Customers Ask to Settle Their Bill in Private, Then Server Realizes Why

It was like any other busy night at the Seagrape Cafe in Connecticut when waitress Ashley was at the end of her rope. But what happened next was unlike anything she had seen during her three years of bartending. As soon as she gave the receipt to her customer, she felt that something was off.

And when the customer demanded Ashley’s manager Carlos to intervene, that night became a story they would tell for years.

The Seagrape Cafe

The Seagrape Cafe in Fairfield, Connecticut, is a local pub. It was established in 1980. It’s a popular spot for tourists and college kids. But it’s no ordinary bar, and what happened there is no ordinary story.

As Ashley the waitress soon found out, she had no idea what kind of lives her customers lead.

Like Any Other Night

Ashley Latella was working one weekend in December. She’d been waitressing and bartending at the Seagrape for three years. She thought this weekend would be like any other, but she didn’t know what the universe had in store for her.

Serving a Table

She was serving a group of three men. The men were ready to leave, and asked for their check, so Ashley brought it over to them. It came to $112. Surely, that was a hefty bill for one night of drinking, but it shouldn’t amount to any trouble, Ashley thought.

Settle Up

But when the bill came, the men didn’t settle up right away. Rather than handing over their credit card, they did something else. They asked if they could settle the bill privately. The request was unsettling for Ashley, considering that her uneventful shift had left her very tired.