A seemingly routine brunch service in Nashville has escalated into a full-blown social-media sensation.
Teagan Stewart, 29, recently took to TikTok to deliver an unabashed message to a group of nine women she had just served. Her candid account, detailing an agonizing experience with a notoriously difficult party, quickly resonated with countless service industry workers and patrons alike, exposing the challenges faced by front-line staff.
Stewart told Newsweek about the experience and the unlikely connections that have come from it.
@teaganstewartmusic/TikTok
“This TikTok is for the nine women that I served brunch … to this morning, so if you’re not those nine women, you can keep scrolling,” Stewart began.
She prefaced her account by revealing the party’s notorious reputation within the hotel in which she works. The group had presented a challenge from the start due to their staggered arrival at the restaurant, where Stewart was already managing seven other tables.
Despite the chaos and lack of support—”there’s one server assistant for 21 tables, so I’m not really getting any assistance,” she said—Stewart asserted her flawless service.
“At no time in this entire service did I make a single … mistake, so let’s think about that for a second,” Stewart said in the video. She detailed the group’s slow ordering, the kitchen’s role in food preparation, and their subsequent complaints about cold food and a chilly room, which she denied.
The final straw came with their demands for check splitting. Initially offering to split it three ways due to an automatic gratuity policy for large parties, Stewart was met with increasingly unreasonable requests, culminating in a demand for nine individual checks.
The situation escalated when the head of the table pressured her, despite Stewart’s complex task, and complained that the restaurant was “empty,” which Stewart attributed to the group’s prolonged stay.
Then, the manager, to appease the guests and prevent a bad review, comped their entire meal and offered them free pastries.
‘Treated Like a Wet Doormat’
Stewart said the decision to make the TikTok stemmed from “the intense frustration” she experienced at the group’s treatment and demands of her.
“[I was] treated like a wet doormat after my Herculean efforts, despite all odds, to give them a good meal,” she said. “It was insane to me that they were suddenly having a bad experience over things that they had never voiced earlier.”
Stewart, who has worked in the service industry since 2017, noted that this kind of treatment is common, especially when “management refuses to back you.”
The viral video had significant repercussions, as well. One of the purported guests had written a since-deleted comment on Stewart’s clip. Faced with potential termination from her employer, Stewart preemptively quit.
This incident, however, led to significant positive outcomes for Stewart. Her exit interview ultimately contributed to the food and beverage director of the hotel being fired, a move that was celebrated by former colleagues who had long considered the director “uncaring and incompetent,” Stewart said.
And, beyond the workplace drama, the TikTok went viral with nearly 500,000 likes, propelling Stewart’s follower count from 1,200 to 11,600, leading to her inclusion in the TikTok Creator Fund. She was also invited to appear on a service-industry podcast and has been offered a collaboration opportunity with a country artist to further her music career.
Despite the horrors, Stewart’s taking to TikTok has turned out well for her—and she has left her job with her head held high.
“All I was focused on was getting them out of there with my grace and dignity intact,” she concluded. “Which I indeed pull off.”