Woman Defends Family’s Decision Not to Tip Waitress After Dinner They’re Served Is ‘Not What We Ordered’

A TikTok video about the situation has amassed more than 2.7 million views on social media

A woman on TikTok is going viral after explaining why her family chose not to tip their server while dining at the Hard Rock Casino in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In the video, posted on March 29 and now viewed more than 2.7 million times, TikToker Jenna Simpson (@jjsimp_) shares that she and her family were eating at the franchise’s restaurant when the incident occurred.

She and her mom ordered espresso martinis to start, and for the main course, Simpson chose a steak salad. Her mom originally planned to order the $26 chicken fajitas, but after looking at the photo on the menu, decided the portion seemed too large. After discussing it with her husband, they opted to split the fajitas and added a side Caesar salad for him.

“They say to our server, ‘Wow, that’s a ton of food. Is that enough for both of us?’ ” Simpson says in the video. “She says, ‘Yes, definitely. It’s a ton of food.’ “

As time passed, Simpson and her mom began to worry about their drinks, which still hadn’t arrived. They flagged down the server to ask for an update on both their meals and cocktails. According to Simpson, the server’s reaction made it clear she had forgotten to place the order.

“She’s like, ‘Oh, they had to reset the espresso machine, so it’ll be out soon,’ ” Simpson adds, noting that she saw the server rush over to finally put in the order.

But things only got worse when the fajitas arrived, and the family noticed the dish looked noticeably different from the photo on the menu. Simpson also points out that her dad never received his Caesar salad.

“This was my parents’ ‘ton-of-food fajita,’ ” Simpson says in the video, holding up a photo she took of the meal. “My parents are like, ‘Hey, so like, this is not what we ordered. You said it would be a ton of food. You said it would be like the picture. This is not like the picture at all.’ ”

She adds that shortly after the meal was delivered, her parents called the server over to explain what had gone wrong. However, according to Simpson, the conversation became heated, and the server brought over a manager. As the situation escalated, Simpson says the manager began yelling and talking over them — leading to a second manager being called in.

“Everyone in the bar area is like, turning like, open-mouth, staring at us,” she says.

As a result of everything that happened, Simpson says in the video that her family decided not to tip their server.

“If it wasn’t for the rudeness of the first manager, we probably would have given the server a couple dollars, but we didn’t, because the manager was insane and out of line and should not be managing anything,” Simpson says. “What would you have done in our situation? Would you have tipped?”

PEOPLE reached out to Simpson for comment.

Since posting, more than 7,400 people have chimed in with their thoughts, sharing what they would have done in a similar situation.

“Can we normalize not tipping bad service? 🙄,” one user wrote.

“Ex-server here, you are 100% in the right lmaoo,” another person commented.

Someone else added, “That is literally the smallest fajita I’ve ever seen.”

On April 8, Simpson took to her social media again to share an update. She explained in a follow-up TikTok that since posting the original video, Hard Rock Cafe had reached out and offered her family a complimentary dinner at the property’s steakhouse as an apology.

She also noted that the vice president she spoke with said there would be internal conversations with the staff moving forward.

“They did reach out to me almost immediately,” Simpson says in the video. “It was very quick. He was very apologetic.”

In a statement to PEOPLE, a representative for Hard Rock says, “As soon as the Hard Rock Casino Cincinnati team learned about this Tik Tok video, they reached out to the guest to offer an apology and invite back as part of service recovery. The interaction does not reflect Hard Rock brand standards, Ms. Simpson confirmed this in the conversation when she was invited back as she has visited us before. We remain committed to delivering the exceptional service that our guests have come to expect from us and look forward to welcoming Ms. Simpson and her family again.”