Waitress Dilemma: Endure Sex Pests or a Crummy Tip

In the restaurant industry, the cultural reckoning over sexual harassment has felled celebrity chefs including Mario Batali and spotlighted pervasive misbehavior by managers and co-workers. But servers and bartenders also face abuse from another front: the millions of Americans who dine out every year and who, because of the custom of tipping, wield outsize influence over one of the largest groups of workers in the country — three million strong, according to federal data.