Woman Asks Restaurant to Remake Her Cheeseburger. Then Finds Her Wallet and Keys Gone After Staff Clear the Table: ‘Am I Being a Karen?’
She just wanted a cheeseburger with no mustard.
TikTok content creator Katie (@shmates) just wanted to eat her plain cheeseburger during trivia night at a restaurant. However, her dining experience allegedly concluded with her food, wallet, and keys missing when she returned to her table, and wondering if she was a “Karen” for wanting a refund.
“Please tell me if I’m being a Karen because I don’t want to be a Karen. But I feel like I deserve my money back, but maybe I’m entitled. Please let me know,” Katie said in her video. According to Katie, she had previously visited the restaurant she went to and ordered a plain cheeseburger with “nothing on it,” only for her to receive her burger with mustard on it.
“But it was the end of the night, and I was like, okay. It’s fine. Ate what I could and then I got really ugh about it,” Katie said. On Katie’s next visit, the Texas-based creator claimed she ordered the same food and reiterated that she wanted it “plain, nothing else on it, but cheese.” However, Katie’s burger came with mustard on it again.
Katie packed her leftover food to take home
“Eventually it came. I took a couple of bites. It has mustard in it,” Katie said. Unlike her previous visit, Katie decided to ask for her burger to be remade when someone in her group flagged down a server for her. “I’m like, ‘Hey, I actually ordered this plain. Could you possibly, like, remake it? I’m so sorry, but it has mustard in it,’” Katie said.
Katie, who described herself as a “pushover,” told viewers that she didn’t want to cause a scene at the restaurant and even seemed reluctant to make requests to the server in the first place. But on the other hand, she also wanted to receive the order she paid for.
According to Katie, she was only able to eat about 25% of the new burger after getting full from the fries on her first plate, and she decided to pack away the remaining food to take home. But it seemed Katie’s eventful night out wasn’t done yet.
Katie said that her group had won during the restaurant’s trivia night, and that they had to step away from their table to take a photo. Although Katie knew leaving her items on the table was risky, she argued that the picture would only take a few seconds, so she left her packed food, sunglasses, wallet, and keys on the tray. But when she returned, she found their table wiped clean and her belongings missing.
“And so the lady is by the bar, and people are, like, checking out. And I’m, like, ‘Hey, ya’ll took my tray that also had my sunglasses, my wallet, my keys,’” Katie recalled saying. Katie claimed the server acknowledged they took her items when they cleaned their table. But rather than apologize or immediately fix the mistake, the server told her to pay for her food.
Katie wonders if she’s a Karen
Katie was eventually able to get her belongings back after asking, but was told her food was gone. “I didn’t want to make a scene. And now I regret not making a scene, because that’s $18 just down the drain,” Katie said. “And I’m a little pissed off right now.”
Katie said she tried contacting the restaurant to ask for a refund, only for her calls not to go through. She then asked viewers for their opinion on the situation: “A, am I being a Karen? B, what is the next piece of action? C, we won trivia. $4 a person. Yay.”
Viewers reassured Katie that she wasn’t being a Karen for wanting the food she paid for. Some even emphasized her reluctance as a behavior not befitting a Karen: “Hey so, Karens don’t worry about being a Karen. Right there you know you are not being a Karen.”
Viewers were also divided on what ordering “plain” really meant. Some argued that “plain means plain” and was should have been enough for her to not get any condiments added. However, others insisted that Katie should have asked for her burger to be “dry.”
“As a former server, you need to order your burger plain and dry. Plain means no toppings, dry means no condiments. This should clear up any confusion in the future,” one comment read. “Do not let these people in the comments gaslight you into thinking you need to say ‘dry’. That’s not a thing. Plain means plain,” another argued.
In a quick update, Katie said she received a full refund. However, it does seem like Katie’s best course of action is to be more specific with the mustard in the future, as the debate over “plain” and “dry” isn’t ending any time soon.
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