‘I work in a restaurant – there’s a bill trick we use if we want you to leave’

A restaurant waitress has revealed there is an easy way to know whether your server wants you to leave as soon as possible – and the secret is in the bill

Working in a restaurant can be tiring, especially if you’re dealing with demanding customers that make your job even harder than it needs to be.

One waitress has now revealed there’s actually a trick servers use when they’re dealing with a table of customers they’re not fond of – and it could help you figure out if you’re the problem when you go out for a meal.

The restaurant worker posted a viral video on TikTok in which she said that she prints off the bill in advance for tables that she wants to see leave the venue quickly, rather than waiting for them to ask for it.

Usually, when you ask for the bill in a restaurant, your server will head off to their computer to print it off and bring it back to you – but if they pull it out of their pocket as soon as you ask for it, then they might be hinting at you to hurry up and leave.

The waitress, who posts under the username @tastyriah, shared a video of herself holding up a receipt and wrote: “[When customers say] ‘can I get the cheque’ but I pull it out of my pocket because I’ve been waiting for you to gtfo [get the f**k out] of my section.”

Many of the commenters on the video were also restaurant workers who agreed that they use the same trick to try and push certain customers into leaving quickly – even though it commonly comes with them telling the table to pay “whenever they’re ready” and that there’s “no rush”.

One person said: “I will just leave this here whenever you are ready. Sets it closer to the man so he knows he gotta pay.”

While another added: “Me saying no rush when I want them to rush more than they ever have before.”

And a third wrote: “Why do we all say ‘no rush, whenever you’re ready’? We gotta come up with a new hint for them to leave soon!”

But other commenters insisted the situation can also happen the other way around when the customer wants to pay their bill and leave but is being ignored by the staff.

Someone noted: “Goes both ways! When you sit and look at the waitress for 20 minutes with crying kids begging to leave but they don’t bring the cheque.”

There were even comments from some people who claimed they would “order something else” once they’d been given the bill just to be pedantic.

One said: “And that’s when I order something else for fun.”

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