Is there a circumstance where you would walk out of a restaurant and not pay the bill?

[Bronn]

I would never not pay for a meal I ate or partially ate. Two wrongs don't make a right. Regardless of the service you receive or the quality of food you got, you still chose to consume it.

I will, however, send a pretty scathing email when I get the worst service.

I have been seated before, and had various waitstaff walk by my table without stopping for over 10 minutes or so to even take drink orders or even introduce themselves. If that happens, I get up and leave.

 

I did once get a visit from the county sheriffs over an incident at a pizza joint, though.

[MadHatter]

ABSOLUTELY NOT.

If you got poor service, do not tip and talk to the manager.  If you ordered food and it was delivered....you owe the bill.  Walking out is considered theft.

[Darth Biscuit]

Yeah I'd pay and ask for the manager if the service was that bad.

[The_Light_Brigade]

This is why I stay at home.  

[Cary Kollins]

I've come close maybe once or twice.

 

I was at a popular restaurant in the French Quarter in New Orleans and had probably the worst dining experience I've ever had. Server brought us our drinks (a coke which had a dead bug in it, but hey it happens), and then come to find out the server left the restaurant without telling anyone. So we're sitting there for god knows how long, trying to find another server's attention. We get another server, who is nice but flailing herself and order. A half hour later one of the meals comes out, cold, nasty jambalaya.  It takes forever to even get another server's attention to send it back, we ask to speak to the manager, being super polite because we've worked in restaurants and understand 99% of the time it's not the server's fault.

 

The server comes back and says the manager won't even come over. The server was even like, "wtf this place is a poo show right now". Other tables were waiting an hour for food. It was horrendous.

We ended up paying for the drinks and a few extra dollars for tip for the poor servers.

I wrote an epic yelp review. God that was horrible.

 

this is the restaurant btw, came highly recommended by friends that live in NO. Seems like they were in the midst of a change in owernship

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=Tujague's+new+orleans

[TheRed]

No, I don't think I could do that, regardless of how poor the service may be.

In general I've rarely encountered service so bad that it would possibly even reach that point.

One place recently however that I will say has some of the absolute worst service/disrespectful managers is All-American Pub. Fug that place with a spoon.

[Towelboy]

i had a situation at a mexican place near our house. we were taking my in-laws out to dinner on a friday night because we rarely do that. we sat down, waited 10 minutes and the server came to get our drink order. we ordered and waiting another 10 minutes for the drinks. when he brought the drinks, we placed our order. we waited for 30 minutes on our food. at this point, we had seen people who came in after us eat and leave. the server brought out one dish - and it was cold. the other dishes came out 10 minutes later, were cold, and not the right order (beef instead of chicken - easy to mess up). since we had been there for over an hour, we ate it anyway. the server came back 20 minutes after the meal was delivered, apologized for the delay and brought a receipt with just the drinks and appetizer on it. after his apology and the way he delivered the ticket, i assumed that meant the food portion was comped. i paid for what was on the receipt and tipped him because i always tip.

as we were leaving the restaurant, he ran to the door and yelled, "they didn't pay." of course that caused everyone in the restaurant to turn and look at me like i was stealing. i very calmly told my wife to take her parents to the car and i would handle it. i asked for the manager. i explained the situation and told him i didn't appreciate being called a thief in front of the entire restaurant. he told me that the server was new and that he was having issues keeping up. he said that the server would have to pay for the meal out of his own pocket. since the server insinuated the meal was comped and the fact that he basically called me a liar and a thief, i didn't feel it warranted me volunteering to pay the $25 bill. considering i tipped $10 on the 3 teas, 1 beer, and queso dip, i didn't care that he had to come up with the other $15 to pay for our cold food and poor service.

i have never been back. 

[thefuzz]

Nope.

You rarely know the circumstances surrounding the issue.  I would always talk to the manager though.

[PhillyB]

i once had a cocktail waitress who showed up for work on a busy night and got a call ten minutes into her shift with news that one of her best friends had killed himself. it was too busy for her to leave, so she ran to the bathroom to cry for ten minutes and then came out and worked the rest of the shift.

she was completely off her game, a robot all night. she missed orders, forgot food, knocked drinks over, all night long. and this complete fuging douchebag youth golf coach with a bunch of young impressionable high schoolers there for a tournament called her over and dressed her down in front of the entire crew, calling her incompetent and useless and berating her for forgetting his burger and demanding to know why in the hell she couldn't possibly follow simple instructions and demanding she answer him lest he walk out on his $400 tab.

i almost killed him. you have no idea what's happening behind the house. you shouldn't be so liberal with excuses that you let yourself be taken advantage of as a consumer, but you should always err as far on the side of caution and forgiveness as possible. act like a proper human for the duration of your stay and then, if you're still pissed off, write an email after the fact or never show up again.

[SmokinwithWilly]

I've worked as a waiter/bartender so I've been there and I know how it is to have an off night. Some days I didn't give a flying poo whether or not I brought your 4th extra side of ranch. I have had people dine and dash, but I have never done it. There are times when I have tipped a waiter a penny because I didn't want to think I just didn't tip them. But I also went and got a manager to tell them what I had just dealt with. If a server comes back in after disappearing for 15 minutes stinking of cigarettes, I know what's happened. Or if I see them standing over in the corner with a bunch of their friends or hanging out at the bar non stop, I usually don't tip very well. 

I have been thrown out of a restaurant for telling the manager that the service was deplorable. I actually had to take our tables glasses to the bar and have the bartender refill them because our waitress was doing absolutely nothing. Evidently I was making a scene by complaining to the manager while he was having a drink at the bar. I posted reviews on google, yelp and a few other places and have never been back. 

[Zaximus]

Yeah you have to pay.  I tip well, and for me to leave no tip someone has to be completely terrible.    Being friendly goes a long way.  If you suck as a waiter AND have a bad attitude, that really annoys me.   If the place is super busy and I can see it's understaffed, I can't fault the waitress, that's just the manager not scheduling enough people.   If the food sucks, that's usually not the waiter's fault either.   I have seen too many people in life scream at the wrong people.  I've been at the bank and people chew out the teller because of rules and regulations that they didn't have any part in.  It's just stupid.

 

[SmootsDaddy89]

lol I hope you people who don't tip well enjoy when you feel the service is poor enjoy various forms of bodily fluid in your food.

[Doyle]

10 hours ago, SmootsDaddy89 said:

lol I hope you people who don't tip well enjoy when you feel the service is poor enjoy various forms of bodily fluid in your food.

This post doesn't exactly inspire me to tip more. 

[SOJA]

no- but I have left no tip before- basically the waiter was a gigantic dick, completely non-helpful (it was a self serve buffett) and charged us for eating crab legs without saying anything - when we said we didn't eat crab legs heaccused us of stealing crab legs

 

tl;dr I was Jameis Winston before Jameis