Earlier this week, a waitress from St. Louis posted a receipt online. The pastor who signed it had crossed out the automatic 18% tip for large parties, replaced it with a zero, and wrote, quote, "I give God 10%, why do you get 18%?"
The story went viral, and the Internet was able to connect the dots on the restaurant, the waitress, and the pastor. Here's the fallout.
The restaurant was Applebee's. The pastor is 37-year-old Alois Bell, who leads the Truth In the Word Deliverance Ministries, which is a small, 15-member church in St. Louis. She says she DOES have another full-time job, and DOES tithe 10%.
And she has apologized. Quote, "It was a lapse in my character and judgment. My heart is really broken. I've brought embarrassment to my church and ministry."
She also says she left $6 in cash on the table, which covered the 18% tip on her bill of $34.93. She wrote the zero on the receipt where it said ADDITIONAL tip, under the automatic 18%. Which the restaurant charged her card anyway.
So, if you believe she left the six bucks in cash on the table, she actually ended up OVER-TIPPING.
The waitress who posted the receipt turned out to be a woman named Chelsea Welch. Although she's not the waitress who actually waited on the pastor. And according to an Applebee's spokesman, Chelsea has been FIRED.
Chelsea says she just posted it as, quote, "a lighthearted joke." Except she forgot to take off Alois' signature. So Applebee's has apologized to Alois for violating her, quote, "right to privacy."
Chelsea says she's surprised she got fired, because there was nothing in the employee handbook about publishing receipts online and, quote, "If this person wrote the note, obviously they wanted it to be seen."
Here are photos of the pastor, the waitress who got fired, and the receipt.
