WTH? (Why the Hate?) Restaurant Staff Calls Guest X Gordo on Receipt

One Arkansas woman got a little something extra with her dinner at a local Mexican restaurant: a heaping helping of derogatory remarks.

According to Eater and KARK, at the end of their dinner at one of their favorite local spots, Rebecca Rummerfield and her boyfriend got a nasty note on their receipt: it read “X Gordo” and their table number. That’s right, her server labeled their table “extra fat”.

When Rummerfield, who says she eats at the restaurant a few times per week, confronted the manager, he blamed it on a mistaken tab (as if insulting another customer would be any more acceptable). When Rummerfield bravely confronted the bartender, he shamelessly admitted that it was their tab and he meant every word of his nasty comment.

The bartender was fired, which we suppose is a small victory, and the manager says he apologized, but Rummerfield isn’t sure she’ll go back. And why should she?

Can women do literally nothing – even going out to dinner for a meal with friends – without being objectified? 

This isn’t the first time a female customer has been body shamed by restaurant staff. In 2012, Gizmodo.com documented a spate of these types of receipts, illuminating what some suggested was a longstanding but unspoken tension between restaurant staff and guests. Since then, a firestorm of unsavory Twitter fights and Yelp reviews wherein chefs and customers engage in something akin to an online death match, have ensued.

Before Google and food apps and “I’ll make sure none of my followers ever eat here again,” guests and restaurant staff had to duke it out in person. And while it might have been uncomfortable if you were the poor sap seated next to the angry guest, the ill will at least ended there. Thanks to the interweb, today’s complaints live on in perpetuity, which is likely part of what’s contributing to all of the hostility between patrons and staff.  

In the case of the X Gordo incident, I’m left to think this bartender has nothing better on his to-do list (and no bigger brain) than to bite the hand that feeds him. And to the guests who psycho-rant on TripAdvisor and Facebook and I’macrybaby.com: a) get a life, and b) don’t be a coward. If you have something nasty to say, do it without hiding behind a cartoon avatar.

Seriously, folks: Can’t we all just get along?