The cashier at a Boston pizza shop harshly judged a teen boy for letting his girl companion pay their tab. But the attempted lesson in chivalry backfired, and the restaurant is now dealing with a slew of negative comments.
TikTok user Halftime King of Pizza (@halftimepizza) is a Boston pizzeria located across from the TD Garden. It live streams its operations on Twitch. In a July 31 TikTok clip with more than 200,000 views, an employee, whose name is Justino, serves up slices to a pair of teenagers.
The scene starts out innocently enough. The boy orders the slices and thanks the worker when he receives them. The situation takes a turn, however, when the girl pulls out her phone to pay the bill. Justino looks visibly surprised. “Wow, gentleman,” he sarcastically says.
Pizza Shop Worker Shames Teen For Letting Girlfriend Pay
It’s unclear whether the teens initially understood what was happening. “We’re live on Twitch right now. Say hello to the camera,” Justino says.
The boy offers a friendly “Go birds” in response as the girl completes the transaction. Justino takes a long sip of a Bubly Sparkling Water before making his disapproval more explicit. “You’re live on TV having a girl pay for you,” Justino says.
Finally, understanding he’s being scolded, the boy replies, “Yeah, all right.” The couple turns away with their pizza.
Justino turns back to the camera. “I don’t know,” he says, shrugging. “It’s not how I roll.”
Viewers React To The Pizza Shop Shaming
In the comments section, viewers made it clear that they do not approve of the way the worker treated his teen customer.
“Just serve the pizza, lil bro,” said one commenter.
“Bro thought we’d be on his side,” said a second.
A third person said, “Mans pushing 30 talking down on a teenager relationship.”
Another person said the worker was wrong to make assumptions about the relationship.
“You don’t even know his situation,” they wrote. “Could have been a birthday, a congratulations for something, or she just wanted to pay here and there to chip in. Not gonna lie, this is embarrassing behavior. I hope it’s a skit.”
Someone else predicted, “And you just canceled your entire business.”
A Follow-Up Apology
It appears that the video started to go viral midway through last week. On Friday, Justino posted a follow-up video to apologize. “You know, I want to apologize to them first, and then I wanna apologize to y’all,” he says. “’Cause, like, that’s just not how I want to treat customers that come into the shop. I just want to take full responsibility.”
Justino reveals that he is actually suspended from the restaurant and will take some time off and return as a better person. “I owe you guys that,” he says.
In the comments of the follow-up, some commenters indicated they believe Justino only issued an apology after the restaurant was flooded with negative Yelp reviews in response. Its page does feature an “unusual activity alert,” and reviews are currently disabled.
BroBible contacted Halftime King of Pizza via email for comment.