A man and his wife went to an upscale steakhouse Ruth’s Chris for date night and eavesdropped on the table next to them. He quickly realized that the woman was trying to scheme her way into a free steak.
Dr. Brady Smith (@drbradysmith) wears scrubs in a video with over 113,000 views, recounting the bizarre situation from the week before. He admits that he’s “no expert in restaurant etiquette” but questions the behavior of the woman sitting next to him.
He first noticed that the woman ordered a blue cheese house salad with the blue cheese dressing and blue cheese crumbles on the side. However, she made a strange request.
“She says she wants the crumbles on the side. But she also wants the crumbles and the dressing on the salad,” Smith recounts. “She explains to the waiter, ‘I want that done so that I don’t have to pay for the blue cheese crumble add-on.'”
He notes the add-on costs around $8.
The Steak Arrives
The woman’s odd behavior continued when she received her steak.
Smith saw the steak arrived well-done and admitted that he didn’t hear what temperature she ordered. The woman quickly flagged the waiter over and claimed she isn’t happy with the steak.
The waiter offered to make her a new one, but she claimed she’s seeing a show later and doesn’t have time to wait. Instead, she asked the waiter to remove it from her bill.
“Then, she gobbled up the whole steak,” Smith says. “Like, with delight…In my world, I want to pay full price for the steak and have everyone around me like me. She wants the opposite.”
In an Instagram direct message to BroBible, Smith says the server “maintained professionalism.”
“I think he was more visibly annoyed or confused by the blue cheese situation,” he writes. “The woman seemed like this was not her first time doing this.”
Can Customers Still Eat Food After They Take It Off The Bill?
It could be considered theft if the woman eats her meal without paying. However, if Ruth’s Chris agreed to take the steak off the bill and allowed her to finish it, the woman likely wouldn’t face any repercussions.
On the forum platform Quora, restaurant guests discussed the proper etiquette for asking waiters to remove an item from the bill.
“You paid for a service (cooking) and they did it. Poorly, perhaps, but done,” one commenter suggested. “This is why, when the food is not to your liking, you ask to speak to the manager so that you can resolve this. It is usually cheaper for them to rush a new plate of food than to waive the charge.”
Another suggested, “Whether the food is actually eaten, or if you choose to leave it on the plate or stuff it in your underwear, is not a part of the deal. If you order it, you pay for it.”
How Would Other Restaurant Staff Handle This?
In the comments, other restaurant workers explained how they would handle the situation to avoid confusion when the bill arrives.
“As a server/ restaurant manager, I would take the steak if it was going to be removed from her bill. You don’t get to eat it without paying for it,” one wrote.
Another said, “As a server I would have taken the plate as soon as she asked for it to be taken off the bill.”
“When she complained about the steak it should have been removed and taken off of her bill, not left for her to eat. Also if she ate it, she pays for it,” a third suggested.
Others sympathized with the Ruth’s Chris server who had to deal with the woman’s bizarre requests.
A commenter said, “This makes me sad for the server who undeniably did their job. And probably got a much lower tip if any at all.”
“Then the server gets tipped on a lower dollar amount, which is not fair,” a second wrote.
@drbradysmith Servers…weigh in here please.
BroBible reached out to Ruth’s Chris via email for further comment. We will update the story when they reply.