Lawyer leaves €4,100 tip for Marbella restaurant

A BUSINESSMAN from Catalunya left a tip of nearly €4,100 at Marbella's Playa Padre Restaurant as redress for criticism he had seen on social media.

Lawyer Raúl Castañeda says he had spotted a complaint – which had gone viral – by a customer called Enrique who uploaded a photo of his receipt.

Enrique said it was unfair that the restaurant should apply a 'service charge' to the bill when he and his group had spent a total of €3,727 in one hit.

With the €371 'service charge', the full amount came to €4,098.

In response, Raúl called Restaurante Playa Padre and asked to book the same table, number 17, for six people – the same number as Enrique's group.

After the meal, he requested that the service charge added should be the same amount as Enrique's total bill, or €4,098.

This meant Raúl and company ended up paying €8,179.

And he had travelled specially from Barcelona to the Costa del Sol for the restaurant visit 'so I was able to do this for the waiting staff', he said.

“Taking into account that there are about 15 table staff at the restaurant, each and every one of them will have taken home €270 a head in tips from our table alone,” Raúl explains.

He then uploaded a photo of the receipt on Instagram (shown above), tagged the original complaining customer, and added the caption: “The same amount that you bragged about paying for a meal, I'm now bragging about having left as a tip, for the very same waiting staff you got annoyed with (by the way, great service),” he concluded.

The courses ordered by both table 17 customers ranged from around €18 to €28 each, included a mojito cocktail at €16, and a kilo of pork chops at €120 – but the bulk of the four-figure sum, on each occasion, was the choice of drink: Both Enrique's and Raúl's groups ordered three magnum bottles of Dom Perignon champagne, each of which cost €1,000, or a total of €3,000 on the bubbly alone.