Time is of the essence, right? Because even when you’re young, the unspoken rule is: Don’t waste other people’s time. Because really, there are few annoyances worse than waiting with no end in sight.
TikTok user Ambs (@ambers_clubhouse) posted a video about a recent, excruciating Cheesecake Factory dining experience. It was so bad that it caused many of the 2.1 million viewers to take her side.
Hurry Up And Wait
Behind text that says, “We’ve been at Cheesecake Factory for two hours and the waitress still hasn’t been back so we can leave,” the camera pans over the table. The meal is clearly over. The cheesecake is eaten, and the butter sits half-mangled in its dish.
The two young women who are dining seem more bored-amused than over-it angry. But any way you slice it, two hours is a long time to (allegedly) wait for a server to come back around.
Dine And Dash O’Clock?
There’s an episode of the mid-2000s cult television show, Supernatural, where the demon character Crowley redesigns Hell to be more “efficient.” His solution? Instead of being tortured in Hell-fire tormented souls are forced to wait in endless, long lines. Hell indeed.
Suffice to say, waiting is not something humans (alive or dead) are good at. The comments back this up, offering a range of “solutions.”
“As a former server I’d just get up and leave. they are holding you hostage so they dont have to get another table. they deserve to have to explain to a manager a table left without paying,” said Earthcloud (@earthcloud9).
“This happened to me at Olive Garden except she brought us our drinks and then just never came back. i [sic] ended up going to the host stand and apparently she had left and didn’t tell anyone she still had a table,” another wrote.
The host stand, it seems, is the place to get help (and get a wayward server in trouble). “Tell the host. They’ll take any chance they can to get back at servers,” advised Megan (@smittywiththekitty).
However, there is one person who reminded Ambs that there are other solutions. “I might be missing something but can’t you just get up yourself and… ask?” another questioned.
How Long To Wait For The Server To Return?
There’s a little bit of the attitude that whatever happens, payment and tip-wise, the server brought it on herself. After all, you can’t just abandon your guests.
Stepping in with reason, Food & Wine suggests that it is probably not intentional when a server seemingly ignores a table. That many things go into running a smooth dining room. If it’s not going well, there’s probably something happening behind the scenes that guests aren’t privy to. “It’s okay to request more attention,” that article says.
But, the r/EndTipping subreddit is where the really creative solutions can be found. A Redditor says that they once were sitting a restaurant waiting for so long, they ended up calling the front desk and asking for service. Another user said that at a pub, after they’d waited 45 minutes for the server to come take their order, they just placed an online order. “When the food was ready for delivery, the waitress looked at the food order, saw my name and brought it to me,” they shared.
John Robertson, a Quora user tried the same tactic. And in addition to getting served by the manager, his meal got comped.
The Question Remains
However, the question does linger: In Ambs’ situation, is a walkout the solution? While the ethics of a walk-out are dubious, multiple online forums (NikeTalk, r/LegalAdviceOffTopic, and Quora) agree that after excessive time, the walk-out isn’t the end of the world.
A few concerned users even wonder about the impact on servers. Specifically, if the stiffed server could be forced to cover the cost of the meal. But according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the answer is no. It’s illegal to make an employee pay for a walk-out table.
Even it takes time to read through the Cheesecake Factory menu-binder, it probably doesn’t take two hours.
BroBible reached out to Cheesecake Factory via their press email and to Ambs via TikTok direct message and with a comment on the video. We will update this article if they get back to us.