Most people don’t expect perfection when they eat at a casual local restaurant.

But after sitting at their table for thirty minutes with no greeting, no water, and no service at all, they felt justified for not tipping.

But when a friend guilted them, it opened up an age-old debate.

Read on for the full story.

AITA for not tipping after waiting 30 minutes with zero service?

So last night I went to this chill restaurant with a friend.

Not a fancy place or anything, just a local spot we’ve been to before.

We got seated fast, so we thought things would move along.

But nope.

The rest of the experience dragged on at a snail’s pace.

First 10 minutes, okay, we figured they were just busy.

But then 15 minutes passed. Then 20.

People who came in after us already had drinks, starters, everything.

We hadn’t even gotten water.

No server came by. Nothing.

They try to remind the staff of their existence, but to no avail.

I tried making eye contact with one of the staff.

Dude saw me and turned away like I was invisible. Bruh.

At around 25 minutes, I asked one staff member politely if we had a server.

They said, “I’ll check,” and just disappeared.

Never came back.

Waited 5 more minutes to be nice. 30 minutes total.

Still no service at all.

Finally, they take a more pointed approach, but the workers still couldn’t be bothered.

So we stood up and walked to the front.

A staff member asked if everything was okay, and I just said, “We’ve been sitting for 30 minutes and no one served us.”

They just went, “Oh. Sorry.”

No explanation. No effort to fix anything.

So finally, it was time to go.

So yeah, I didn’t tip.

I didn’t even get to order anything.

Like what exactly am I supposed to be tipping for?

The table? The good view of other people eating?

The friend had a different opinion, though.

Now my friend said I was being a bit harsh for not tipping anything at all since “they’re probably understaffed,” but bruh, no one even greeted us.

Not even a glass of water.

AITA?

They may not have been expecting perfection, but this restaurant didn’t even try.

Reddit is sure to have some strong opinions on this.

Tipping at this point would basically just be charity.

It wouldn’t even make sense to tip in this instance.

This user would have left a different kind of tip.

Tipping for bad service is like rewarding bad behavior.

You can’t tip for service you never received.

They didn’t skip the tip to be rude — they just matched the energy.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.