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(#21) "Dry Steak" Guy
From u/panascope:
I haven't waited tables in about 10 years now but I'll never forget the guy who asked for his steak "dry." When I pressed him for what he wanted explicitly he explained that he wanted "no juice" to come out when he was eating it. I told him it would take about 30 minutes to cook his steak that done, he said that was fine and off I went. Our steaks were pretty miserable portions in the first place, and the cut he ordered was the smallest one on the menu, so when I returned with his tiny little 6 oz flat iron that had been absolutely desiccated on the grill he looked understandably disappointed. He took a few bites of it and decided "it wasn't very good," which was underselling how bad it looked and almost certainly how bad it tasted.
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(#8) Salad Without The Green Stuff
From u/paranormalvespa:
I waitressed a pizza place by myself during the day on the weekends. Usually on Sunday we would get busy and on this particular Sunday I had a few large tables and a couple small tables by myself. It was to the point where I was running to place orders and every time I went back to the kitchen I had at least 4-5 things I had to do (place order for table A, table E, G, and B need refills, table H’s order just came out, etc.)
So I’m literally running to place an order and grab things when this table pulls me aside. It was two elderly couples and they had already made things complicated when their friends came in and joined them so I had to place another order and they had a lot of requests. So they stop me on my way to the kitchen and one woman asked me to place an order for a salad. Her friend got one so now she wanted one. Except she didn’t want the “dark green stuff.” She literally asked for salad but without half the salad because of its color. I told her the salads came pre-packaged as a mix. She said “Well you can just pick it out for me then.”
Sorry picking the bits out of your salad that you don’t want, isn’t my job. Especially when I’m waitressing 5 other tables.
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(#27) Risky Proposal
From u/VictorBlimpmuscle:
I waited on a young couple one night, and before they ordered, the guy pulled me aside and explained to me that he was planning on proposing to his girlfriend during dinner, and had a special request: he wanted to give me the ring to give to the chef, so that he could insert it into whatever it is she ordered, so that she would find it while eating her meal. I explained to the guy that I didn’t think the chef or my boss would go for that idea as her potentially swallowing or choking on the ring was a pretty big liability risk, to which the guy responded, “Don’t worry I won’t blame you guys if she chokes, and if she swallows it, we’ll get it back!” Just to humor the guy, I asked the chef and my boss about the guy’s request and, despite his verbal waiver of liability, they confirmed that we couldn’t honor it. As an alternative, I suggested maybe ordering her favorite cocktail and then I could place the ring around a straw or stirrer in the drink before I brought it out to her, but he replied that that wouldn’t work because she wasn’t 21. He ended up proposing more conventionally, and she said yes, and now 20+ years later I sometimes wonder whatever became of them and how their marriage turned out.
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(#28) Show Me Your Teeth
From u/shannibearstar:
I've had an older gentleman ask me to smile so he could see my teeth. He told me I had really nice teeth and looked like I took care of them. He was with his adult son who then apologized and informed me that his dad was a dentist but has Alzheimer's so he didn't mean to be weird.
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(#10) Allergic To Penne
From u/The_original_guy:
I used to work at an Italian restaurant similar to Olive Garden. I had a lady once order a Penne With Chicken and Broccoli... a tasty dish to be sure, but the lady requested that we make it with spaghetti pasta instead of penne because she "is allergic to penne".
Not sure how exactly you're allergic to a specific shape of pasta... we'd gladly do the substitute even if she wasn't allergic.
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(#24) Mysterious Man Of The Alabama Crimson Tide... Who Is He?
From u/kefkaeatsbabies:
I had a regular at my bar who spoke with a thick Southern accent, always wore an Alabama Crimson Tide shirt or some variant, would only drink beers from the South (N*ked Pig Pale being his go to) which I kept in stock just for him, and would sit at the bar, bet the horse races, regale us with tales from his youth, get a little too drunk and leave to take care of his mother. He was there every single day except Thursdays. He demanded we keep Alabama beer in stock and always wanted replays of old Crimson Tide games on TV. It got to the point i started downloading them into a drive and playing them for him, since espn U is only good for so much.We all thought he was wild but he was nice enough.
This went on for an entire year. Our entire staff knew him and he was pretty well liked. We had to ask him to leave once or twice because he decided to impress someone or would win a couple races and start drinking scotch and get a little out of hand, but he was generally really polite and respectful.
One day he just stopped coming in. One of the older ladies who worked at the track had his phone number, since she had the habit of saving him race books for the tracks he liked, so she called him a few times. Nothing.
About a month later the Police showed up to ask some people at the bar about him, if they might know where he is. We all told them what we knew but apparently not a word of it was true. His name wasn't Scott, he wasn't from the South and his mother had been dead for quite a while. Turns out he had seduced an older, southern lady with his charms and wiles, created an entire life with her for her money (supposedly), then disappeared with the money and the lady turned up dead. Police said it was from natural causes but the timing was so odd they still needed to find him to question him.
He came back in for a single drink about 4 months later and he left an envelope for our 3 bartenders he liked and the lady who held racing books for him. $1500 in each. I served him and asked my manager at the time what she thought I should do. She asked if I felt uncomfortable; I said no and since cops aren't great for business at a horse track we just decided to leave it be. I walked back out and he had left, leaving a simply written "thanks for being a friend" on a napkin with $704.50 in cash under it. The $4.50 was for the beer; and my rent, as he had asked about many months before in a random conversation, was $700 at the time. Dunno if he remembered or if it was just a coincidence.
He was gone and I never saw him again, and his phone number is now out of service. I think about him a couple times a week at least.
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About This Tool
Providing almost all service to customers is the principal requirement of restaurant service staff. As long as it is a reasonable request, restaurant employees must find ways to satisfy customers. Most waiters want to ensure that their customers have a good dining experience, but they do not need to sacrifice self-esteem for this. Some customers' requirements are completely absurd, but they are completely unaware of this error.
You may never know such ridiculous customer requests in daily life, to be a good waiter is not easy, they have to face different customers every day. You could check some restaurant employees' descriptions of their worst customers here, the random tool displays 28 stories.
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