Restaurant slammed for making staff ‘pay’ for their mistakes

A restaurant has been forced to apologise after its new rule for staff went viral, with people branding it “wrong”.

the post prompted hundreds of comments when shared on Reddit.

A restaurant has divided the internet after asking its waiters and waitresses to pay if they made any mistakes when taking customer orders.

Taking to Facebook on March 10, The Local Pub and Oyster Bar in Charlottetown, Canada informed their staff members of their new policy: if you take customer orders down wrong, you will have to pay for it.

Stream the news you want, when you want with Flash. 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer ends 31 October, 2022 >

A Facebook post uploaded to The Local Pub & Oyster Bar Staff 2022 page informed staff members of its new policy on taking orders down wrong. Picture: Facebook

A snippet from the business’ post read: “Each individual gets three strikes where we will expect you to cover 50% of the mistake. After 3 we will expect you to cover 100%”.

Employees were informed that they would have to cover 50 per cent for three mistakes that they made per month and if they made any more that same month, they would have to cover 100 per cent of the cost. Picture: Facebook

The backlash

The post was then uploaded to Reddit and opinion was divided.

Some users agreed that the restaurant’s request of its staff was unreasonable, with many saying that asking already underpaid staff to foot the bill for their mistakes was absurd.

The pub was forced to apologise for its stance. Picture: Facebook

But others felt that the bar’s approach would enable employees to improve their attention to detail and listening skills.

One person wrote: “Effective immediately the grace period for servers being human is over. From now on, if a server acts like a human, you will now have to pay for that mistake”.

“Imagine having the balls to tell the people you pay $2.30 an hour to that they have to pay you if they mess up”, another wrote.

A third said: “While I agree with everyone’s thoughts on this whole thing I still wonder to myself how to teach attention to detail. Sooooo many people don’t pay attention and make tons of mistakes, and then fight with you about it. I’m sure you’ve all experienced it (I imagine anyway). Cleaning up after someone’s mistakes because they didn’t take the time to listen, process, and execute. The only place I know that is successful in teaching this is the military. Obviously these managers/owners are wrong. I’m just thinking out loud.”

One Reddit user concurred with the third and commented: “How dare an owner of an establishment expect his employees to perform at a high level. The absurdity”.

The take-down

That same day, the restaurant took down their post and issued a public “apology” on their Facebook page to their staff and customers.

To their staff they said: “While it’s fair to say there are many pressures on new restaurants, and that opening in these crazy times has compounded those pressures, it is unfair to place those burdens on the shoulders of our servers.”

The restaurant continued: “We take full responsibility and will work harder to create a culture you are all proud to be part of”.