A Dallas woman who woke up in a cold sweat after realizing she had severely under-tipped her waiter on a massive bill decided she simply couldn’t live with the guilt, forcing her to drive straight back to the restaurant to fix her error. The woman, TikTok creator Sarah Barthel, shared the story of her embarrassing mistake, explaining that after accidentally tipping just 10% instead of her standard 20%, she felt compelled to hand-deliver the rest of the money the next morning.
Barthel, who uses the handle @sarah_barthel online, admitted in her video that she felt deeply uncomfortable about the whole situation. She said she was “so embarrassed” about what happened the previous night when she went out to dinner with friends. Since she was the one who put the entire check on her card, the tipping responsibility fell to her. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she recalled, realizing she signed the receipt without thinking clearly. “I tipped this poor man 10%.”
She used to be a server herself, so she knows the hustle and struggle firsthand. She explained that her personal minimum base tip is always 20%, even for standard service. Even if the service goes poorly, she still tips at least 15%, recognizing that delays and hiccups usually have nothing to do with the person waiting on the table.
For Barthel, this wasn’t just a simple mistake; it was a crisis of conscience
This particular night, the bill came out to somewhere between $400 and $500 at a really nice spot. She described her server, Asher, as “the most fabulous server.” He was attentive, cracked jokes, checked in often, and even brought out a complimentary dessert when one of her friends got engaged. I mean, that’s top-tier service right there. “And he got 10%,” she lamented, frustrated with her own oversight. “He was probably like, ‘What did I do wrong?’”
The reality of working in the service industry in the US is harsh. It’s one of the few jobs still covered by federal “tipped employee” laws, which means employers in states like Texas can legally pay servers as little as $2.13 per hour. That’s far below the federal minimum wage of $7.25. The system is built on the expectation that customers will cover the bulk of the wage.
This reliance on customer generosity means that one poorly tipped table, especially one with a bill this large, can really damage a server’s earnings for the whole night. For context, servers in Dallas average around $19.36 an hour, but the estimated living wage in the city is actually closer to $23.06 per hour. Servers rely on every single dollar.
The next morning, the dread set in. “I was like, oh my god, what have I done?” she recounted. She immediately grabbed cash and decided she had to return to the restaurant to give Asher the rest of the money “that he rightfully deserves.” She even called him out by name in her video, apologizing directly: “If your name is Asher and you work at Jack and Harry’s in Dallas, I am so sorry.”
Barthel filmed herself marching into the restaurant “in track pants and Uggs.” After tracking Asher down, she apologized profusely and handed him the cash. “I am so sorry. I was not paying attention,” she told him. “You were a wonderful server.” Back in her car, the absolute relief was palpable. “My conscience, it’s clear now,” she said. She added that Asher told her she didn’t need to come back, but she felt strongly about it. “No, you actually don’t understand,” she insisted. “That was horrible.”
Published: Jan 23, 2026 01:00 pm