Waitress Berates Customers Celebrating 5yo Boy’s Birthday for Bringing Their Own Cake to the Establishment Despite Allegedly Spending $250
A video that shows a waitress yelling at a group of customers who brought their own cake to a Jersey Shore Pizzeria has gone viral online. The incident, which occurred at Joey Tomato’s on Saturday, has since seen the establishment face a great deal of backlash online.
Hospitality work can be a headache, but in this case the internet seems to have sided with the customers. The group had apparently already spent $250 at the restaurant, according to the original poster. They had been celebrating a child’s birthday and had brought their own cake to the event; however, things turned sour after they asked a waitress for a knife to cut the cake.
In the clip, the waitress can be heard shouting, “So what if I come to your house with my kids and my cake?” as she seemingly tries to draw a comparison between the group bringing their own cake to her restaurant and her showing up to their home. “You don’t just walk into a restaurant and do whatever you want,” she tells the customers. She also labeled their request “inappropriate.”
The clip was initially posted to TikTok by Tom Jurkowski, who is the founder of the New Jersey nostalgia social media page. He claimed he was there with the group to celebrate his nephew’s fifth birthday. In the caption, he wrote, “After eating, we asked for a knife to cut the cake (we offered to pay any additional fees) and this was the owner’s reaction… this was the craziest thing I’ve ever experienced.”
Joey Tomato’s faces backlash
The waitress recorded by Jurkowski was later identified as Doreen Sullivan-Karcich by Patch. It turned out that she wasn’t just a waitress, but also the owner of the establishment. On TikTok, commenters took the opportunity to weigh in with their own opinions on the establishment. “The staff is always rude and miserable,” one commenter claimed.
They say all publicity is good publicity, but in this case, the overwhelmingly negative backlash against the restaurant seems to have only done harm to their reputation. Others online criticized the restaurant’s prices, while a few pointed to the chemical cleaning products that appeared to have been left out next to one of the tables.
Jurkowski also said that he had contacted the restaurant beforehand to check whether bringing the cake would be allowed. He claimed, “The person on the phone said it was ok,” only for Karcich to later berate them for it.
Jurkowski’s relatively large following resulted in the video gaining a great deal of traction online. It spread quickly, being shared on other social media platforms such as X, and soon enough people were leaving negative reviews. The restaurant’s Yelp page has even blocked the site due to unusual activity, demonstrating how badly the publicity has affected their reputation.
(Featured image: Vintage.NewJersey, TikTok)
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