Restaurant Server Sparks Debate After Calling Out Instagram Food Influencer Who Left 'Really Bad Tip'

Instagram food influencer Asia White, who often describes herself as "foodie, bougie, and opinionated," shared an unflinching reaction to her visit to Ètra, a small and quaint Italian restaurant in East Hollywood—and her followers have thoughts about it.

White visited the restaurant and sat at a table up against a wall toward the back of the restaurant, where she rated the atmosphere, the food, and the staff.

In the caption of the video, White referenced a "rubric" that she's using for scoring restaurants. She asked her followers:

"How y'all feeling about the rubric? Did I miss any categories? Let me know [something]!"

"Also, branzino girlies should definitely pull up. I wanna know if it's really that good or if I'm just gassing it."

"WHERE TO GO NEXT?"

The influencer gave the atmosphere a five out of five score for the lighting, warm wood tones, and a place to hang her purse, while she gave the staff a four out of five, and the food a three out of five for not really being food that she would want to come back and eat again.

You can see her video review here:

While restaurant and food review videos often receive a lot of positive feedback, with people commenting on how much they'd like to go there, or how informative the review was, this video's comment section went in a different direction when one of the servers at Ètra chimed in.

They noted that while her scoring for the staff and restaurant were high, she'd left a questionably low tip.

The server, who chimed in as @punkyjsobel on Instagram, inquired:

"Respectfully, I'm wondering what was missing for you service wise? You had some kind words for us as a staff here, but you left us a really bad tip."

The influencer justified her tip because of "overpriced food" and also noted that she'd have to choose between more food or wine and a larger tip.

The server understood but continued to argue for herself and her fellow staff members, responding:

"I get it. The cost of dining out is getting outrageous these days, and while as a staff we don't make the prices on the menu, I know that things are priced in good faith as needed for a small restaurant like ours to survive in a [very] rough economy."

"The tip is the part that us servers, host, support, and kitchen staff rely on for our own individual livelihoods, though. While business owners have the luxury of setting a fixed price to get by, we don't."

"So it's always disheartening when the tip is where diners are quick to cut a corner."

You can see the interaction here:

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

It's often considered in poor taste for restaurants, authors, and producers to chime in when a poor review of their product comes in, but the viewers on White's video saw this as something else: questionable tipping etiquette as opposed to rating an experience.

Some were on White's side and used this as an example for why they don't like to tip or tip well.

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

But most argued for tipping servers fairly and to not dine out if tipping is too expensive.

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

There's a whole discourse around tipping culture and whether or not it's fair or realistic to expect consumers to pay for their meals and also pay extra, just to make sure that servers and their fellow staff can pay their bills.

But in the meantime, this social media influencer has been influenced to give better tips.

  @thefoodieb***h/Instagram

It's understandable that dining out—and even just buying groceries—is atrociously expensive right now, and it's hard to buy and pay for everything that we need.

But while tipping culture is still a thing, servers and staff should not suffer because of the economic climate. If you want to dine out, order appropriately so that you can still support those who served you.