A North Carolina bartender has revealed how many customers leave the bar without paying their bill.
Bartender Michelle Kimball posted a viral TikTok video showing off her late night tab at 2:30 a.m. after a busy Saturday night.
Kimball, who has 4.8 million followers on TikTok, shows in the video the huge number of receipts from customers who “walk away.”
“These are the open tabs, the tabs that nobody closed. You’re not going to believe this,” Kimball said.
Then the bartender’s colleague dragged the row of receipts around the large bar.
Bartender Michelle Kimball, who has 4.8 million followers on TikTok, revealed the open tabs
The video showed that at the end of a busy Saturday night, there were still 372 tabs open
“Now I get to go here for all 372 bills and give a 20 percent tip to each bill number,” she explained.
“Luckily, I can do math really quickly,” she joked.
In a separate video, Kimball answered a user’s question about whether bartenders find it annoying when tabs aren’t closed before a customer leaves.
“First of all, no,” Kimball explained, “we appreciate you opening an account.”
‘It takes so much longer if you just have one beer at a time and pay the tab each time instead of opening a tab.
‘Secondly, if you walk up to the bar and it’s so busy that you can’t get the bartender’s attention right away, that means we’re making drinks for other people, which means we’re making money.
‘So if you just leave without paying and you would still give a 20 percent tip, we would be very happy with that.
“It takes a lot less time to shut down at the end of the night and then only add 20 percent,” she added.
Some viewers of the video agreed that it’s helpful to leave an open tab and then count on a 20 percent tip.
“When the bar is busy and I know they’re closing soon with a 20% tip, I feel like I’m doing us both a favor, but correct me if I’m wrong,” one user wrote in the comments.
“It’s actually cheaper for the bar to only swipe your card once. Those swipe fees can kill the business,” another agreed.
While many people like to tip 20 percent, a recent survey found that three-quarters of Americans believe tipping culture has gone too far.
The findings come amid widespread backlash against ‘tip inflation’, a culture that has spread from bars and restaurants to shops, takeaways and even self-service vending machines.
84 percent of respondents to the CouponBirds survey believed the minimum wage should be increased to offset the need for tips.
Across the board, tipping was most common for restaurant service. About 59 percent of consumers said they would tip for dine-in service, while 43.8 percent would do so for food delivery.
This is followed by hair and beauty services, for which 41.1 percent of respondents said they would tip.
About 39.6 percent said they would tip in a taxi, while 36.8 percent said they would tip in a bar.
The least likely place shoppers would tip was at a convenience store or bodega. About 4.9 percent of survey respondents said they would tip in this instance.