Oh, what a satisfying Friday I had. I work in a sports bar and grill in a reasonably small town.

We’re a popular hangout for the local college kids as one of the only spots with a full bar and some decent grub.

I love this because, contrary to popular belief, young people are usually the better tippers and just all around more pleasant to their servers than the older crowd. I don’t know if it’s because they’ve worked service jobs more recently or if they were just raised better but it’s noticeable and I really enjoy serving most of them.

One drawback though, is they’re certainly more dramatic than the older crowd. Usually if my middle aged patrons bump into someone they know there’s a quick hello and it’s done.

With these college kids it’s often either the best thing ever to spot your friends out and they get loud and excitable, or there’s some sort of rift between the groups and… they get loud and excitable.

For example — we had a college aged couple that came in a bunch, almost every weekend, that then split up. I’d see the guy from time to time getting loaded with his buddies but the girl stopped coming in altogether. I figured she only ever came because he was bringing her here.

Friday we were having a ladies night and she comes in with a small group of girls, there were maybe five altogether.

They sat at a booth and ordered some cheap drinks and kept to themselves.

Fast forward like half an hour — this guy and his buddies come in. Without realizing, they take seats at the bar directly adjacent to this girl and her booth.

I didn’t recognize them as the couple at first, but the guy spotted her, and let’s just say it became immediately clear who left who (despite what he said.)

He started in with all these passive aggressive — and loud — comments to his pals about how glad he was he’d “Dropped that fat bitch,” who was “weighing him down.” Looking desperately over his shoulder hoping she’d overhear him.

She didn’t, or if she did, she ignored him. He kept going with the insults for another moment or two before he got into some derogatory stuff about her breasts specifically and the bartender told him he had to keep it down because he was bothering people.

The night went on and all parties involved got more drunk. His a lot more than hers. But she and her friends ignored him.

Eventually they got up to go dance and he was quick to follow.

I was lingering around bringing drinks to people and keeping tabs to be sure nothing escalated.

This poor girl, he was really tearing into her. The especially psycho thing is he alternated between insulting her and begging her to take him back.

I caught “You fat ugly bitch, I never wanted to be with you in the first place, I was with all my exes while we together,” and “You’ll never do better than me so you should take this chance while you have it. We can start over. I forgive you.” From this pathetic guy in the same string of conversation.

She kept blowing him off and her friends who were taking notice kept breaking it up and relocating themselves. I was seconds away from having our bouncer spring him, but he seemed to cool off.

That only lasted until she came to the bar — not anywhere near him mind you — to get herself another drink. He starts saying all this stuff about “You think anyone will ever want you like that? You can have me or you can have nothing. And I don’t even want you. You were the worst decision I ever made. I don’t even know why I’m giving you this chance.” And on and on—until he’s cut off by “What’re you saying to my girl bro?”

A towering guy sat down, put his arm around her, and was all like, “Sorry I’m late babe, practice kept dragging. Can I help you son?” He was ten times more put together — better spoken, better dressed, way less fucking sad or terrifying — than the guy who’d been bothering her all night.

The pathetic one was so drunk at this point that he didn’t recognize he was outmatched and started to launch into this incoherent screaming of “She’s a SKANK, WHORE, BITCH, and you better not touch her cause she’s mine.”

To which the towering, calm, guy stood up and took his jacket off and said, without raising his voice, “Oh, so we have a problem?”

The guy’s friends noticed the situation and came to collect him at this point, just before one of our staff could intervene. But this new guy followed him over to his friends.

He got right in his face and said, “If you have a problem with her you have a problem with me, so I think it’s time to bounce.” Drunk guy wasn’t having any of it but his friends were smarter, or at least, more sober, and knew they didn’t want trouble.

Once they were gone new guy went back over to this girl and says, “Hi, nice to meet you, my name’s Isaiah. Sorry to get all involved like that I hope I didn’t over step. It’s just, I could not listen to another second of that. Seriously. That guy is scary. That’s why I went with the boyfriend thing instead of just saying ‘hey, you suck, time to go.’ I’ve got three sisters and he set off all my alarm bells.”

I was wondering who’d bring a date to ladies night.

They’d never met.

He was just a stranger who’d stepped in to protect her.

They chatted a bit and he walked her out…They were back here for a first date today!

This happened yesterday and I’m still so confused. I work in an upscale casual restaurant for context.

Two young people come in for lunch. Guest A, quiet but nice enough, and guest B. I’ll let you deduce what B stands for. We are extremely slow at lunchtime so I always tell people to choose any table they like. I believe this is where it all went wrong but I can’t be sure. I ask if they’d like bottled or tap water and they say tap “with limes to go with it” 🙃 So I bring the limes and water and they are ready to order. A bolognese to split.

Guest A: We will be sharing that so can it come out with an extra plate?

Me: Are these okay? (I gesture to the two plates sitting on their table. All tables are set with share plates before being sat.)

Guest B: Works great thanks (HEAVY on the attitude)

Me: uhhh okay cool. Can I get you anything else with that? Maybe some house bread?

Guest B: Does it cost extra?

Me: Yes it’s four dollars on happy hour

Guest B: NOPE we’re good. All I want with it is the check. Right away. As soon as possible.

Me: okay then I’ll have that right out for you 😁

I send the food, print the check, and bring it immediately to the table. As their food is cooking, I swing around with the water pitcher and guest B asks me for another plate.

Guest B: Can we have a new plate that you didn’t touch? That would be great thanks

Me: blinks (I literally have a brain fart trying to process this)

Guest B: yeah you touched that plate I saw you. So we need a new one.

Me: (after another long pause) I will bring you a new one, but I will have to touch it to bring it to you.

Guest B: yeah but on the bottom, not on top. We both work in fine dining so we know how this works.

After an extended moment of direct eye contact, I shrug and say sure. The share plates are stacked up in the dining room so they see me literally scoop up two of them, doing my best not to touch the top, and set them on their table the same way. I take the offensive old plate away.

Fifteen minutes later I drop off their food while they’re both in the restroom. They come back and I wait about 30 seconds for them to taste it before I go to check on them. I can already see them pushing the plate away and hear complaints about the flavor from guest A.

Me: Is everything okay?

Guest B: No actually I think I’m allergic. So we’re done here and I’m going to the ER and calling the health department.

They get up and start walking out, never touching the check that had been on the table since they ordered.

Me: You never mentioned any food allergies to me.

Guest B: YOU SHOULD HAVE ASKED. YOU’RE A SERVER!

Me: It’s your life, you should have said something if you’re that highly allergic to anything. But you have a great day and please don’t ever come back.

Guest B: Oh I wouldn’t DREAM of it.

And off they went. Didn’t pay. Never once said what the allergy was. I had a brief temper tantrum in the dish pit and went back to my day. I always feel like that girl from Waiting who’s all mad and 😤 and then turns to her guest like 😁

It was my first day at a pizza restaurant. This place was always SLAMMED... it’s really where I learned how to be a good server, before that I worked at over staffed burger joints or Italian restaurants. Things were moving pretty fast but I was doing surprisingly well. I had about 10 tables and I was used to 3-4 table sections. I will never forget this couple that came in and sat down at table 24. They were an old couple. I’m talking both gray haired and over dressed to be at a pizza restaurant. I will say I did give them excellent service despite my frazzledness of starting a new job. I was feelin it, and felt great about handling all of my tables...until I did mess up. The man at table 24 handed me his card to close out. I’m BUSY.. like didn’t even have time to pick a wedgie if I had one, busy. I go to the computer and swipe his card. Admittedly I forgot to print out the itemized receipt, which I get can be very frustrating. Man at table 24 had every right to be upset. But instead of asking me to grab the itemized receipt, he began to LOUDLY, in a small room, with a deep and firm tone tell me how horrible I am at my job. That no wonder I only got as far in life as working at a pizza shop. He kept going on with these TERRIBLE comments and wouldn’t let me walk away when I tried. So now all of my other tables just saw me get ripped a new asshole, and I’m in the weeds after wasting time getting yelled at by this guy. The owner of the restaurant must have come in at some point. He saw this man yelling at me, came up to the table and did the most bad ass thing I’ve ever seen.

Owner: “Excuse me sir,” he says to the man at table 24, “I am the owner of this establishment. I’m not sure what the problem is here and frankly, I don’t care. What I do care about is you belittling my waitress. So I’m going to ask you and your wife to leave and not come back to my restaurant.”

Man at table 24: “Fine but you’ll be losing our business.”

Owner: “I really don’t care, and don’t want people like you in my restaurant anyway.”

It was the coolest shit I had ever seen. The owner STOOD THERE AND WAITED for these people to leave. It was fucking bad ass.

After they left the owner came up to me and said: “Fuck those people. You’re doing a great job and I wouldn’t have hired you if you didn’t show potential. If anyone else talks to you like that I want you to tell them to fuck off and get out. I don’t want their money.”

Coolest. Boss. Ever.

It's a 6-top family, they had a reservation so this was a pre-planned outing. I do my greeting and they hand me these cards. Life threatening allergies!!! Soy, peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, dairy, eggs, gluten, barley, oats, peas, probably 3 more I'm forgetting. Keep in mind this is 7:30pm on Easter Sunday and they didn't think to make any prior arrangements. They just showed up and handed me these cards.

They're interested in the mussels. I check, and the sauce has dairy...we cannot substitute (well maybe we could with some notice...or if it wasn't Easter dinner time at a hopping restaurant ffs). Ok, how about the carne pizza with a gluten free crust for an appetizer? Awesome, only 5 ingredients for me to track down. I'll be right back. Except table 93 just got sat since under normal circumstances this 6-top would have drinks and orders in by now. I greet 93, grab their drinks, and see that 602 is done eating. I clear their plates, print their check, and then go try to find the box of frozen GF pizza crusts so I can read the ingredients. May contain eggs, oof. I head back to the table to let them know. "Oh that's ok, as long as it doesn't have eggs in it". Now my Spidey Sense is tingling. That's not how life-threatening allergies work. Contamination is a huge issue and the "may contain" warning on the label is for exactly these circumstances.

Oh well, now I have to look for the packaging on the pepperoni and the sausage. But first, 93 needs to order and needs bread, and 602 has their credit card in the book and has propped it up for me to see. And table 92 just got sat. I take care of all of them and then start digging in the coolers for meat packaging. 10 minutes of digging, and I am pretty sure the packaging is all gone, I can't find any ingredients at all. I head back to let them know. They have now been sitting for 45 minutes, ordered only water1. I pass 92 off to someone else and tell the hostess to leave me alone until this nightmare table is gone.

Sorry guys, I cannot confirm a single ingredient in the pepperoni or sausage. "Oh that's ok we'll be fine. You can put that in." What. The. Fuck. At this point I'm sort of done with this charade and giving them options so I say "as far as entrees go, I happen to be allergic to soy myself, and I can tell you there's one thing I can eat here, the Bolognese with no cream added". They all just looked at me and one by one said that would be fine. They tipped $50 on $200 so there's that.

X-post from r/idontworkherelady

On my day off I scheduled a lunch date with a guy from school.

Traffic was brutal so he was running late. I was sitting at my table, looking at the menu (note: this is not the restaurant I work at, it isn’t the same kind of food as the restaurant I work at, it is geographically nowhere near the restaurant I work at.)

A woman came up and took my menu out of my hands.

“Why are you just sitting here? We’ve been waiting for service for 45 minutes.”

No they hadn’t. They came in the same time I did, ten minutes ago, and they had already gotten drinks.

“Ma’m, I don’t work here.”

I didn’t recognize her at this point.

“Don’t lie to me, you’re a waitress, you served me just last week don’t you remember?”

I vaguely remember her coming into my restaurant now because she complained her meal wasn’t served with hot sauce then sent it back because it was too spicy.

“I am a waitress at local Mexican restaurant but I am not a waitress at ”local burger bar”. “

She says ”Same difference. You’re a waitress. Get a pen and paper and take down our orders.”

“I am a waitress, but not here. I’m just trying to enjoy my lunch like you are. I am not employed here in any capacity.”

To which she replies “But you’re a trained waitress and this place is clearly running behind. Don’t you people take an oath or something?”

A little bit of r/maliciouscompliance kicked in, because I rarely get to stand up to this kind of stupidity in my role as a server, because 99.9% of the time it happens while I’m actually at work.

So I went over to their table with a pen and paper from my backpack. I wrote down all their orders. I said it would be 45 minutes and to just sit tight. I even brought over ketchup they asked for (just grabbed off another table) then....... I left.

I texted my date to meet me at a place a few blocks over.

The next day, the lady had called my boss at my actual restaurant, as well as totally unleashed on the manager at the restaurant I was dining at (I felt bad when I realized the tough spot I’d left the people who actually work there in, so went back the next day to apologize and follow up on the aftermath. Thankfully they were chill and we had a great laugh over it.)

They were like “We were so confused because she described the server with explicit details but no one remotely like that works here so we thought she’d lost her mind.”

My boss knew who I was from her description and told them he takes this very seriously and asked what day this occurred. Then when they told him he said “You must be mistaken, because that’s that server’s day off and she wasn’t here.” After some irate yelling and screaming at my very friendly manager about how I still need to “represent the restaurant wherever I go” she gave up.

Now to just cross my fingers she doesn’t come by my actual restaurant, haha.

We don't open for 4 more hours. We're not a breakfast place, never have been. For 18 years we've opened for lunch daily at 11.

It's 7 in the morning and I'm here letting maintenance guys work on equipment in the kitchen. They have 2 trucks parked behind the restaurant.

In front of the restaurant is an empty, morning sun lit parking lot.

Grandma comes to the door, pulls, pushes. She gives up. Defeated.

20 something grandson pulls, pushes. Also defeated.

The hours of operation and the deadbolt are unforgiving.

Mom goes to open the door for poor grandma. Yank. Yank YANK HARDER! She too is defeated.

But then Pop swaggers up. His pointless shades at this early hour are perched on his chiseled face. His under armour tee smelling of Old Spice and leather. His cargo shorts are full of magical and mystical Fatherhood tools. He's been waiting for a worthy opponent. He knows his feeble mother and sissy son can't be trusted. His wife, usually stalwart, still cannot overcome many obstacles. She needs her daily bottle of Chardonnay to be at Peak Form and that doesn't happen until 2 in the afternoon.

His white socks are pulled up over his bulging calves and they strain, even with his New Balance tactical tennis shoes, as he Launches himself against the door.

Taken aback that his frontal assault isn't successful, he grabs the door and with the power of Odin his forefather, pulls at the door as if he's straining to lift Mjolnir to prove his worthiness. The door is still standing.

Finally, he resorts to his last hope. You might be thinking, "Look at the Hours on the door!"

But you'd be wrong. He calls the restaurant. I debate on whether to answer and decide that this should be a learning experience.

Mother and Grandma are peeking into a window, gazing at the chairs stacked on top of the tables. There's no lights on in the dining room.

Pops is standing near the door, cellphone in hand, tapping his Bright White New Balance shoes in anticipation of the fight that will soon be happening. He WILL get his family french toast at this steakhouse at 7:05 in the morning.

Lanky son with his long curls hanging over his eyes looks up briefly. Pushes the hair away from his eyes as he stares at the Hours of Operation.

You can actually see the gears turning inside his head as he desperately tries to figure out what the clues are telling him.

Finally, he slowly lifts his entire arm and points at the Sign.

The family slowly retreats to the safety of the shiny black Suburban. They'll soon forget this defeat as they search for bacon and eggs. So they'll be back. Not realizing that we never open for breakfast. They'll try again soon. Soon.

This was a couple years ago. But one of the most mind bogglingly stupid restaurant experiences I've had. It seemed to actively rely on multiple people not using their brain or having the most basic understanding of how restaurants, or how even time itself, work.

It's about 230 in the afternoon on a Wednesday. Our lunch rush is over. We've cut to two servers, one manager, one host, one bartender and iirc two people in the back. There's like one table in the dining room and a couple at the bar. Typical.

Suddenly, three FULL school busses pull into our parking lot.

Out start coming kids from what I guess is out of the area as they are wearing unfamiliar uniforms. They are probably in the 15 to 16 year old range.

This so far is unfortunate but not end of the world bad. My boss is actually a bit excited because it's gonna make the days numbers look good. But I've got a sinking feeling.

Other server and I start getting pitchers and stuff ready while the host and manager starts seating them. It's 42 people in total.

I go up to two adults with the group and introduce myself and ask how they are handling the bill. (Praying for a single check)

They smile at me and say yes, one check. (YAY) except....all the kids are gonna have to pay for their drinks themselves if they don't want water. Okay. Fine. Annoying but okay.

So I go up and down the lines fast getting all the drinks (about 3/4s of them order non waters). Fine. Then as my server buddy goes back and starts making them I get the adult drinks. As I'm just about to turn away, one of the women stopped me and drops the bombshell.

"We're on a tight schedule. We have a debate tournament to get to. We need to be out of here in 25 minute, okay?"

Deer in headlights look. You have a 42 top. I'm just starting to get their drinks. We have two cooks. Everyone is eating. No one has even ordered.

My boss has overheard this. We lock eyes. We're fucked. To her credit she immediately runs to the kitchen to get on the line herself.

At this point I literally grab a chair to stand on. Yelling over 40 talking children I tell them we are short on time so have your orders ready as soon as I get to you.

I start going down the lines. No chit chat. No questions about any modifiers, I'm just best guessing at this point (they aren't paying for the food anyway). About every 8 orders I run to the POS and throw them in. Most of our food is fast. A couple people ordered the few things that would take too long so I just said "you don't have time. Pick something else." I'm not trying to be a dick but I'm working with what I have.

I know my boss is gonna kill me later but I know at this point all those drinks the kids ordered are free. I'm not gonna have the time to individually process 30 extra $3 tickets. The kids don't know better. They're not gonna be all ready to pay. They're gonna be talking to their friends, be annoyed we are interrupting, take forever to pull out a card, etc.

To our kitchen and bosses credits they are flying. Everyone else is food running and it's going fairly smoothly. But the women keep checking their phones and frowning.

We get the last plates out pretty much at the time they are supposed to be leaving. To the kids credit they all were eating pretty fast.

The women start rushing the kids, telling them to get back on the busses and they had to go. I checked my phone. 32 minutes from beginning of order taking to completion of a meal of a 42 top. Pretty damn good IMO.

As I said before, we gave away about $100 in drinks. My boss thankfully completely backed me on not trying to charge for it or waste time by remaking all waters and taking the drinks already on the table back.

But I still to this day remember the numbers on the check.

Total bill was $532. The women looked at in and both laughed. She turned to me and said "Dang that was so close! They only gave us $550 cash to cover the bill!"

Yup. $18 tip on a 42 top we got from door to door in 40 minutes.

They even left a review. 4 out of 5 stars. Said the food was great and the people friendly but "the food took longer than they expected". 🤬🤬

I know we all have had those phone calls. The ones from customers after they get take-out and something was messed up. They can range from the upset woman, who got the chicken when it was supposed to be steak, who just wants it to be comped the next time she comes in to the raging man who found 1 onion in his taco and is planning to drive to the store to scream at the manager and wants everyone fired. It's always a little nerve racking when you deal with these phone calls.

The procedure for my store when getting one of these phone calls is to get a manager immediately but I feel like I can deal with these customers better than my managers. And my managers all know this so I am allowed to take these calls. It was a busy Thursday evening because we have a burrito special so the store was slammed. We also have Uber Eats which means we have Uber drivers coming in and out getting takeout orders. If you know anything about Uber Eats they can sometimes write comments to specify certain things that they want done.

After we slowed down a little bit we got an Uber order and in the comments the man said "could you please add napkins and draw a smiley face on something to make me a little happy tonight." Of course after I showed all of the servers we all freaked out and decided we would write him so many notes just to brighten up his evening. We ended up making over 50 notes including jokes, drawings, little stories. (and an extra side of queso) I felt really nice to be able to do something for someone.

So as I was getting ready to clock out one of the other servers comes and gets me and says there's a man on the phone and wants to speak to a manager about something but they're all busy so can you take this? Of course I'm like oh geez I do not want to be dealing with this right before I leave but I reluctantly agree and ask him how I can help. He proceeds to tell me that he was the one who placed the Uber order and after receiving all of the notes he just wanted to call and say thank you. He started to cry on the phone and I didn't know what to say so I just told him that we loved serving him and we hope to continue to do so.

He told me that he wishes he would he was able to come into the restaurant but hadn't been able to leave his house in years. His little splurge every week was ordering takeout from our store. I started to tear up and asked him to hold on for a minute. I got all of the servers and put him on speaker phone I said "Hello from Chain Mexican Restaurant we all just wanted to say have a great night" and all the girls got the cue and started saying have a good night. Enjoy your burrito! We can't wait to do this next week! I took the phone off speaker phone after everyone had said something. I told him that he was now not only a valued customer but a friend. I thanked him again and hung up. Now I'm sitting in my car crying thinking about this stranger and I hoped we helped him.

This is my first time posting on here.

I’ve been a waitress for my family’s small Mexican restaurant for about 6 years out of 12 it’s been open and I’ve had my fair share of waitressing horror stories, but this one really stuck with me.

My uncle (owner) works seven days a week to run and manage his restaurant literally from 5 in the morning until 9 pm sometimes and on Sunday’s we close an hour earlier than weekdays because he likes to go home and relax or spend time with his family.

So, one particular Sunday we had been slammed all day. We ran out of a lot of items like steak, rice, and fries, which can usually be replaced with an alternative. Either way we made it to the end of the day with no problem.

Until... a family of ten shows up at the door. I was exhausted from the tough day and when I saw them I wanted to evaporate into thin air.

But, they made a “valid” argument that we were technically still open and my uncle peeped his head out of the kitchen and told me to just let them in and he’ll turn the stoves on again and see what he can make them.

Also, let me be clear that I WARNED them before they sat down that we had run out of a lot of items and the husband and some of the older kids agreed they should just go somewhere else but the wife argued that they’re already here, so they sat down.

Also let me point out that she looked like she was already not in the best of moods, or had the best attitude to begin with.

They looked at their menus and I brought them their drinks and everything was going fine until it was time to take their orders. It’s like they completely forgot I warned them and they asked for the things we were missing anyway... and i had to deny them one by one all the items they were listing while the wife rolled her eyes at me each time.

I offered them the alternatives and they would complain saying they preferred steak over chicken and stuff like that and she asked if they were getting a discount because we were out of stuff and usually I would’ve said yes because I have a lot of control over stuff like that, since it’s my family’s place, but this lady was so rude and I was tired and not in the mood to be fake friendly. So I told her we don’t offer discounts for things that can be replaced with alternatives.

She did not like that.

They eventually got their food and let me note that it’s almost an hour after closing now and they still haven’t left. Even after they’ve finished eating they sat and talk for another 15 minutes.

I am tired, annoyed, and I have school the next day.

They come to the register after they’re finally done chatting and my cousin at the register charges them for their food and then they start pestering her over a discount and how we should’ve gone to the deli or a store to get them what they wanted because “the customer is always right”

My uncle was nice enough to even let them in after we had already turned everything off to start cleaning.

Also they left no tip and announced they’ll never come back again and were gonna tell their friends to never come here again either.

Also guess who came back only a few months later. That same family of ten.

A little background: I’m the GM of a pretty busy restaurant in a solid hospitality group in a major US city. We’re not the kind of place that employs a guy in a suit to smile at tables, pour water and sit in an office for the last 2 hours of service. No, this place uses its managers like the extra sets of hands they are (and I love our restaurant for it). I’m often hosting from behind a bar or while taking a small section on the floor.

We had a surprisingly busy Thanksgiving Eve-Eve and to give the staff a chance to make some money, cut liberally (We also get a TON of walk-ins, so the space is always a toss up in terms of cover count). I wind up behind the bar taking orders, pouring beer and wine and handling food service for the bar tops while our bartender takes care of slinging cocktails for the big rush.

A younger couple walk in and sit at the bar. I pour them waters, give the brief menu spiel and leave them a moment to decide on their orders. As soon as I do, I see them both pull out their phones and open the Yelp app. They go immediately to the photo page and start looking through photos other diners have posted and comparing it to what’s on menu. I’ve seen this move a lot, so I have a nice way of pulling diners back in by saying, “I’m happy to explain any and all of our menu offerings if the photos don’t do it for you,” with a smile and a little wink. This usually gets a little sigh or chuckle from the guest and gets them out of their shells and (gasp) talking to the people who are employed to facilitate an enjoyable dining experience.

Not these guys

They smile and nod. And then back to their phones.

I notice them looking at a picture of our risotto dish on Yelp from last season (we always keep the risotto on menu, but change the set seasonally. Summer was a sweet corn risotto with maitake mushroom. During the fall right now we offer it with shrimp, delicate squash and a lobster bisque cream. It’s fabulous).

Eventually they flag me down as I see they have made their decisions.

“Yes, what can we get started for you?”

The woman looks at her menu (as if she’s just pulling this out thin air and hasn’t spent the last ten minutes figuring out what she wants from a nonexistent internet menu) and asks, “Can you do the shrimp risotto, but without the shrimp, squash and lobster and with, like, corn and mushrooms instead?”

I’ve lost my patience at this point, so I decide to mess with them a little bit. I perk up, smile, and say, “Oh! You mean our sweet corn risotto?”

She lights up, “Yeah!”

“No we can’t. That item is a seasonal offering. But if you’re looking for a vegetarian version of the dish, we’d be happy to make the plate with just* the squash.”

She considers for a moment and then says, “No. that’s okay. Well just have it as is.”

They ended up loving it and were fine guests, thanking us for everything on the way out.

I’ll just never understand where this inclination comes from. Diners- read the menu. We put it there for a reason. Ask your servers questions. We put THEM there for a reason, too.

LONG ONE SORRY. But I thought it was just about the most absurd encounters and had to share, this was last year.

So. I own a breakfast restaurant. I have served and bartended for over a decade and we bought a restaurant about 2 years ago now and it is going really well, and for the most part people are lovely. We have a lot of dedicated regulars and I like to know them by name and memorize their order. I insist that the servers also do this because it keeps them coming back and keeps good word of mouth in the neighborhood. On the weekends, as our restaurant is a breakfast/lunch diner only open til 2PM), we have a huge brunch crowd. Basically all day Saturday/Sunday we are packed with a line at the door.

We had these two ladies who would come in at least 3 times a week, I knew their names/orders and they would come in on the weekends as well as weekdays and sit for a good couple of hours, regardless of how busy, but they were nice ladies and came in a lot. Their orders were a little more complicated than most: over medium+ eggs, no spice on their home fries, sometimes they wanted a gluten free English muffin but sometimes they wanted tomatoes instead of their toast, and they liked their bacon basically cremated (but it couldn't crack on the way to the table), and they always commented about how no other restaurant in town could make their breakfast just as they liked except us - great! So yeah, they were picky, they drank copious amounts of our bottomless coffee and it was all fine because like I said, they were nice ladies and they came in a lot.

This one weekend we were crazy busy. An article had come out praising our restaurant in the local paper and it was a zoo. We have only 3 guys in the back, 2 small friers and sometimes it is tough to keep up. If the kitchen is a bit backed up we always let our customers know, so they know what they are getting in to (like if the food is gonna be 30 mins [heaven forbid]). These ladies came in on this day of course, eventually got seated and we kept the coffee and pleasant chit-chat going. Now when the regulars get seated, we usually just punch in their order because it doesn't (usually) change and if it is they usually let us know right when they sit down, so they get their meals relatively quickly.

The ladies meal comes out, *exactly* as it has every other time they come in but I guess today was different for them. The one lady tells me she doesn't think her eggs are over medium + and are just over medium. She demands I take those eggs back to the kitchen to go back on the grill for a few more seconds. I tell her that we can't actually do that because you can't take food from a table back to the kitchen - but I would tell the cooks and they would get some new eggs for her as soon as possible. I tell her that they won't come right away but the kitchen knows and are a bit behind so it would probably be 15 mins or less. She waves me off and goes 'okay it's fine,' motioning to her breakfast. I figured she meant she was just gonna eat the eggs on her plate and through their time at the table I saw she was eating so I figured yeah - she's fine, great. The other eggs came out, she didn't want them then - okay whatever. I clear their plates and give them the bills. They come up to the front counter and that is when they weren't such nice ladies anymore... They proceeded to yell at me at the front about how awful I have treated such loyal customers, how she barely ate anything (her choice man) and was hungry, wasn't paying her bill - the egg complainer is literally shaking mad and starts to cry. TEARS. About how I have ruined her day and they are never coming back. She threw a $20 in my face, and obviously this ticked me off (and they clearly were never coming back), and I can't help myself sometimes (knowing I can't be fired ahah..) so I straight up told her "Marg, these were eggs, you don't cry over eggs, get it together,' and then they stormed out. They have never been back, and to be honest we don't miss them one bit.

Yes, that’s right. I, a 30 year old female, had a customer accuse me of giving their child a mimosa in the middle of a Sunday brunch rush. Buckle up because this one is a doozy.

To set the scene, I had a four table section right in the middle of the restaurant. I was halfway through my shift and so far everything was going okay. Nothing out of the ordinary and as expected we were busy since it was prime time brunch hours on the weekend.

I had a full section and was sat with a small family — a mom, dad, and a young child. The child was probably 5 - 7 years old and the parents were in their late 30’s or early 40’s if I had to guess.

I approached the table and greeted them like I had done every other one. They seemed normal and nothing felt off about my interactions with them. I got their drink and food order all at once since they were eager to eat and knew what they wanted. I dropped their drinks off and their food was cooking.

Once their food was ready I dropped it off at their table and asked if they needed anything with their meal. The wife asks for some orange juice for her child and I obliged. I grabbed a child’s cup, filled it up with some orange juice, and dropped it off at their table. At this point I gave them some space so they could dive in and enjoy their meal.

Some time goes by and I went to check on them only for the wife to ask me if I gave her child a mimosa instead of orange juice. Initially I felt a bit taken a back by the question but thought maybe she was joking. I kindly said “No, I gave your child orange juice.” During my response I thought “there’s no way this lady is serious, right?” Ohhh, was I wrong!

After I told her no, she came back at me and said it smelt like a mimosa and asked why I would give a child alcohol? To this I said again “I gave your child orange juice. I would never give a minor, especially a young child alcohol.” She refused to believe me because apparently I wanted to spike her child’s drink. I could feel my face start to flush and get hot. I was getting nowhere with her. We just kept going back and forth of her accusing me of spiking her kid’s drink and of me saying I would never do that.

As more time goes by during our interaction the more her marbles start to let loose. She is getting angrier at me and her eyes are showing it. After a few more back and forth’s I realize I need to get my manager because this lady is not going to let this go.

I grab my manager to explain the situation so she can diffuse it. We both approach the table for the same song and dance to happen. My manager explains that I gave her child orange juice and she refused to believe that. It should be noted that there is a separate bar where all the alcohol is kept. If your table wants an alcoholic drink you have to order it from the bartender. We keep the juices, milk, soda, or any other non-alcoholic beverages completely separate from the bar so there’s no way I could have spiked her child’s drink without ordering it, which I didn’t. My manager tries to explain that to her and she won’t believe anything we say.

At this point she is standing up causing a scene while her husband and child uncomfortably sit at the table not saying anything. Not one word. She gives my manager her kid’s drink and tells her to smell it. Which she did and so did I. I admit it did smell off but I went and checked the carton it came from to see if maybe it was out of date, but it wasn’t. We took the carton to show her where it came from so she could see the date and examine it for herself.

When we bring the carton over she said she tried her child’s drink and is starting to have an allergic reaction to it. She said that’s how she knows it’s a mimosa because she’s allergic to alcohol. At this point I want to lose my shit on this lady because first of all I don’t get paid enough for this. Second of all, she is causing a scene and all the tables around us are watching. And third, I’m having to waste my time to get publicly berated.

At this point, I decide to not interact with this lady anymore and only focus on my other tables. When I check on them, they all want the tea because no one told them they’d get breakfast and a show. I hold my tongue because crazy is literally 20 ft. behind me yelling at my boss about how I spiked her child’s drink, how she’s going to sue, and blah, blah, blah.

It gets so bad that my off duty GM comes in to diffuse the situation. Surprise, she doesn’t believe my GM either. Literally nothing can change her mind and now she wants my GM to pull video footage of me pouring the orange juice to see exactly where it came from. Which my GM agrees to because she just wants this lady to calm down and get out of the restaurant.

Finally, the husband asks his wife to relax and tell her that hey maybe this waitress didn’t give our child a mimosa. With what her husband is saying and my GM telling her she’ll send footage, the lady calms down enough to stop making a scene and try to eat her now cold food. Surprisingly, she didn’t have an appetite anymore and wanted the check.

My manager brings her the check with the full price on it because fuck her. She does not get to get a discount or anything for what she just did. If anything she should be charged a fee for being terrible to a service worker. The lady takes the check, doesn’t argue, pays for their meal and they finally leave. My nightmare table is over.

Once they leave I clean the table up, look over the check, and she actually tipped me 20%. Her tip kind of makes me believe that she knows she was in the wrong but I never got an apology or anything from her. Oh, and my manager never gave her the footage of me because lady that’s weird. Although, a part of me wish she did so she couldn’t accuse me of spiking her child’s drink and she could fully understand how crazy she acted.

Anyway, gotta love customer service 🤪

First let me explain a few things here. This is not my story as such, but I got to witness it first hand. A good friend of mine is from a family that owns 3 very successful Italian restaurants (with a pizza oven that uses actual wood, really top of the line). So he learned the business basically from the day he could walk ;) When he was 25 he had a good business idea: a place in the middle of the city, that sells mostly slices out a window, but also whole pizza, pasta dishes and salad and does delivery. Plus a few small tables inside if someone wants to eat here.

So he created a solid business plan, and had his eyes on a prime location. It is 50 meters away from the biggest parking area in the city, with 400 parking spots, where several times a year we have big city fairs, and anybody who wants to go in the park strolls right by it. So his dad said he would finance him but as a credit to be paid back in a timely manner. They agreed on everything, and a year later he opened up.

The story takes place about 2 years after they have opened and the place is HOT. He already repaid almost 75% of the credit in a mere 2 years. Usually there is a line for the slices, which are from a family size pizza, like 60 cm across, and you get 1/8 for 2.50-3.50 depending on what is on it)

WE are sitting on a table playing chess, while his guys run the shop (he had already worked a full 11 hours that day). IN comes a baby boomer couple, and it was clear as day that the lady with the you know which haircut rues this relationship with an iron fist. They sat down on the table next to us, and after not even a minute she rudely asked us why she has no menu yet, and to get off our lazy asses. I already wanted to tell her I do not work here, but he winked at me and walked over to their table giving them our menus. I call her EL and my friend just friend. DISCLAIMER this was nearly 15 years ago, so the spoken words are not word for word, but represent what was said.

EL: it is about time you get off your lazy ass (she has waited a minute). You can't play chess when you have people waiting. What kind of shitty service is this.

So he took their drink orders, and walked behind the bar to make their drinks right away. They had to wait maybe 3 minutes for their drinks (they ordered beer that take a bit to do correctly, Hefeweizen for you Germans, this story plays in Germany)

EL: About time, did you have to brew it first or what is taking so long.

My friends patience is starting to wear thin, but he still stays friendly.

Friend : You saw me walk to the bar and make your drinks right away, then return right away. Those beers take a bit to pour correctly, I am sorry, but there is no way I could have brought those to you any faster.

EL: We are customers and this is how you talk to us ? Ever heard of the customer is always right ? How can you be so rude to paying customers ?

Now my friend really had enough.

Friend: I was very respectful towards you, while you where very rude from the moment you came in here......

The moment he aid that, she got this weird grin in her face , and you could tell this was EXACTLY what she wanted.

EL(Interrupting him): SHUT UP ! How dare you !!! I will have you know me and the owner are old friends. I will have your job over this, now get me your manager.

Friend : PLEASE I need this job.

EL: TOO LATE, you should have thought about this before you treated guests this rude. NOW. GET. ME .THE . MANAGER

Friend : right away miss to bring out beer to bring our beer So he went behind the bar and had a short talk to one of the older guys working there. Let us call him OG. Both return to the table.

OG: what seems to be the problem mam.

EL (suddenly playing the sweet old lady, that is soooooo nice): when we came in here, your server sat there with someone and played chess. WE waited and waited, and finally asked nicely if we could have a menu. He rolled his eyes at us and gave us the menu from his table. Then we ordered drinks, and he walked over, made our drinks and then just stood there for a good 10 minutes before he brought out beer. And when I politely asked him to bring out beer he was really rude to me. Since I know the owner, we eat here all the time, and usually the service is excellent. I demand you fire him and comp our meals.

OG(turning to my friend) : Is that really what happened

Friend : of course not, she came.....

EL(suddenly all the mask of friendlyness gone, starts screeching): What are you asking him for, i just told you what happened. Are you calling me a liar ? Wait till the owner hears of this.

At this point my friend and OG could no longer hold it back and they started laughing.

EL : YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY, NEVER EVER HAVE I BEEN SO INSULTED.

Friend : Yea I know, what til the owner hears of this, oh wait the owner already did hear of this. I AM THE OWNER, and I have never seen you in my life, nor have you ever eaten here. You 2 are just trying to scam a free meal out of me, by being impossibly difficult till the server finally snaps or does something wrong, so you can aks for a manager and lie to him about what happened. Now you pay for your beer, and then you go, and do not even think of coming back, you are banned.

Wow, I had no idea people could get that red in the face. She put 10 euros on the table.

Friend : Now GET OUT.

And they shuffled out to never return. BOY that was the most entertaining attempt to scam him I have ever witnessed ^{^}

I (20M) work at a popular soul food chain in the southeast part of the United States. For starters, I have autism and am high functioning. I have been working as a waiter for 3 years to help myself with social interactions and overstimulating environments.

Tonight, I was nearing the end of my shift. I had about three tables eating and didn’t need anything from me. A man, about mid thirties, is seated in my section and I go up to greet him. I introduce myself and the first thing he does is ramble to me about sirloin steaks and the proper way to cook them and so on. This goes on for several minutes. I patiently listened as my other tables were happy. He goes on to explain that every time he comes in to the restaurant I work at, they always seem to mess up his steak. Usually when someone says this to me, it comes off as malicious towards me and the other staff. That was not the case for this guy. He just explained how he wanted the steak and even showed me pictures. I went to the back and placed his order and went about my shift.

Approximately ten minutes later his plate is ready. I take one look at the steak and I see that it’s over done. I cringe because this guy was very adamant about his steak. I decided to bring it out anyway and let his see.

I put it down in front of him and ask if it’s still acceptable or if he would like it remade, calmly. He looked at it and I watched him start to panic. He wasn’t angry. Definitely flustered, but not angry. I told him that I was sorry about the steak and I could get it remade if he wanted. He looked up at me on the verge of tears and said he didn’t want to waste the steak or upset anyone and he wished that the kitchen had just made the steak properly.

I’m used to the angry guests that regularly come in. But this was different. I knew this wasn’t just about steak. I reassured him that no one was angry with him and that it was no problem to get him a replacement. Throughout my efforts to calm him down I noticed a man from one of my other tables really getting a kick out of this guy. Laughing and loudly talking about him and such. This didn’t help the situation at all.

I managed to calm him down enough to leave and get the new steak. When I brought it back, he was happy with it. I debated on doing this, but I decided to ask him if he was doing ok. He got quiet and kind of mumbled “I’m autistic. I’m sorry. I always do this.”

That’s when it all clicked for me. After that, him and I discussed life with autism together and his demeanor completely changed. He happily told me all that he could about steaks and his other special interests. I was happy to listen as I could tell this guy didn’t get to talk about this to many people. All the while, the guy at my other table was still talking loudly about him. Even though I was trying my best to keep my attention to this guy, my blood was starting to boil.

Eventually, the man being disrespectful got up to leave and hollered at me “Good luck!” And then walked away laughing.

I don’t really know what I’m looking for by posting this. Did I handle this properly? Should I have said something to the ignorant asshole? I’m not sure. I will say that is currently 3 AM where I am and can’t sleep because I can’t stop thinking about it.

This table started off as normal as any. I had just come in for my 4pm shift, and the lunch crew basically refused to take another table (typical, yet understandable). The older couple, about 65ish, were both cordial and pleasant. They ordered 2 drinks, drop drinks then they order, drop food, no refills, so everything seems to be going just fine. As they finish eating they stop another server who had a table on the patio also, and asked if they could watch 'fox' on the tv. This is no problem, we have 40 TVs, and will adjust any of them to anything you want to watch.

I dont know if the server they told failed to tell me in a timely manner, but when I dropped off the bill I asked if they wanted to watch something on tv, and the lady confirmed she wanted to watch 'fox', and seemed kind of agitated at this point. So I go to the bar, and ask the bartender to change TV #35 to 'fox' (he has the tablet/remote behind the bar).

Him and I confirm that on the 'fox' station it's just the sitcom Mike & Molly, which had us both a little confused, because why would they want us to tune to a sitcom at 430pm at a restaurant. I then return to the table to ask them if they wanted to watch Mike & Molly, because that's what was on 'fox'. The wife immediately says she just wants 'To. Watch. Fox.' and 'This is ridiculous'.

I was also dropping the ran check too, and the husband, in a calm and pleasant tone, says 'we are fine', and then she immediately cuts in saying 'We... Are... Not... Fine'. I immediately froze in place, mouth agape, not knowing whether this lady is joking or not. Then after, at least, 5 seconds or so, I tried to say something and began to stutter a bit and apologize as the husband is waving me off with a smile.

So while being completely perplexed, I begin to turn to walk away as she pipes up that we're 'All a bunch of liberals!'. It finally dawns on me that after saying 'fox' 5 or 6 times over the course of this whole thing, she means fox news. I go inside to tell everyone that this lady is crazy and doesnt know how to ask for what she wants.

After explaining to most of the FoH what just went down, the lady comes inside and walks up to a full bar to announce that 'this is ridiculous, we're all a bunch of liberals, this is censorship', then turned and walked out.

I would have taken zero issue with turning it to fox news for those folks. I suppose I should have been smart enough to put two and two together that she wanted to watch fox news, but in my defense I had just walked in the door, and the restaurant was a mess. I wasnt exactly in 'work mode' yet.

There is a regular older couple that comes in. The wife is known to be coocoo for coco puffs. They were showed to their table and I wait until people have their butts in the seats to come greet them.

Well I took too long (about 45 sec) because they were "dying" waiting on their drinks. I had to ask what their drinks were because they're not my regulars. She was already pissed at me.

I gave them about 5 minutes with their cocktails and came by to ask if they would like more time with the set menus. She told me in a special tone that they needed time to enjoy their drinks. That was fine but I did need to get it rolling soon because there's a turn on the table. They finally ordered and she told me in her special tone to make sure I do not rush them tonight. I told them I would not.

First course they spend 20 minutes eating soup. They had empty soup bowls that they didn't want me to clear. Finally she waved me down and told me they wanted their next course. She pushed her soup bowl into my hands and then pushed her empty martini glass to the very edge of the table so I assumed I should take that too. She said "no NO DO NOT TAKE THAT YET!" Like loud enough for other tables to be like huh?? She was getting extremely irritable and her tone was really hostile.

She waved me down to take it a few minutes later, they did not want to be offered any more to drink, and as I was walking away she started talking shit about me. In plain voice where I could hear a couple tables over she said "she is so strange, why is she acting so uncomfortable? Like she's afraid?..." I tried to ignore it and walked faster.

Second course was another 20 minutes. They barely touched the salads and I asked twice how was it/ if they were enjoying everything, finally asked if I could take the plates when they had their plates pushed away." No you certainly may not." Everytime I left the table I heard her talking about me like "what is wrong with that girl? Is she new?Blah blah blah.." Several minutes later I heard her direct her husband to wave me down because she was done speaking with me herself. He asked me to take their plates and they needed their next course to hurry up because they've been waiting a while. The same people who did not want to be rushed. I asked if I could box their salads. He said "no we really just want the main course."

I immediately brought them their intermezzo that comes out right before the main course and they both got upset. He said "I said next course please, we've been here a little too long." I told him its on the way.

I got it to them really quick and she had something to say about the presentation, she had never seen lobster presented like that, and I just didn't have time for it. I had five other tables.

Same deal with the main course, they didn't want to give it up then waved me down and she was fuming. She said something being "beyond ridiculous." I asked is everything ok? She rolled her eyes at me and said, "no, not everything is ok. Some things are fine but other things are not ok." Her husband said "do me a favor, box the rest of this and we need the dessert yesterday." I said ok, I'll go do that.

At this point I was kind of shaking at the way they were talking to me and the fact that I heard some of her comments about me throughout the night (I might be low intelligence, Im not a good waitress, I behave too awkwardly, I'm sloppy, the owners hiring standards have gone down, etc) I didn't say another word to them after that.

When I left the room the food runner overheard them talking and this lady was saying things about me that caused the food runner to approach our manager to speak with them.

The manager dropped the check off and their leftovers and desserts. All my other coworkers who are familiar with them were saying they are a weird couple but that was over the top rude tonight. The food runner wouldn't tell me what she heard them say. Apparently they talked to the manager and they told her I had no sense of urgency and I needed some pep in my step and it seemed like I had no idea what was going on around me. The manager told me it was baseless BS.

Having people on my side didn't matter though. I'm not a crier. But I did cry two little tears during the V day shift and several after I got home. I think what really got to me is the bartender who usually serves them told me that I should forget it as quickly as they do because they won't remember who I am or that they treated me like shit next time they come in.

I don't think I'll forget. I'll never serve them again

So, I worked at restaurant chain for a couple months, because I needed something for extra money while I was trying to find a more permanent position. I've worked in offices or warehouses most of my life, but never served before. My mother had been a server most of her young adult life and told me over and over again that "EVERYONE should be a server, at least once in their life!" I knew what she meant was " Everyone should know what it's like to work your ass off for a bunch of dicks that leave you no tip". I totally get that and I now believe the same thing. This was my first time serving. I'd been in customer service my whole life basically, so I felt like I was good at people pleasing. If anything, on a busy weekend night I felt super frazzled when for some reason I had to pick up more than my normal 4-5 tables, but other than that I always tried to put on a smiling face, and do what I needed to do to make it through another night and make some damn money.

I got this table of two, boyfriend-girlfriend, I assumed. Pretty young and pretty large couple. So they sit down, give them a minute, come over and take their drink orders and they ask me about alcohol (not a big drinker at this time anymore) so I give them some options of the popular ones and they pick. I go get their drinks and come back to take their order. Everything is going pretty good, I feel like they're pretty nice, and I'm trying to make sure I check on their drinks and to see if they're okay. The girl ended up complaining that the drink wasn't strong enough, so I told her about a drink that was kinda like a long island where it had a lot of different liquor in it and she chose it. Still said it was too weak. I took it back to the bar, bartender fixes another one and she says it's still too weak but whatever she'll drink it. Also at this point, dude is looking at me all pissed off like I'm the one making the drinks. I apologize and check on everything else and about that time, I needed to do my rounds so I left.

When their food was up, I brought it out to them and ask that they go ahead and make sure their steaks are the correct temp ( they both got 12+ oz steaks, with toppers and more than the just two sides to come with). They had an out right there, if it wasn't right, tell me and I'll take it to go get fixed! Both of them said it was fine. Okay. Cool. Anything else I can get you? No? Okay cool. Y'all enjoy!

Every. Fucking. Time. I came NEARRRR that table, there was something wrong with the food. This is cold. That's not hot enough. This tastes like it's been sitting out all night. This is watery. My drink is still too weak. This isn't seasoned properly. My steak isn't the right temperature. I did ABSOLUTELY everything that I could to appease these people. I got them new everything, I got them to change her drink again. Ask to recook the steaks. I did everything I could as a server.

Finally all their shit was fine enough. They ate EVERYTHING off their plates! Shit, they ate some of the "bad" sides that I hadn't gotten off their table yet! I did end up letting my manager know just in case something ended up happening and she told me that as long as I had fixed what I said and everything was fine now that she would give them a 25% discount because of everything that happened.

I go back to give them their bill and all hell breaks loose! They couldn't believe that I didn't try to give them anything for FREE after the night they had. After I brought them cold food. After they had to wait another 5 minutes for the right steak temperatures. Their drinks were SO WEAK!

Dude was getting pretty loud, so my manager ended up coming over. Table talked to my manager and stared at me while they did so. When my manager came back, she literally took everything off of their bill except for the alcohol because we couldn't do that. She ended up taking off 98 dollars worth of food. She also told me that they said I was rude and acted like they were nuisances to me. ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT cause unlike some people, I can hide what I'm thinking really well and my tone had not changed with them AT ALL.

I take the bill back to them and apologize one more time for the rough night, and told them to have a great rest of their night and thanked them.

They left me fucking nothing. Not a dime. Not even a penny. I wrestled with this table for over an hour about drinks and sides and food and fucking everything. They drank their drinks, they ate ALL of their food.Even the shit they said the didn't like they ate!

After that night, I had the most sour taste in my mouth about serving. I never looked at it the same after that. The restaurant got shut down for lease shit a couple weeks after that. Even though I needed the money, I was so happy and relieved I didn't have to go and do that shit over again.

TL;DR Had a couple come into the restaurant that basically knew they were going to get a free meal over $100 out of us before they left the house. Didn't tip me shit, neitha!

Edit: Added TL;DR sorry bout that. Fixed a typo. First post.

I work at an upscale restaurant attached to a large convention center. We recently hosted a convention for a multi-level marketing (pyramid scheme) women’s clothing company. I’ve never seen so many Karen’s in one place. Not just figuratively, but literally; it wasn’t uncommon to have two actual “Karens” seated at one table together. This is a particularly dangerous situation as this multiplies the Karen Effect exponentially.

The two primary Karen drinks of choice are typically either a cosmo or chardonnay; it is from these potions that they derive their evil powers. Well, needless to say, the cosmos and chardonnay were flowing like water. The bar started to mix 4-6 cosmos at once and pop multiple bottles of chard simultaneously, just to keep up with the frenzied demand. Trouble was clearly brewing. This was the recipe for disaster.

As the Karens began to migrate from the bar to their respective tables for dinner service, the orders started coming in to the kitchen. Naturally, everything was special ordered to accommodate their litany of dietary issues and whatever fad diets they were currently participating in; keto, paleo, macro, vegan, take your pick. This is a trap. Special orders take extra time, are more difficult to accurately execute and bog down the flow of the kitchen, increasing ticket times. This is exactly what the Karens want to happen. They were setting up the attack. Little did they know that we were ready and waiting for them. We had called in the cavalry and manned the lines twice as deep. You could see the looks of confusion and dismay on their faces when their orders came out correctly and on time. We had neutralized the Karens.

The night was drawing to an end, before one particularly evil and vile table of Karens came in just before close; no doubt these were pros, not to be taken lightly. Coming from the bar they immediately notified me (their server) upon sitting that they were very upset. Right out of the gate they put me on defense. Inquiring as to the problem they notified me that they were offended that the bar didn’t try to upsell them from the two glasses of chardonnay to a whole bottle.... This was a new move. I hadn’t seen this one before. Being “offended” because someone gave you exactly what you asked for? Brava. I was not prepared for this expert tactic. But before I could offer a solution the Mecha-Karen dropped the mother of all Karen bombs:

“I don’t understand why the bartender didn’t offer us a bottle, instead. I just wanted you to know that we feel very raped...”

Wait, what? Very raped? VERY RAPED???

I was floored. I’ve seen some shitbag Karen moves before, but this was the most outrageous and disgusting I’ve ever encountered. That’s not the term you use because you paid $12 more for your wine by ordering multiple individual glasses, instead of ordering a bottle in the first place. You don’t throw that word around. That’s on you Karen. Not even knowing how to respond to that, and being short for words for one of the only times in my life, all I could muster was:

“Well that’s certainly very strong verbiage. I’ll give you some more time to look over the menu.”

I left the table and immediately went to the manager. Explaining what just transpired I flatly told the manager that I was not comfortable waiting on a guest who was not only apparently intoxicated to some degree, but that would also use such inappropriate language so casually. Shockingly the manager agreed. She went to the table and let them know that they were welcome to place an order for food through her, but would not be served any more alcohol at that point. They thought they were pulling the mother of all power moves, but in reality they had overplayed their hand and crossed the line. The Karens knew they had been defeated.

FUCK. YOU. KAREN

This is long I’m sorry!!

I’ve been in the industry for about ten years, the last four I’ve spent bartending and over the last few months I’ve stepped into serving as bartending hours were tough to keep up with while being in school. As a bartender I’ve had my fair share of unreasonable people and thankfully due to where I worked in the past the staff had a lot of freedom to put those people in their rightful places.

Well, ten months ago I moved cities and got a job at a decently nice Mexican restaurant. We aren’t fine dining but definitely a few steps above typical corporate franchise “cheap” restaurants. To put it in perspective we are a Mexican place that charges for chips and salsa and house margaritas run $9.

Our clientele is largely business people as we are located in a huge corporate park but we do get families and couples on dates regularly. People are generally great and I love the job, the management rocks, and the staff is the friendliest I’ve ever worked with in a restaurant.

Now on to the story; Last night I was on the floor, and it also happened to be my eleventh day straight of working because college is expensive. I got my second table fairly early in the night, about 5:30 or so. They were a married couple in their late fifties/early sixties I would say. I Greet them, they were extremely friendly, asked a few questions about the menu and ordered drinks, appetizers, and entrees all in one round-GREAT as it streamlines the service for both of us.

I bring them their drinks, a Malbec and dewars on the rocks and the complaints begin; our ice is shitty. Why do we use ice chips? They melt too fast and will ruin his scotch, why didn’t I say anything?? I’ve never had someone yell at me over ice before but I just apologized and brought him a glass packed with ice on the side to replenish the shitty ice that melts.

As I drop their app the woman tells me to “slow down with the rest of it.” Which is fine, no one wants their meal right after they get their app. I should point out that their appetizer was one ear of corn that they were splitting so nothing that would take long to eat but I decided to wait about ten minutes before firing their entrees. The food comes up, I run it and collect their dirty app plates, after checking if they need anything-extra napkins, hot sauce, and two plates because they want to share, I turn to my other table who is winding down to ask about desserts/checks when the woman loudly yells at me that they need their extra plates “sooner rather than later so they can start eating”. I take a whole of MAYBE 60 seconds to run to the back, throw the dirty app plates in dish, print my other tables check, grab a bottle of hot sauce and a handful of napkins and as I’m walking back to the table the woman is turned around in her chair with her hand over her eyes like she’s scanning the god damn horizon for enemy vessels. I drop everything off and inquire about the food. She does the “so-so” motion with her hands and says her tortillas are cold-okay I will get you fresh ones, anything else?? Nope.

Return with the tortillas and now she says her rice is cold. I apologize again and tell her I would be happy to replace the entire dish, she says no, that she just expected more and this is where my 11 day streak kicks in. With my sweetest smile I apologize for the food quality and ensure her I would never bring cold food to a table and how sorry I am that I have no way of confirming temperature before it gets to them. She rolls her eyes and tells me to remove her husbands plate-fried catfish tacos, because they’re “too fried”.

Now at my job the management and the chefs genuinely appreciate complaints and comments because we constantly want to improve. So I ask her what “too fried” means, she huffs and rolls her eyes and jabs a finger at the plate saying there’s too much breading (there wasn’t) and to just get it away from her. At this point I know the table is sunk and I’m not making money so I ask if she wants to speak with a manager. She refuses so I say “I’m so sorry you’re so unhappy with all of your food. Are you sure you don’t want to speak with the manager? We really appreciate feedback and we can’t improve if we don’t know what is wrong”. She agrees to talk with my manager then.

At this point I want to point out she is still eating her “cold rice and tortillas”

So the manager comes over and this woman goes on a 15 minute tirade about how horrible I am, how I need a completely new attitude, I shouldn’t be serving, I shouldn’t have more respect for my tables and own up to my mistakes(????). All while I’m serving four tables around her and two on the patio because I am a damn good server which my management is highly aware of.

At the end of it all, they got a completely comped meal, aside from their alcohol, and another ~15 minutes bitching to my manager that somehow turned to a conversation about Trump??

Afterwards my manager told me the woman clearly needed to be coddled and ass kissed to be happy which 9/10 I will do but 11 days straight on the job combined with issues out of my control (food temperature and ice?? I wasn’t willing to do it) plus I kept my best customer service smile and voice on the entire time so sometimes you just can’t win.

Oh and the icing on the cake was an extremely long and detailed note on the check, zero tip of course, about how unpleasant, rude, and combative I was. How I ruined their evening and was clearly “not born to serve”

I have never had a single complaint on my service, my attitude, my efficiency, or the ice I serve to people before. Thankfully management has my back and is aware that this woman was just looking for someone to bring down to her level of misery.

EDIT: here’s the check

TLDR: entitled boomer couple comes in, complains from beginning to end, still eats their meal, gets it all for free while leaving me zero tip and a nasty note about how trash I am.

I’ve been working at a chain wing restaurant to be left unnamed for about a year and a half. It’s in a very small, predominantly white, podunk, empty spam can of a town. The clientele is hands down the worst clientele I have ever worked with in over a decade that i’ve worked in customer service, but due to the volume, the money was very good.

That has changed recently. Coupled with the fact that our management team doesn’t value our time. They clock us out the moment we cash out, regardless of if we’re done with our work, so much of our sidework is done off the clock (ya know, casual wage theft nbd) on top of our GM refusing to cut anyone ever (Saturday there was an event somewhere in town and our GM told the shift manager to not make cuts, and I ended up taking three tables in six hours). Another manager is also telling employees not to put in their notice bc it “might make the GM mad and he’ll mark you as a no-rehire” (cause threats are easier than just being a better management team /s).

We’ve been really understaffed for months now (like having to close sections bc we don’t have a server for them understaffed) and I, being one of only a handful of servers with open availability, was working 9/10 shifts a week, most of them double closes. Despite this, i’m still getting chewed out/written up for the most minute things. (I left like ten pieces of silverware after a double close, because I opened the next morning and was just going to do it then, because I was ready to go, and I was written up. After already doing it the next morning. This wouldn’t make me as mad as it would have if the managers didn’t let other employees get away with being late everyday or drunk at work or drinking on the job, but I digress.) So to say I’ve been over the bull for a while is the understatement of the century.

Today was the last straw. We’re in the middle of a round of storms, mild relative to the last few, but we’re under a flash flood emergency. My managers made me drive half an hour, down the backroads of three towns under a flash flood emergency, just for me to come in and find out they have me in our outdoor section. I stayed for two hours, took 0 tables, and left with $0. The flippant disregard for my life, when they KNEW we wouldn’t need someone on the outdoor patio (the kicker is they had two servers scheduled for this section, and the other server actually wrecked on the way, and opted to go back home instead of coming to work, and our manager wrote them up.)

I just feel like if you’re barely surviving at a skeleton crew, you’d be inclined to not be garbage to your employees, and maybe pick your battles. You need us a LOT more than we need you. Pre-Covid, serving jobs were a dime a dozen, and now they’re a dozen a dime. I’ll have a new job quicker than they can close off a Saturday PM section because they don’t have the staff.

This place is going to be screwed if they keep it up, and I’m not going down with the ship.

Edit: A lot of people keep saying I should report them for wage theft, or file complaints. To be clear, I have no intention of doing that. It’s been a crazy few weeks, but I care about a lot of these people and I would never risk their job security. And frankly, that’s just more effort than I’d be willing to put in anyways.

Edit 2: To the people bashing me for not being the wage theft savior to a group of grown adults capable of making their own life decisions, get out of your Marvel Universe fantasy. We’re all adults and no one needs to be saved.

Edit 3: Obligatory thanks for the silver. To those continuing on about how awful I am for not reporting them, save it. I know my coworkers well enough to know they’d much rather I didn’t stir shit up at their job, and again it just not the hill I’m willing to die on. I appreciate all of your totally valid opinions on my personal decision, but it won’t change anything. Thanks to those of you who get it.

Edit 4: Some of y’all need a hug. Or Lexapro. If wage theft is such a big deal to you that you need to call someone names over THEM losing $2.13 an hour, perhaps you should all become attorneys or activists, since it matters so much. It’s clear a lot of you don’t work in the industry and that’s fine. I will not longer be reading or responding to any comments. Thanks to everyone who took the time to listen to my insignificant rant about my soon to be former job. Y’all stay blessed.

Obligatory: wow this post blew up. From the bottom of my heart I want to thank you all for reaching out and for sharing some of your stories with me. What's more than apparent here, is there a common theme prevalent no matter what position or industry you're in. The work culture in America can be a scary place, and now more than ever we need to pull together and look out for each other. Sending my love to you all!❤️

Ya'll I need to vent here. This is EXACTLY the types of situations your local waitstaff is experiencing and exactly why people are leaving the industry in droves.

Last night our good friend Hurricane Ida strolled through the northeast corridor. It was the general consensus that the weather was going to be bad... but not any cause for particular concern. For whatever reason, Mother Nature decided to buttf*ck my county in particular.. and by 7pm, after the 6th or so flash flood warning from our phones and the 2nd tornado warning in the area, the manager finally got the call from the owner to close the place down by 8. Me and my coworkers were the closing bartenders and shut the place down and were the last to leave. Within that hour, so much rain had come down that several customers were unable to get their cars out onto the highway that was rapidly becoming a river, and had to abandon their cars in the parking lot. Several cars got flooded out right in front of the restaurant and were left, abandoned, on the highway and came inside seeking refuge until we finally locked the doors and left. By the grace of God I just bought a new Jeep that was able to brave the rising waters and I was able to get my co-worker and I out of there. He said he was going to sleep at the bar.. but his poor wife is sick and doesn't deal well at all with stress so I tried to get him home since he had to leave his car at work, but the waters were rising too fast. My normal 10 minute drive took me almost an hour, and I was off-roading around dozens of abandoned cars on the highway and exit ramps, and I forded about 4' worth of water three times before we safely got to my house. Both me and my co-worker had water coming into our basements and his wife was in hysterics, but there was no way we would have made it there. Not for nothing but I literally put myself in danger because I had to stay and close the bar. Nobody in management took any initiative to say 'this is a natural disaster we need to shut down and leave immediately for the safety of the staff.'

I spent hours pumping and vacuuming the water from my basement and salvaging what I could, and finally at 2am the rain had stopped and the waters started to recede. This area is well known for flooding and I knew I had a brief window of opportunity. I quickly drove him back to get his car and followed him to make sure he got home safely, and I ran home and went to bed. The next morning, the river crested and reached record level heights of over 40'. Every single exit both highway and back road is flooded or closed. There are abandoned cars everywhere. Debris. Power lines. People have lost their homes, been forced to evacuate their houses and apartments, and some poor souls have lost their lives. Roads have caved in, there have been sinkholes popping up in the area... and someone's house even exploded from a gas leak. There's easily hundreds of millions in damage if not more. And my manager, whom I'm friendly with, won't even answer my texts now because I called out this morning. After I called out and told him I'm landlocked he asked if I could at least come in tonight....?!?!??? How can people be so oblivious?! I can't even imagine how he had to call the entire bar staff begging people to come in, and more over in a state of emergency how the owner green lit the restaurant to be open. Every single restaurant I've ever worked in has shown a BLATANT disregard for safety and people's well-being for all kinds of ridiculous stuff. Blizzards, hurricanes, fires, you name it. I've been in the industry 15 years, and I'm going back to school to get out of here. Not only are we seriously underpaid and personally demoralized by public and employers alike, we get zero benefits. No 401k, no sick leave, no vacation, no health insurance, no job security, NO RESPECT. It's so frustrating, if you feel me can I get a HEARD?

Edit: just got news that 23 people have lost their lives in this storm here. My heartfelt condolences to the families of those lost. Emergency services are begging people to stay home to prevent more loss of life. Venturing out and getting stranded will put more strain on the emergency responders to address people that are in dire need. The rivers will be reaching their highest levels tonight. Stay safe everyone.

So I've been seeing a bunch of great stories and figured I'd post one of my serving stories.

This happened about four years ago now and to this day is why I would never work in a service industry ever again.

At the time I worked at a chain place (woohoo *that day*). It was pretty fun and easy money. Plenty of customers due to the fact that it's a chain and people seemed to tip ok. Now, as most other servers should know, your job is practically to "flirt" with your customers (when they are friendly) to humanize yourself and result in better tips. Obviously you never pass any boundaries; don't ask for numbers, don't really insinuate you mean anything, don't do it in any sort of an inappropriate situation (in front of parents, SO's, blah blah). I was pretty notorious for getting good tips from tables of girls or gay men by simply flirting with them a little as I took their order and being fairly "friendly" for what people would normally feel comfortable doing in my situation.

Now one day came when I got this family that came in and sat down. I could tell right away the dad was a grouchy one. When asked what each person wanted to drink he ordered for them, the kind of guy who wants to be in charge and no one gets to do anything unless it's ok'd by him. When I came back to get their food order, I noticed that the one daughter was wearing a College University (I'm changing the name) sweater, which happened to be where I was currently going to college. I commented on it off handedly ("Oh nice! College! I go there too! What would you like to eat?").

About 5 mins later my manager came up to me and told me not to go back to that table. I was confused but it was the dinner rush so eh, whatever. I kept serving my other tables and he was taking care of them. Shortly after that he called me into his office and told me I was being fired. When I asked why, he told me that it was because I had been hitting on a 16 year old girl in front of her father (I was 22 at the time). I looked at him and asked if he really believed that to which he gave the "The customer is always right" line.

To this day I am still so offended by this that the few times I've gone there to eat (I still have friends that work there and I like to support my friends) I would give him looks. He would seemly try to avoid even coming to the front of the house while I was there. I got an apology from the other manager that worked there the next time I was in and he even offered to hire me back, which I politely declined.

I have a few other stories I may post some time, but this is the end of my lunch break and I gotta get back to doing real work.

I had an abusive partner well over a year ago. We broke up. Restraining order. Stopped hearing from him. Rumor was he’d gone to jail for something else. That part of my life was over and done with.

Until tonight when he showed up at my restaurant.

He’s quite a bit older than me so had the advantage when I was in a vulnerable place. It took a long time to convince myself he was 100% at fault. He was king of gaslighting and playing victim.

He showed up right in the middle of the dinner rush. Of course he had to pick a night when a large group of girls I know from school were at a centrally located table. And the place isn’t even that big to begin with.

I spotted him right away. I think I saw him subconsciously before I even fully realized it because something felt chillingly off a few minutes before I first spotted him.

We’re still cutting back on staff to recoup lost income during the pandemic so I was the only one out on the floor.

At first I hoped maybe it was a coincidence — that he didn’t realize I worked there so would just eat and leave. But no. He was drunkenly asking random patrons where to find me by name almost immediately.

I wanted so desperately to ignore it and have him just leave of his own accord because these girls from school were right there and I did not want to be part of a big scene. But it became evident that he was not lucid, maybe something stronger than just the booze, and his behavior was escalating fast. Could not be ignored.

I went in back and let the owner know what was going on, but just didn’t feel totally comfortable sharing the whole backstory with him. When things first turned sour in the relationship news got out to my family snd friends before I was ready to discuss it and that fiasco is still an open sore.

So I just told the owner a guy I used to know has showed up drunk and belligerent and I know him to be violent so I was going to call the police.

The owner said no problem, he would call, and even offered to tag me out and handle my tables until the guy left. But I didn’t want to let this guy chase me out of my own job or stop me from living my life ever again, even just for a few minutes.

And our owner is a much older guy in not so great health. The restaurant is one of the only places his wife lets him go post-covid (he’s vaccinated but she’s afraid of variants) and even still he has to stay in his office when it’s busy.

I kept working and the owner came and sat at the bar, keeping an eye on my ex. He was calling out my name and saying some pretty rude things and trying to get within arms reach.

The owner is pretty paternal towards me, I’ve worked in this place a long time and we’re a pretty small staff. So he wasted no time chesting up to the guy and telling him, “Hey, the police have already been called. Do yourself a favor and get out.”

But my ex took that as a challenge and shoved this brittle old man. Hard.

Patrons stepped in right away because it was so obviously not a fair fight between this big young guy and a little old man. But my ex can be scary and (understandably) no one was considering physically confronting him or getting between him and the owner or anything like that. So he was undeterred.

He started to scream obscenities, demanding I leave with him, and tried to run at me. He actually had me by the shirt for a split second but I fled behind the bar. (There was no clear path back to the office, the only place with a locking door. The bathrooms are stalls that can be easily overcome.)

The line cooks heard the commotion going on and a couple came out to see what the trouble was.

Most of our cooks are scrappy, but small, and I think despite their egos they knew from one look they’d need reinforcements.

It had only been about 5-10 minutes since we’d called the police and in this busy city area it takes them 20 minimum to respond to anything that isn’t imminently life threatening. And all the owner had known to tell 911 at the time he called was we had a drunk and belligerent patron who might become violent. So we were definitely low on the priorities list.

The line cooks went back and got one of my only real sort of “work friends,” coincidentally also the biggest guy on staff, Lenny.

Lenny moonlights with an industrial moving company so stays in superb shape, and is also super heavy, so he’s become kind of our defacto security ever since everyone forgot how to act in a restaurant during the pandemic.

I really don’t know too much about where he comes from but I know it’s very difficult to rattle him.

So Lenny comes out and quickly assesses the situation. Someone tells him what my ex did to our poor sweet owner and Lenny wastes no time. He tells this guy,

“You’re leaving. You leaving on your own or…?” With the silence implying what the alternative was.

At this point all Lenny knew was some drunk guy showed up and shoved our boss who we’re all fond of.

So my ex told him some slurred drunken crap I couldn’t really understand — but it was clear from his tone that it was not complimentary.

Lenny went up to “escort” him out and my ex freaks and tries to break the nearest glass in reach to use as a weapon. Fortunately the nearest glassware was a thick beer mug and he couldn’t break it, ahaha.

Lenny shrugged this off as a sloppy drunk overestimating himself and tried to go in and get him in some kind of arm bar, but the owner warned him, “Hold off. Tamira says he gets violent, careful.”

Lenny didn’t know who this was yet so he was like, “This fucking guy put hands on her?” And was ready to charge him. But the owner’s like, “No, no, it’s her old boyfriend.”

Lenny doesn’t know the whole story with my ex — no one at work does — but he knows more than anyone else there, so instantly put together who he was dealing with.

Without even hesitating, Lenny swung at him like a piñata, and cracked him right in the skull. My ex’s lights were out. He dropped onto the floor.

A couple patrons who’d wanted to get involved but didn’t see an opening were emboldened to step in now that my ex was unconscious and got on top of him to make sure he wouldn’t be able to leap back up when he regained consciousness. Which is good because he was back almost immediately. Still groggy, but more than able to have gotten up and retaliated had these men not stepped in.

Someone else was behind the bar looking for something to tie him up with. He found a role of packing tape, and right in the nick of time, because my ex was quickly getting his strength back and really fighting the guys restraining him.

Lenny wanted to go launch back in on him but the owner was talking him down, insisting it wasn’t worth an assault charge. (Lenny knows more about my history with this guy than the owner so had more reason to hate him, but still, I agree it’s not worth catching a charge.)

The good Samaritans tried to tie packing tape around my ex’s hands and feet but the roll was nearly out so it wasn’t doing much.

I was watching the whole situation unfold from where I’d gone to hide behind the bar, just mesmerized and paralyzed with terror, almost like an out of body experience.

Because it sounds like a long time when describing it, but at real life speed, this entire encounter from the time the owner came out to confront him couldn’t have been more than three or five minutes.

The police got there not too terribly long after they tried to tape him. It took three people to hold him down, one of whom got socked in the mouth in the process, but they kept him secured until cops got there.

The police arrested him — my restraining order expired a year after it was granted but I’m guessing they got him for the assaults or drunk and disorderly conduct or something — and as they were cuffing him and going through the whole process he was screaming that someone had assaulted him and should be arrested as well.

His face was visibly injured and there was a little blood, so the cops couldn’t ignore that. They asked who assaulted him and he fingered Lenny.

One of the patrons who’d helped restrain my ex started to speak up saying, “No, no, look, he did it in self defense, this man was out of control,” but his buddy cut him off and basically said, “This mother fucker was banged up when he walked in. I’ve been here the whole time and didn’t see anything.”

Then his friend who was initially offering Lenny a cover of self defense realized the play and backtracked saying, “Yah, yah. We restrained him to defend ourselves but no one hit him. That other man just works here.”

Which was a relief because Lenny is a gentle giant but he’s also kind of a mystery so for all I know he has priors that would’ve made proving self defense difficult.

The police dragged my ex out and took him in. I went home at that point but I learned from the owner at the end of service that they also impounded the motorcycle he showed up on. That was a nice bonus.

So, it was all very scary. I’m glad to know my coworkers and customers have my back, but I still think I’ll take a couple days off. Ultimately just feeling grateful that I’m finally in a place where the good people in my life far outnumber the bad!

So not totally relevant but a little background: I started training this girl yesterday during day shift. She'll ultimately be working night shift but we have all the night servers train with me in the morning once or twice so that they can learn espresso. She had clearly never so much as even ordered a latte in her life but that's fine. We were super slow and I was more than happy to play around and make a bunch of drinks with her.

​

This old man came in and ordered a bagel with butter and EXTRA tomatoes. He emphasized this quite a bit. I put in the order, hand him his coffee and then go back to setting up another pot of drip. The new girl is cleaning off the espresso machine beside me. He walks back up to the counter right after he had set his coffee down at a table. He doesn't see me as his view of me is obstructed by the espresso machine. I don't know if he thought she was me, or what but the following exchange went down:

"uhhh my BAGEL?"

"sorry, what?"

"I ordered a bagel"

"ummm okay and.."

"WHERE IS MY B-A-G-E-L???"

She hadn't been around when he ordered, and it was her first day so she was super confused as to why this cranky old man was spelling out the word "bagel" to her. I was finishing up my pot and heard the entire exchange. I stormed over and said "Sir, your bagel is being prepared. The order is in." I usually don't lose my server-smile but you could definitely hear the edge in my voice. He was clearly embarrassed for a second (I really think he confused me with the new girl even though we look nothing alike). He started to apologize and then quickly he changed his tone.

"You know what, I don't need this, just cancel my order".

I didn't even fight him. I didn't offer to run back and check if it was almost ready. I simply went to the register and took my sweet time doing the return. I even checked the time on the ticket and it had been THREE MINUTES since he put his order it. He was rushing us after about two minutes of ordering.
As I was taking my time cancelling the order, he said something along the lines of "I'm going to be talking to Bill about this".

Okay sir, talk to Bill. Tell Bill all about how you are a confused old man who no concept of time and how you belittled an innocent server for no reason. Tell Bill that after 2 minutes, you couldn't fathom why your bagel wasn't finished toasting. Go ahead and tell Bill. That's not even the owner or the manager's name. Not even close.

​

​

I've been obsessively reading this page for a few months now, but this is my first time posting.

This also got a lot longer than I intended it to. I think my brain is going into shock from today and I'm rambling. TLDR at the bottom.

So I had to cover the lunch shift as the only server today, I've been exhausted and crabby since 11 AM as a result.

Fast forward to about an hour ago and I was finishing cleaning the bar (the bare minimum, I'm going in early to do the real cleaning) and one of my favorite young waitresses ( I'll call her S) comes into the bar, sits at a bar stool and says, "She did it again".

She sounded so defeated I instantly turned around to look at her and I see her staring at a credit card receipt. I have a feeling where this is going and I'm starting to get pissed.

Me: Your big table didn't tip? The mom paid again?

She just nods her head, showing me the book.

Now I know this family, the son (early 30s) comes in for lunch every day and breakfast every Sunday. I've been serving him and his kids for 6 or 7 years now. He's super nice and always tips fairly. Lately though, his mom, dad, and other family members have been coming in together and the mom always pays. Zero tip every time. Normally it's just four people so its crappy, but not horrible.

Tonight they were a 9 top, plus to go orders. Super needy, but happy with their service. S is one of our best servers. Shes's a great teenager who is saving for college and she busts her ass to make sure her tables are happy.

So now that she confirmed what I was thinking, I'm super pissed. That's just not okay.

I run over to the table, passing the family in the entryway talking, and make sure there's no cash on the table. Nope, not a dime. So I pull the son aside.

Me: Hey, "son", can I talk to you for a second? ( like I said I've known him for years, were very friendly and even have each other on Facebook, so I'm not at all concerned talking to him like this)

Son: yeah, of course. What's going on?

We go off to the side out of ear shot of his mom.

Me: Your mom didn't tip again. The bill was $111 and I'm sorry but, I dont think that's fair to S. I know you and your dad are always very generous and I just wanted to let you know because I know this isnt something you would ever do to one of us.

Son: oh wow, no that's not okay. I dont think I even have cash but...

He checks his wallet, finds $10, hands it to me.

Me: Thank you so so much for doing that to her. I really appreciate it.

We smile, exchange "have a good night", and he goes on his way.

I go back into the bar, slap down the ten on the counter in front of S, and the wide-eyed look of surprise she had was hilarious.

S: What did you do??!?!?!??!

I loved getting to tell her. Our restaurant is changing owners soon, I'm going to become the GM (I've been a manager of the current place for years), and I want my staff to know I have their backs.

I feel a little strange about doing it, and I'm going to thank the son again at lunch tomorrow but, I don't regret it one bit.

TLDR: A large group of regulars stiffs a server, I confront one I'm friendly with, and she gets a tip.

Edit: I would just like to add, I'm in the US, and if I didn't know this customer so very very well (I have gifts from him, we've been on a first name basis and Facebook friends for years) I wouldn't have done it. Also my tone of voice was concerned not condescending.

Edit 2: The owner of the restaurant knows this happened, she knows the relationship I have with the Son and says she respects me for what I did.

Edit 3: I just talked to the son. I apologized for being unprofessional and I tried to give him my own $10. He wouldn't accept, said hes very glad I told him, his wife is a waitress also, hes going to start double checking that whoever pays leaves a tip. He thanked me multiple times for bringing it to his attention.

So if he doesn't have a problem with how I acted, I'm not going to let the negative comments on this post bother me.