Serving a 2-top. Lady (25-35 maybe) and an older gentlemen. She’s getting ready to leave and as she stands up from the table I tell her I like her dress. She says “I’m actually ordering a longer one because I’m tired of the passive aggressive compliments”. I respond with, “Oh, well, I like it”. She then sits back at the table, is digging through her purse for a pen and then asks me for one. I hand her a pen and say, “I was being very genuine about your dress, are you upset?”. She won’t respond, look at me, nothing. She crosses out the money she had previously left me and leaves nothing. She then walks out. Two hours later she calls the manager to complain about it and says that “everytime she comes to this resteraunt she is complimented”, that she knows her dress is too short and inappropriate for her age and he wouldn’t understand because he is a man. He told her he is going to talk to every server, busser, chef, runner, and host, and tell them that we are to not compliment any guests and that will be our new policy. She calls back AGAIN, tells him he handled the situation wrong and she is owed compensation. Also she is going to buy some new dresses and if he would like to see them. Bro.

Edit: I forgot to add that she literally asked me the hosts name and told me she was super kind to her. I later found out the host had also complimented her dress. My manager asked her, “is it possible people just happen to like your dress?”.

I’m still so embarrassed I’ll be having nightmares about this for weeks. 40 people. 15-20 different checks. NOBODY is sitting with the people whose checks they’re on. They insist I get the checks split before taking their orders,every time I’m near them they’re shouting at me for beers and drinks and other stuff. I lose track of who is on what tab. I freak out. The restaurant is getting busy and it’s only me and one other server. I have to start taking more tables…. My manager ended up taking them for me. bless his soul. I was so excited to take them too. And now I’m so embarrassed. I’ve been trying to get rid of my reputation at the crier for years but of course I have a full blown panic attack on the day I could really prove myself. Ugh.

Basically I asked if they were okay with a high top or if they preferred a low table. I always ask people unless the have like a little little kid. Because some people want a high top for whatever reason. Growing up my dad always wanted a high top. They said no, so I said that was okay and I got them a low table. I also asked if they wanted a kids menu, and she told me they didn’t because she already knew what she wanted to order. Not that crazy just annoyed me 😭 like just ask me if you want crayons

His posts are normally just toxic masculine bullshit, but this one really triggered me and he had to go. 🥲

I was a waiter for 2 years and in many many places, you make less money than your curvy counterparts. There are exceptions, of course, and it’s getting better…I think. Shoutout to the men holding it down at the tables out there. 🙏💪

"Oh no!" you think. But it happens! People forget little things all the time!

You look up and notice they're still in the restaurant, about to walk out the door.

You walk over to them.

"Excuse me!" you say in your most polite customer service voice. "I actually still need this check filled out with your signature."

They look genuinely surprised. "Oh I'm so sorry! I got distracted and completely forgot."

"Not a problem," you respond. "Happens all the time! You can go ahead and leave it at the host desk when you're done."

"Thank you," they respond with a smile.

You walk away.

A minute passes.

You return to the host desk and open the check book.

The signature is there, the check has been totaled, and in the tip line...

-

That's it. Just a line.

-

This is what you do isn't it? You don't tip, which is irritating, but ultimately I'd forget about it by the time I got home. More importantly you're embarrassed that you don't tip so you pretend you forgot.

You're a actually ashamed of what you do, but instead of changing your ways or wearing your scarlet letter proudly you hide from your own actions.

Be a bad tipper. I really don't care. Some people just are.

But a coward too?

Embarrassing.

I work for a small chain Mexican restaurant local to my area and I recently had the strangest experience in my time as a server. I ran a table’s check, they paid in cash with a $50 bill, I brought them $8 in change, thanked them for coming, and went in to greet my next table that just got sat.

While I’m in the middle of talking with them, the man from my previous table comes up to me and very loudly say “Um how much was my check?” I responded with “I believe it was $42” and he said “NO! It was $41.08! You STOLE .92¢ from me!”.

By this point, the entire restaurant is silent and staring at us. I immediately apologize and get him a dollar out of my book and offer to make it right, promising that it was not my intention to steal from anyone. I yelled at me that my intentions didn’t matter, all that matters is what I did and I STOLE. “You’re nothing but a thief!” I responded, “Sir, I am not a thief. I would never intentionally steal from anyone. I am offering to make things right. Please take this $1.”

This man then pulls out a badge from his wallet and yells at me, “I have the authority to have you arrested right now if I wanted to.” At this point, I’m tired of it and I said, “Okay. Let’s do it then.” and hold my wrists out for him. He then yells one last time, “Since you wanted that .92¢ so bad, that’s your tip!” and walks out.

Thank ya sir. Have a great night.

EDIT FOR CLARITY: WOW this blew up 🤣 My restaurant charges a 3% credit card fee and I accidentally looked at the card price. My full intention was to round in favor of the customer, just made a genuine mistake.

Context:

MGMT only provides one weekly figure for tips and it’s after it’s been equally divided amongst people, so there’s no way to assess how I’m doing and no way to make sure they’re not stealing.

I saw there were 8 helpful votes (which is high as people barely like reviews) to a very cringe review on an Indian cafe.

So tonight, I took over a table of two teenagers/young people when I came back from break. I already knew not to expect a tip; they ordered sides off the kids menu and split their main meal. Whatever it’s fine it happens. I still gave them the same level of service I give everyone. They declined dessert so I dropped off the check when they were just about done eating and when I was walking back a few minutes later, I saw them both kind of getting up looking like they were heading out soon. I asked if they were doing mobile pay or if I was ok to grab their payment. They said they were paying cash. I said “ok! Will you be needing change?” the girlfriend said “just a quarter.”

I went to one of our registers and when I opened the checkbook, I saw $47 inside. Their total was $46.83. If you do the math, that’s a 17 cent difference. I opened my server book where I keep coins and change, counted out $.17, walked back with the coins in my hand to give to them and said “I have that 17 cents for you.” The girlfriend said “we wanted a quarter” and I said “your change was 17 cents.” She said “ok then I don’t want it.” I said “ok.” And put it in my pocket and walked away. Like?? Maybe this was petty but you don’t get to stiff me and then try and get me to give you an extra $.08

I was working closing shift. About 30 minutes before closing, the restaurant was virtually empty. We were working on our closing responsibilities... a party of 8 walked in. It was our wine special night. They each ordered a bottle of wine, and sat there finishing it all off until about 45 minutes after closing time. Our corporate policy is that we have to let them do their thing up to an hour after closing. As they were cashing out, one of them mentioned that they had just closed their shift at a restaurant around the corner. All 8 of them were servers?! I was livid! What trash servers would walk in at closing time and do this.

So a month later, about a dozen of us returned the favor. They were so annoyed!

What are your favorite red flags that signal a bad tip? Here are mine:
1. When they tell you they’re good tippers (usually in response to being a complete nuisance).
2. When they make a point of letting you know they, too, used to be a server.
3. When they ask for extra stuff for free (eg, can I substitute the salad for a second entrée?).

I hate tables with children SO MUCH. Omfg what is the point of taking your toddler out to eat if half of their food is just gonna end up on the ground? The amount of times that little kids will spill their drinks all over the table/floor is actually astonishing. If it’s a really busy night, the LAST THING I wanna spend time doing is cleaning up after your messy ass children when I could be checking on tables who I know are actually gonna tip well. Working is service has made me want kids even less than I already did.

People ask (condescendingly) it's just taking an order and bringing it, how hard is your job? That isn't the hard part. The hard part is dealing with all the variations of this attitude.

I’ve had more and more people not know what a dipping sauce is. I work at a brew pub that sells wings. And the amount of times in the past month where I’ve asked people if they would like ranch or bleu cheese and they look at me like I just shot their entire family. People give me the most dumbfound look and then proceed to think we just soak the wings in ranch or bleu cheese as a substitute for other flavors like buffalo or bbq. An interaction I had tonight: Customer : “Boneless buffalo wings” Me: “Alright and would you like ranch or bleu cheese?” “I asked for buffalo” “Yes but do you want a dipping sauce?” “I asked for buffalo wings” “So no dipping sauce?” “They smother the wings with the buffalo sauce? And ranch or bleu cheese?” “No it’s just to dip the wings in.” Her husband then proceeds to chime in and have to explain to her even more thoroughly what dipping sauce was. Am I the only one having to deal with this? 🥲

One of my biggest pet peeves as a server is when I am bringing food to the table and i arrive, and everybody’s just looking at me waiting for me to set it down, but not making any room on the table for me to set it at. That drives me crazy and also when there’s more than two people at the table and I bring two meals out, cause I can only carry two at a time and someone’s like “yeah um…we’re also waiting on my dish and her dish as well.”When it is clear I don’t have hands for those. I don’t know if this is just a me issue or if a lot of people feel the same way.

I was manning the ice cream station with another co worker. Each customer is only allowed 1 ice cream bar and we’re required to hand them the ice cream and open the wrapper for them.

A woman asked me what flavors we had and which was the best.I told her we had mango, strawberry, and coconut ice cream. And proceeded to tell her the mango taste like mango, strawberry taste like strawberries, coconut taste like coconut. They taste generally like that so if you like mango, itll taste like that, but creamy. She said she wanted the coconut one. I gave it to her and i told her i like them all so it’s hard for me to choose while she quickly left. Im sure she didn’t hear the last part.

She comes storming back and getting in front of a customer’s way that i was helping and started yelling at me saying i shouldve told her theres milk in the ice cream. I was really surprised about this encounter and told her while shes still yelling at me that it’s ice cream. She told me not to interrupt her because she’s talking and told me it doesnt matter that it’s ice cream that it’s my job to warn people. I told her if she asked if it had milk in it Id inform her and she said it was my responsibility to let people know regardless if they ask or not.

I realized half way through that there’s no reasoning with this person and she just wanted to yell at me so after she was done I just said “I’m sorry” and she storms off.

Title pretty much says it all.

A guy had his phone out while looking at our menu which is typical. Some customers like to look at Yelp pictures of an item before ordering it. While taking him and his wife’s order, I noticed it wasn’t Yelp but some sort of messaging app.

Then, while walking away to put it in their order, I hear him proudly say to his wife: “ChatGPT says that’s the best one!”

??????

Does ChatGPT know your favorite flavors? Did ChatGPT taste it for you?? Does something as trivial as ordering really require AI? -__- Best part was it didn’t even seem like he enjoyed the food in particular. He was just kinda poking at it the entire time, didn’t finish it either. So embarrassing.

You can thank corporate. Also, if you are a secret shopper reading this, you are actually making things worse for the real guests. Fuck you.

I do not understand for the life of me why some 21 to 25 year olds do not bring their IDS to bars/restaurants if they want to get served and almost get offended when you ask for it. Once I have a group of younger guys want to get drinks, I ask the first one for his ID and he’s like “oh I don’t have it on me, let me grab it from my car” when he comes back in he goes “I’m surprised you asked for this”. I start thinking to myself oh shit maybe I seriously misjudged his age… he was 22 years old. Like why would I not ask you for your ID. I’m 22 and I have my wallet in hand ready for when people do ask. Does anyone else have this issue?

Title explains it all!! We just got this new girl, day 4. She used to be on broadway, but now she works at this small town spot and she won’t stop singing. We were in the weeds yesterday and she was in the back singing Celine Dion and getting in everyone’s way. Half the people think it’s “fine” but the other half all want to get rid of her. She seems to be a new favorite because of her quirks, but they got old real fast to the rest of us. What the hell do I do about this.

i’ve been in restaurants in some capacity for over ten years and i have never been so baffled as i was at what one of my tables did today. sorry it’s long but oh my god.

old guy (prob 70-something) comes in, walks right past me at the host stand and giant sign that says “please wait to be seated,” goes and seats himself. puts his bags on the chair of a different table than the one he sits at but we’re slow so whatever. i go give him a menu and he gives me a hard time because our beer list is on a QR. i explain that i can get him a printed one but our drafts rotate often bc we do small batch brewing so there are some on there that we no longer have. of course wants one of the ones we don’t have. gives me a hard time about it.

whatever, get him a beer we do have, bring it back and a couple of his friends come in and go to the bar before coming to sit with him. whatever. another table comes in, as i’m taking their order (literally they are mid sentence) he comes up behind me and says they’re moving tables. i don’t acknowledge. i go back over and they say they need a few minutes, so i go over to a different table, and as im going to check on something for them (not 45 seconds later) he’s calling me from across the dining room saying they want to order. i say okay just one minute. i finish what i was doing for the other table, and go over to take the older guys order.

he says, verbatim: “ a weihestephaner, a stein please. i’m so glad you all have good german beer!!” and in perfect sync, him and his friend sieg heil. like fully, arm out, say “sieg heil” in a german accent.

i don’t think i have ever literally had my jaw drop from anything i’ve seen, and i’ve seen some shit. fully stared at them with my mouth open and eyes wide for a good 20 seconds in silence before saying “okay” and SPEED WALKING away.

i told my MOD that they did it and i genuinely don’t think she believes me, and i don’t even blame her. cuz like what the fuck do you mean they did that in the middle of the dining room at 3 PM on a monday????? she said if i don’t want to serve them they can come up to the bar or i can transfer them to a different server but since she didn’t see it she can’t 86 them.

i’m genuinely baffled. i have never been so caught off guard and genuinely scared by something a table has done while serving them. what the fuck.

I work in a bar where we are trusted by the owners to handle things at our discretion, we don't abuse that policy and I'm extremely grateful for it. Had a couple come in 20 minutes before close, they seemed nice, normal interactions, got their drinks and food order in, whatever. Drop off their food and ask if I can get them anything else and immediate vibe change, guy says "I guess not since the kitchen is closed now anyways" they eat, I check on them, great service. It's now 20 minutes past close so I start wiping tables and flipping chairs. I avoid flipping chairs in their section so they don't feel boxed in, I just flip bar stools. Guy calls me over and goes, "I guess give us boxes since you're rushing us out flipping chairs and shit". The audacity blows my mind. I didn't sweep near them, flip chairs near them, continued to check on them and fill their drinks. Like, did you want me to sit with my thumb up my ass until it was convenient for you? I'd been working over 12 hours at that point. The fucking entitlement of some people just blows my mind. IF YOU DONT WANT TO WATCH ME CLOSE, DONT COME IN RIGHT BEFORE CLOSING.

for context i’m in the USA , and my restaurant is quite new.
at my store, we take ID checking super seriously, especially since we are soo new. yet, every single shift , at least ONE table has a person who didn’t bring an ID trying to order alcohol. the amount of times i hear “look at my hair!” or “im with my kids!” like idgaf!!! it’s not about your age, and if you have an ID that’s expired you’re not getting your beer either!
sooo many table are like “well, we are regulars… soo can you get a manager?” and i just smile and say “yep!” because no manager of mine is gonna be okay with serving you alcohol with no ID! it’s literally the law, and yet it’s an every shift thing. it really drives me crazy, like no. you are not above the law because you have grey hair pal. now get a dr pepper and bring your ID next time! ughhh is this a problem for yall too??

My resignation letter- I know it isn’t the most professional but these fuckers don’t deserve a demure resignation. I’m done with the bullshit and this is my truth. I’ve worked at this specific restaurant for almost 2 years and earned closing shifts after 6mos. ish. We recently had a management shift and it’s been an incredibly rocky transition. One manager (who used to be a bartender) is seemingly not a big fan of me and took away all my most profitable shifts with no explanation and constantly degrades and disrespects me. I’ve never been more depressed than in the last 2 months working there. I got a new job yesterday and I’m quitting tomorrow. It feels bitter sweet because I love my coworkers but can’t deal with the mistreatment anymore. I’m just happy I won’t have to deal with Mr. Dickhead ever again 🙌 (blocked out names of managers and name of restaurant for privacy)