A local burger joint, PYT, received a $.20 tip from LeSean McCoy. The place is within walking distance from me so I’m pretty much an expert on this subject matter. Initially news was the below receipt was fake but I would strongly disagree after what you will read below.  (I heard through the grapevine that PYT adds 20% to the bill automatically which would change my perspective entirely on everything).

Shady’s Response:

Asked LeSean McCoy about the restaurant receipt thing. “It’s bull****, man,” he said. Declined request to elaborate.

— Les Bowen (@LesBowen) September 8, 2014

Here is the owner’s response to the situation:

A MESSAGE FROM THE OWNER:

I would like to address the LeSean McCoy tipping situation and our role in it.

For starters, I take total and complete responsibility for sharing this receipt. It was not our server’s decision, it was mine. I am to blame.

I decided to take action after some serious thought. And while I’d like to apologize to Mr McCoy, I cannot in good conscience do so. I stand by my actions one hundred percent.

Mr McCoy and his three companions came into my place on Monday afternoon, and immediately the whole staff was excited. Mr McCoy is a skilled athlete and is one of our beloved Philadelphia Eagles. A true Philly legend and a sports hero. Understandably my staff was really pumped, especially on the heels of they terrific win the day before. (Go Eagles!).

Mr McCoy and his friend sat inside at a booth next to my management and next to me. They were given excellent service. Impeccable service. If anything, our server was a little nervous as was our food runner, because they are big, big fans.

He and his group, from the moment they sat down, were verbally abusive to our staff in the most insulting ways. The derogatory statements about women and their sheer contempt for the staff serving them wasn’t the end, however. After Mr McCoy and his group left I looked over and saw their server, my friend, with his head bowed down and with a very confused look on his face. I took the receipt out of his hand and I couldn’t believe that anyone could be so callous. Mr McCoy had left a .03% tip for our staff. Our staff that was beyond excited to see him walk into our burger joint and was excited to serve him. That’s twenty cents on a tab of over $60. Twenty cents that our server has to split with the food runner and the bartender. Two dimes from an insulting multimillionaire.

I bet Mr McCoy is usually an awesome dude. And everyone has their bad days. But I’m from Philly and have had the pleasure of meeting many of our bad ass sports heroes. Ron Jaworski I met as a kid and I love. Iverson I loved. Mike Schmidt! You name ’em. I love all of our athletes past and present. Hometown heroes who treat those below them with some respect. And maybe Mr McCoy was having a “bad day” after his big victory all that, but the reports of him receiving “bad service” is a complete slanderous lie, and my crew here is better than that and deserves better than that.

At the end of the day, I did what I felt my heart told me to do. And I don’t want anything from Mr McCoy, but…maybe an apology to his server who gave him excellent service would be cool.

Again, I am the owner and I take full responsibility for my actions. Eagles fans, I feel ya. Id be pissed too. But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do and stick up for his friends.

Hate mail should be directed to tommy@pytburger.com. I will respond to you right after I catch up on this mornings hate mail.

Without getting into what the majority of idiots care about 1) LeSean being cheap 2) the owner being a dick for posting something when it should have been a private matter, the real question is:

IS BAD PUBLICITY GOOD PUBLICITY?

Posting this online by the owner is a sneaky move that blew out of proportion.  The owner serviced McCoy properly, got jipped, decided to make a fuss about it online, and now he has thousands of hate mail and publicity that was completely unexpected.  This is by far the one of the cheapest advertising campaigns in history.  I’m not even sure there is much negativity from PYT’s perspective.

• The amount of people who won’t eat there because they are McCoy fans and hate for this to happen to him <5% of Philadelphian’s
• The amount of people who can’t believe an owner would do something like this that won’t forget about it in a week <1% of Philly
• The amount of people who had never heard of PYT before this incident ~thousands upon thousands of potential customers

Bottom line, by making Shady look like an ass, you exposed your business on a scale unthinkable at the time of posting this receipt. Shady should actually getting paid for this publicity.  I guarantee service will be top notch over the next couple days.  I may go by and take a picture just for research.

The best comment:

You guys should make a McCoy burger…  Two dime sized burgers served on a toasty roll.