The viral Olive Garden tip controversy has taken another turn after a manager at the Georgia restaurant at the center of the dispute forcefully rejected accusations that a former server was denied a $700 gratuity before being fired.
“Nobody stole her money, OK? Nobody withheld anything from her,” an Olive Garden manager told Atlanta Black Star this week. “Her termination didn’t have anything to do with the credit cards. We never touched their money.”
The comments mark the strongest public response yet from the restaurant following weeks of criticism directed at the Fayetteville location. The dispute began after former server Brook Skyes and her mother, Buni Williams, claimed that a customer left a $700 tip on May 31, only for management to delay payment while the transaction was under review. The situation escalated when Skyes was fired the following day.
But according to the manager, the story being shared online leaves out a key detail: the transaction allegedly failed.
“He needs to have over $500,” the manager said while discussing the restaurant’s review procedures for unusually large gratuities. “The team member would get 20% of the tip, which she did. In this case, [the card] proved to have insufficient funds. So, the restaurant didn’t do anything wrong.”
While Skyes’ family has questioned why the gratuity was never processed, management says the customer’s card simply could not support the charge.
The manager also appeared to challenge another part of the narrative that helped fuel the story's viral spread. Referring to the customer who left the gratuity, he questioned whether the transaction was truly an unexpected act of generosity.
“‘A random gift,’” he said dismissively. “If you read the credit card slip, obviously, they did know each other.”
That claim surfaced as Williams continued to share updates from both the customer and current employees at the restaurant. According to her posts, the customer told the family he initially saw charges of $32 and $38 rather than a $700 tip. After learning about the controversy online, he reportedly froze his card. Williams later claimed he saw an attempted $699 transaction after the card had been locked, which was declined.
Skyes’ family has pointed to the attempted charge as evidence that questions remain unanswered. Management, meanwhile, argues the failed transaction proves the tip was never successfully funded.
The firing itself remains another major point of disagreement.
Williams has said her daughter became upset after receiving conflicting information about how long the tip review would take. One manager allegedly suggested a matter of days, while another reportedly mentioned a review period that could stretch for months. Skyes later called her dismissal “retaliatory” in comments on social media.
The restaurant continues to reject any connection between the tip dispute and her termination, maintaining that the decision was based on conduct unrelated to the payment issue.
