he was willing to give her another shot at the job, had she come in for her shift the next day. Richardson then told us that they did walk out, and she paid for them herself: "Why would he not think I thought I was supposed to do that after he threatened me all night long that I would be 'paying for it myself' if anyone walked out?"
We've called the manager at Tonic East we spoke to yesterday for comment about the latest developments.
