Some recent-ish customers…

…at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, where I work at now:

1) A group of four (pretty dark-skinned) (late 20s / early 30s) (Africans from Africa), two (straight) couples each, where this one (short) woman has a very chic short dress on and high heels and a small hand-held purse and she also has this enormously large bottom and she wants to know if they can’t sit in the lounge with the windows (they can’t, it’s late and it was already shut down for the night), while the one man who has sunglasses on and a blue denim coat with broad synthetic sheep-wool collars wants to know if we serve steaks (we don’t).

2) Two (late middle-aged) women come in, one (white) and one (African), and when I go to seat them at a two-top, they ask to sit at a larger table for four – “Of course,” I was like, which is my typical response to customer requests like that, and then I also say that it’s nice to have more room in case they stick their elbows out when they eat their burgers -- and then later the one (African) lady wants hot tea, and when I bring out the tea selection, she chooses English breakfast, at which I pipe up theatrically that it’s dinner time, and then I immediately say no problem, and I bend over the teabag and pretend to cross out the wording on the wrapper and write something else and am like, “English DINNER tea,” to her great amusement.

3) A table of four (older) (white) (townie) folks are quite amused when I return with their beverages and ask them if they need anything else right now, like does anyone wants any “nibblers” (appetizers).

4) A major branded petroleum company is having a dinner for undergraduate STEM majors looking to enter that industry or who have done or who are doing internships with them or whatever, and it’s like 12 people, like 3-4 execs and the rest students.

And, my stomach sinks when the exec picking up the bill is (South Asian from South Asia).

$225 bill - $0 tip.

Like, wtf? No corporate expense account?

I only noticed it when I was cleaning up their table after they were gone, too…  We don’t do autograts for tables, no matter the size, though we used to autograt 6 or more at the (Thai) restaurant that I used to work at.