A waitress at an Olive Garden in Georgia has been fired after receiving a $700 tip, setting off a wave of backlash against the restaurant chain across social media.
The waitress, Brooke Skyes, also known as Kayla Skye Benjamin, was serving a customer when she received the large tip on a $32 check. A handwritten note on the receipt read, “Hey, Brooke. Happy late Mother’s Day. Haven’t seen you in a long time. Glad I was able to stop by. Here is something to help you with your journey. Love and blessings. $700.”
Her mother, Buni Williams, shared details of the incident on Facebook, where it quickly went viral.
According to Buni, a manager told Brooke the tip could not be paid out until it was verified and instructed her to write zero on the tip line in the meantime. Upset and unable to get a clear answer on how long the review would take, Brooke asked a coworker to cover her next table.
Management told her to either do her job or leave. She returned to her tables, completed her shift, and was offered 20% of the tip, amounting to around $6, at the end of the evening. The next morning, she was fired before her shift even began.
Buni described what happened when Brooke arrived that morning: “They tell her while I’m on the phone with her that they’re calling the police and she’s like, ‘Good. Call the police because you’re stealing my money.'”
According to Buni, when police arrived, they felt it may have been a wrongful termination, though they acknowledged Olive Garden’s right to let employees go at will in Georgia.
Olive Garden issued a public statement: “To protect our guests and team members from fraud, we have a policy in place to verify tips over $500 or far above the check amount. When a tip like this is given, the team member immediately receives a 20% tip on the check and the remaining amount is provided once payment is successfully confirmed. In this case, we followed our policy for a tip that exceeded 2,000% on a $32 check and we have verified that the tip amount was declined due to insufficient funds.”
The customer disputed that account in a message to Brooke, stating: “After I seen effing going on, I locked my card in attempt to block the tip from coming out. They updated the original charge of $32 to $38 and some change. So, only a $6 tip. Then tried to charge an entirely separate transaction of $693. That’s not normally how tips come out. So, on top of my card being locked, my bank automatically flagged and declined the charge. I can confirm they did not get the money from me, only about $6.”
Buni continued to post about the incident, calling out Olive Garden. She publicly challenged Olive Garden’s account of the incident, questioning why her daughter was not informed of the tip verification policy at the time it happened. She also raised concerns over the handling of the payment, alleging that multiple transactions were processed in a way that caused confusion for the customer.
Williams further claimed that the situation escalated due to unclear communication from management rather than any wrongdoing on her daughter’s part.
Public anger followed quickly. Commenters on Olive Garden’s TikTok page reported canceling large catering and event orders. Meanwhile, anonymous claims from individuals saying they worked at the same location alleged a more complicated backstory involving prior terminations and repeated conduct issues.
Brooke launched a GoFundMe that raised close to $3,000 as the story continued to spread.
