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Is Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel A Poor Tipper?

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South Side health food store employees accuses mayor of leaving crappy tips.

Ashok Selvam is the editor of Eater Chicago and a native Chicagoan armed with more than two decades of award-winning journalism. Now covering the world of restaurants and food, his nut graphs are super nutty.

A claim that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel tips poorly isn't exactly designed to...tip the scales toward the incumbent in next month's mayoral runoff. Emanuel allegedly left a 37-cent tip on a $7 drink purchased at a South Side health food store—that translates to 5.3 percent—and it's reportedly not the first time the mayor has left a crappy tip.

A worker at the store posted a photo on Instagram two months ago posing with Emanuel, but that photo is only recently making its rounds now thanks to a report by In These Times. The employee's stoic expression of being jilted heavily contrasts the smiling Emanuel. The report claims the mayor's a habitual poor tipper, and the worker calls him "cheap." Emanuel's visited the store several times, and it's also noted that sometimes Emanuel's security entourage does pick up the slack by leaving larger gratuities.

The worker (who's only identified as "GQ" in the report, yet posts his name as "Albert Griffith" on Instagram) continues on in the report to criticize Emanuel for a variety of reasons including the notion the mayor only cares about North Side neighborhoods.

The Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel came by my job, still can't stand this muthafucka tho

A photo posted by Albert Griffith (@gqthateacha) on