Ice cream shop worker gets $100 tip — and is fired, MN parents say. Business responds

A Minnesota ice cream shop has responded to allegations a longtime employee was fired after a customer left her a $100 tip.

The Monday, April 29, response by The Freez in Moorhead, Minnesota, comes a day after a Facebook post by Seth and Lisa Swenson went viral on Facebook.

In their post, the Swensons say their daughter was fired April 25 — a day after receiving a warning about an April 22 incident.

“She was recently let go because of a generous tip that a customer left for her,” the Swensons, who said the daughter had worked at the shop for five seasons, said in the post. “Our daughter was offered a $100 tip and told the customer she couldn’t accept it. The customer put $100 in the tip jar and drove away. At the end of her shift, our daughter’s employer was upset and accused our daughter of ‘taking’ $100 from a customer.”

According to the written notice, which the parents shared on Facebook, the employer said some elderly customers may deal with illnesses “that make it hard for them to understand their actions.”

“No one in their right frame of mind tips $100 at a place where every menu item is under $12,” the notice read.

The Swensons say the shop has a policy that they cannot accept bills of more than $20 for payment. But the parents say the policy did not apply to tips.

The parents’ post has more than 1,000 shares and 185 comments as of Tuesday morning, many from people taking the worker’s side.

Commenters called the alleged firing “dumb” and “unacceptable.”

“This is not right,” one person said.

But in its response, The Freez said “there’s more to the story.” The shop said it did not fire the worker for accepting a tip.

“We won’t go into details, it’s a personal matter,” the shop said in a Facebook post. “However, we believe that if parents are posting for an adult child — they haven’t asked the right questions of their adult daughter.”

The owner of the shop said it has been bullied since the Swensons made their post. The shop has a 1.7 rating out of 5 on Facebook, with a large portion of its more than 1,100 ratings as of Tuesday being in response to the alleged firing.