Family Locked In By Restaurant After Refusing To Pay Tip

We've all seen those mandatory gratuities of 17-20% that restaurants tack on the bill if your party gets to a certain size. But what if you decide that the service didn't warrant it?

CNN's Eatocracy reports that a family was locked in by a Houston, Texas restaurant after they refused to pay the mandatory gratuity citing poor service. The staff of La Fisherman barred the group from leaving until they paid. The restaurant eventually called the cops, but according to the article, “the police officer who was summoned was unable to give (the customer) a straight answer on the legality of the situation.” The group eventually paid the tip “in order to avoid any further difficulty.”

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This kind of incident and the posts it inspires are always fodder for passionate discussion on the Internet food boards (the Eatocracy post has so far garnered a thousand comments since they broke the story on Thursday) and I expect this one to be no different. Comment away people! Comment away! What do you think?

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Edwin Goei

Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.

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