America’s Top Restaurant Winner Slaps Diners With Mandatory Tip And Woke Lecture On Receipt

The top-rated restaurant in America (at least according to Food & Wine’s 2025 pick) is now buried under a pile of one-star reviews after deciding to lecture diners on receipts about the supposedly “racist” history of tipping, while auto-adding a non-negotiable 20% service charge to every bill, SFGate reports.

The fury began with a now-deleted Reddit post of the woke note tacked onto receipts at Burdell, the Oakland soul-food spot that’s become a progressive darling with Michelin nods and critical acclaim.

“Tipping in the US has an ugly past, allowing the continuation of underpaid labor,” the receipt lectured. “We don’t like that history. Included on your check is a 20% Service Charge which we use to pay hourly staff a consistent and livable wage, not dependent on archaic tipping customs or chance. No need to add anything else. Thank you!”

Predictably, the internet did what it does best by review-bombing the place on Yelp with complaints about everything from terrible food to claims of hidden fees, despite the restaurant insisting the charge is disclosed on menus and its website. Some diners felt ambushed by the mandatory add-on and the moralizing footnote.

Chef-owner Geoff Davis has since scrambled to find an excuse for all the hate, landing on claiming that mainly non-locals are simply jumping on a culture-war bandwagon.

“Most of the people who left reviews are from outside our region and community,” Davis told SFGate. “They’re using this as a crusade against Oakland, DEI, and the moment that we’re in. People are upset about a lot of things in America right now.”

“It blows my mind that there are so many restaurants that employ this model, and we’ve been doing it for so long with no surprise for the most part,” he added.

Davis previously faced backlash over his sky-high prices, saying that it’s an “uphill fight” to operate a soul-food restaurant because of America’s past, according to SFGate.

“It is what it is, and as Americans, we have to understand that racism is part of our core identity as a country. All we can do is do the best work that we can,” Davis told the news outlet.