A Virginia restaurant is facing backlash after it appeared to mock a teenager online for paying for a meal with coins.
On Monday, Cohen Naulty treated a few friends to lunch at the Beer 88 restaurant in Lynchburg, Va. with the tip money he earned working as a server at Country Kitchen. After the meal, the 17-year-old paid the US$45 bill with a $20 bill and mostly coins and left a $10 tip.
To his surprise, Beer 88 uploaded a photo of the change he left on the table to their Facebook page with a caption that read: “We’ll just caption this... How not to pay at a restaurant. Cause that’s the nicest thing we can think to say about this ridiculousness."
The post, which has since been deleted, included a number of hashtags such as, #nohometraining, #atleasttheyleftatip, and #workingwiththepublic.
Naulty said he and his friends couldn’t believe the restaurant would shame him on social media.
“It’s just U.S. currency,” he told local news station WSET on Monday. “I’m allowed to use it. It’s not illegal. I’m not doing anything wrong.”
One of Naulty’s friends said they were particularly offended by the hashtags the restaurant used in the Facebook post.
“They said we didn’t have any home training. That was dirty,” the friend said. “One of their hashtags was #nohometraining.”
The restaurant received some backlash to the post with a number of commenters saying it was uncalled for and some even threatening the establishment. In response to the criticism, Beer 88 posted a follow-up message explaining that the initial post was intended as a joke.
“It was posted in a light-hearted way of saying that something like this can be annoying to people that work in the restaurant/retail industry,” it read. “In no way did we publicly shame ANYONE for paying OR tipping. We try to keep our page funny and relatable. And had no idea that this would be offensive to anyone."
Yao Liu, the owner of Beer 88, told WSET that the restaurant didn’t mean any harm by the post.
“I do apologize because, you know, I didn’t see it [the insult],” she said.
In an effort to turn the story around, Naulty has created a fundraising campaign called “The Quarter Boy” aimed at treating someone to a free meal once a week.
“I decided that I would find restaurants out there that didn’t mind being paid in quarters and treat a patron at least once a week, just to see what this simple act of kindness could do for them!” he wrote on the Facebook page for the campaign.
“We will post videos so that you can see too how big a change just a little “change” can make.”
With files from WSET
The Quarter Boy THE QUARTER BOY·MONDAY, JULY 16, 2018 Took a few friends out to lunch and only had enough to pay for...
Posted by The Quarter Boy on Monday, July 16, 2018
