George Washington Students Are Allegedly Terrible Tippers, Terrible People

In other words, GW has a not totally undeserved rep for being a rich kid's school. Rich in your typical “upper-middle-class suburb” way, and rich in “holy shit, that freshman just hotboxed a Bentley” way. Tuition runs $45,780. Annual student costs with room and board reach close to $60,000 a year. And when the kids go out, they spend money—some bypassing the college bar scene and choosing instead to hit up nightclubs like Josephine, Shadowroom, and Opera, spending up to 5 grand on a table and bottle service. It's all known for being kind of absurd.

Which is why this particular story is hilarious: On Reddit yesterday, a furious friend of a D.C. restaurant owner went full Drew Brees' waiter on the Colonials, claiming they are the cheapest kids and worst tippers that he/she has ever seen. The story was picked up by In the Capital, and a district-based friend forwarded it to me. It reads like something Borat may have written, but still seems kind of valid:

[The restaurant owner] goes on to say the students are just horrible people and don’t tip, they are extremely dramatic. I laughed at her because I could not believe it was awful as she described and she might be sensationalizing this.

She goes on to tell me that restaurants in this area are also suffering, they can’t keep wait staff and they can’t deal with the students antics. The wait staffs are making no money and compared to her other restaurants is a very large decrease in tips.

So recently I decided to spend an evening at both restaurants. I sat with her near the wait station where we would drink and she would show me checks from these students, apparently it’s extremely easy to tell because they have a university food card they can swipe to pay for meals.

She told me two things will happen tonight. The first is the average tip on 30-50$ from a GW student will be $1.80 and under. The second will be something dramatic will happen related to a student.

So we sit and wait. As we sit the owner suggest we play a drinking game and anytime a check student comes in and pays like she describe we drink, I was drunk by 8pm. Before the wait staff would process payment for the checks I would look at total and tip, $38.50 meal – tip $1.50. Second one comes $24 meal tip $1.60. Third one $15 meal – tip 0. (no tip) this was basically the whole night. I asked the delivery driver how much he made, apparently they last two deliveries were on him, no tip.

Moving on we walk several blocks to the other side of campus to her other restaurant.

This time we sat at the bar and watched. Same average, but this time because of the position of the restaurant it was mixed in with tourist, which you could easily differentiate between the students. The tips were the same as the GW students tippled less the 5% and the tourist made up for it at this location. So having a little buzz and sitting at the bar I noticed a cute blond girl dressed up and ready to party she was a GW student and she was not putting up with her waitress.

I was in for a treat! Tonight I get a firsthand seat to witness something dramatic.

So this is how it went down. The waitress brought this girl her meal. She told the waitress that there was not enough meat in it, send it back. She took the food back and added meat. The waitress walked by her table four times and asked if everything is OK, the girl replied yes all four times.

At the end and after she finished her meal she told the waitress that she is not going to pay because it was under cook and she doesn't have to. The waitress asked why didn't she let her know before hand and why did she wait until now? Her reply was “I was hungry and needed to eat!” I with a little buzz suggested we call the cops.

The girl gets up and runs for the door. Her party looked at her like this is normal. She is outside and already walking up the block. So the waitress walks out and stops her. She said since you’re too cheap to purchase your meal, I will buy it for you. I will pay for your meal, have a good night. The blond girl laughs cracks a smirk and walks off. Her party of douche guys shrugs shoulders and also walks off. I follow the waitress in and before I knew it she had swiped her own credit card and paid for the girl’s meal. I tried to get her to accept a $50 I had but she refused, she just mentioned something about karma.

The rest of the night this waitress is making and average of $1-2 on meals and she already paid for this chick’s dinner… At this point I completely agree with the owner, GW students are extremely cheap.

 

The moral of the story? If you've got a university card, don't be a douche. Tip well. For good or bad, there's always someone out there to blast you online.

[H/T: In the Capital]