Personally, I have no great faith in “references.” After all, what is someone who was specifically asked to be a reference, going to say about the boy or girl, except for the nicest of things? Granted, they might be worthy of those nice words, but you will learn nothing else.
TBT, your story is very telling (no pun intended). My husband and I, (and now our children), never leave a mess on our restaurant table. Sometimes we cannot actually clean everything up, but when we can, we do, and when we cannot, we leave the table as neatly as possible for the waiter or busboy to take care of it.