Four young customers ran up a $375 tab at a California bar and left a $25 tip, then the bar shamed them for it

The Salty Dawg Tavern in Orange, California, is facing social media backlash after publicly calling out a group of customers who left a $25 tip on a $375 tab. As reported by New York Post, the bar posted a photo of the receipt to its Instagram story.

The post was addressed to four young people the bar said it served for hours, claiming the group “spent $400 like a baller and tipped like they were splitting a happy meal.” The receipt showed a total bill of $375.24 with a $25 tip added, while a standard 20% tip would have been closer to $75.

The reaction online was swift and overwhelmingly negative, and the post was deleted after about six hours. A screenshot of it made its way to Reddit, where it gathered nearly 10,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments.

Reddit users had little sympathy for the bar

Many users took issue with a business publicly shaming its patrons. One commenter said the business “should be happy people are spending money at their establishment.”

The pushback against the tavern is part of a broader conversation about expectations in the service industry. In California, Labor Code Section 351 makes it illegal for employers to make wage deductions from tips or to use tips as a credit toward the minimum wage.

This means restaurant and bar workers in California are entitled to the full minimum wage before any gratuities are factored in. Because of this, some people argue that the pressure to tip as heavily as in states with lower base wages for servers is misplaced.

Despite these protections, California has recently been labeled as home to some of the lowest tippers in the country. Data from restaurant tech company Toast suggests Californians leave an average tip of 17.1% per transaction, below the 20% mark often considered standard in many parts of the United States.

The law also states that tips are the sole property of the employee. Employers cannot share in these tips or deduct credit card processing fees from them. In cases of tip pooling, the money can only go to employees who provide direct service or are in the chain of service.

Many users felt that turning a private transaction into a public post was unprofessional. One Reddit user wrote that the bar was “basically posting to social media that they don’t appreciate their customers.”