According to the girls, the bartender. So, he came to Reddit to see if he actually messed up as bad as they seem to think.
NoRefrigerator5790 writes:
I work at a bar/restaurant, this happened a couple of weeks ago on St. Patrick’s Day but my coworkers are giving me shit about it now, because one of the girls involved came back into the bar last night.
So, what had happened was a group of 6 girls came in and asked if they could get free drinks because they were all Irish, I of course told them no, but the whole interaction was good-natured and they were all laughing about it. They sat down at the end of the bar and ordered a few rounds of drinks over the next little while and were pleasant.
Later in the night we got pretty slammed, so one of the girls had to come up to me at the other end of the bar to put in another drink order, and when she did she asked if there was any chance of getting those free drinks now.
I said it was still a no, but told her there was a mispour that she could have if she wanted it. (The other bartender messed up and made a drink the customer didn’t want, so it was up for grabs.)
She said sure thanks and took it with her while I made the rest of the drinks she ordered.
When I brought the drink order over to the group, the other 5 girls were all suddenly very icy with me and didn’t really warm back up to me for the rest of the night.
Since everything was fine up until that point and since the girl who got the mispour was still perfectly pleasant, obviously they were upset because I only gave her a “free drink” when they had all been wanting one.
I feel like one girl was just in the right place at the right time but the other 5 probably feel like I was playing favorites.
I mostly forgot about it but then as I said, last night one of the girls came into the bar again and was giving me dirty looks, which then got everyone talking about what happened. And now we’re all kind of debating whether I fucked up or not so I figured I’d ask here. So AITA?
Here's what Reddit had to say...
NTA (Not the a-hole) - 'Sorry, no free round of drinks but you can have this one for free because it is basically garbage' is not playing favorites.
OP isn't an a-hole for what he did. But I do have a feeling the girl may have fibbed about why she got the free drink, or at least not explained that it was just a drink mixup that was up for grabs.
Either way, bad idea to offer a drink like that to someone in a group. Mostly just because those other people in the group won't be too happy, and unhappy patrons make terrible tippers. NTA.
NTA. Those girls are clearly just entitled and I’m surprised your co-workers are even debating whether or not you messed up. Imo they are the AH. Don’t go to a bar with the assumption that you deserve free drinks from the bartender lol.
NTA and LOL. I find it ridiculous that they got that upset over not getting a free drink and it's even more ridiculous that one went back into the bar at a later day to complain about it.
NAH (No a-holes here). I get why you think you weren't playing favorites or doing anything offside. I also get why the other group of girls feels that you were, in fact, playing favorites and doing something offside.
Even if you were just playing favorites, that's just fine. They're dumb*sses.
Looks like adults are actually allowed to give a drink to whomever you want, no matter who might get jealous. Turns out, real life does not operate by the 'bring enough for the whole class' rule.