Remember that cheap pastor who wrote a note on her Applebee’s receipt that went viral after it was posted to Reddit? That piece of paper continues to make headlines a week later.
The Applebee’s Reddit saga continues as one guy did a little bit more than angry post on Facebook by typing up a letter, going to Applebee’s, and encouraging his waitress to post it to the Internet herself. In the letter, he chastised the restaurant for their “deplorable and apalling” actions taken in the aftermath of the receipt going viral.
Here’s the letter:
This letter has gotten over 500,000 views so far. That number may soon compare to the over 2 million views that the posting of the receipt received.
So the original story went like this. After seeing the automatic 18% gratuity added to her bill for large parties, Pastor Alois Bell wrote on her receipt “I give God 10%, why do you get 18?” A waitress at Applebee’s, Chelsea Welch, posted a picture of the receipt to Reddit under the headline “My mistake sir, I’m sure Jesus will pay for my rent and groceries.” Good one.
Welch was fired, and the Internet went nuts.
Applebee’s tried to explain their actions on the Facebook page, and the response was pretty negative, to say the least. Thousands of people posted their outrage and Applebee’s social media team was in way over their heads, trying to respond to every comment first by cutting and pasting the corporate policy statement, and then just disabling the wall completely.
Applebees’ spokesman Dan Smith told NBC News that “Obviously, this was a learning experience for us.” I’m sure the Internet will be satisfied with that response.