Published January 6, 2015

Walk-out Woes

Finding a table empty of people and payment is almost enough to give a server nightmares. Why? Because in many locations that tab has to come out of your earnings, and if it happens repeatedly you could lose your job.

It doesn’t seem fair to me. I think there needs to be some research done into why people dine and dash, because if servers are the ones getting penalized for it, then they are supposedly the ones at fault.

If a server is very busy and doesn’t check up on tables in a timely fashion resulting in the customer leaving without paying, that’s an issue and definitely (at least partially) the server’s fault. But how often is that the case? My guess is not very often.

I think the best thing a restaurant can do is comp or void the tab and write the incident down, just to make sure it’s not a trend with a particular server. It’s ridiculous that the server should be expected to pay for every hungry thief he/she encounters.

I wonder if dine-and-dashers know how much they’re hurting both their server and the restaurants they steal from.

Read the Facebook post that spurred this commentary here: What happens when people skip out on their tab at your restaurant?
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