Random Restaurant Employees Recount Their Ridiculous Customer Requests, And They Deserve Way More Tips (28 items)

• (#1) Quarter Queen

  From u/sh*tstormsabrewi:

  This actually happened very recently. I was at the host stand when a lady came in, looking kind of frazzled and holding a few dollar bills. I greeted her and, as I expected, she immediately asked for quarters to plug the meter. I politely told her she could approach the bartender to get change, as I obviously don't just have a bunch of quarters in my f**king apron.

  She then looked at me very sternly and said, "No, YOU will get me change from the bartender" as if I had just asked her if I could kick her dog or something.

  So I get this b**ch some change, bring it back to her, and she says "Not only should you have gotten me change right away, you really should have offered to go out and add quarters to the parking meter for me."

  B**ch I'm not a f**king valet nor your personal assistant. Im still mad thinking about this.
• (#2) Substitute A Side For A Meal?

  From u/GiveHerTheWorks:

  Some old woman got mad at me because I told her that I wouldn't substitute the side on her meal for ANOTHER MEAL. Like she wanted $16 Meal A, and for her free side, she wanted $18 Meal B, but with absolutely no upcharge.

  She was like "Wow really, you're not going to do that for me? Are you serious?!" I was busy and didn't have time to play stupid games so I just said "No, I'm not going to do that for the price of one meal. You can order both meals if you'd like." She started up again until her daughter was like "Mom KNOCK IT OFF."
• (#3) Oysters At 2AM

  From u/connaught_plac3:

  > Oysters!

  I explained we are a burger joint, no oysters. He takes off his coat, talks to his date, then stares at me for a second.

  > Oysters!

  I explain again, no oysters.

  > Two dozen! Oysters!

  After a third and fourth time where he barks an order at me, then acts all busy so he 'can't hear' my response, I stop and stare at him. He asks again, I just stare, he asks again, I just stare. He finally makes eye contact with me. "Sir, we are a burger joint, no oysters." He is finally forced to acknowledge me.

  > So go get some!

  We were in a casino, we were the only restaurant open at 2AM, he knew this but expected me to run around to some closed restaurant and grab raw shellfish them just happen to be hosting during closed hours.
• (#4) Clean My Shoe

  From u/soupseasonbestseason:

  we were opening a new bar in a popular area of a large east coast city. i was on staff for a soft open for food bloggers, columnists, and prominent yelp review writers. if anyone has worked one of these events before, you know how entitled and pushy the guests are going to be. everyone thinks that they are the most important person in the room and it is your job to just kiss a*s and deliver the food and drinks (side note, these events are usually free as they are invitation only). tipping really sucks at these usually and they put the best staff on because we know the situation but will do a good job in spite of the lack of money to be made. our manager always made sure that there was plenty of food and drinks for staff after these parties because of the small amount of money we earned. the lady who coordinated the event was a food blogger who also had a style and travel blog. she was wearing red bottoms. at one point she stepped in a canape and sat down in a bar stool (higher than the rest of the seats in the restaurant) and shoved her foot in my face insisting that it was my job to clean off her shoe. it took all my strength to get a napkin and tell her "you have two hands, do it yourself." i immediately ran back to my manager, she was going to complain, and told him what happened. he told me that i should have told her to "f**k off." damn i miss that dude!
• (#5) Never Bring Your Own Spices

  From u/A_Wild_Taka_Appears:

  [This story is] not one I experienced firsthand, but one that happened when my uncle was out to dinner with a few of his friends.

  His one friend had a new girlfriend that he brought along, and shortly after getting their food, without even tasting it first, this woman pulls a container of ground hot pepper from her purse. She tells them that it's her absolute favorite and she just can't eat anything without it.

  She shakes a whole bunch of it onto her food and proceeds to eat... but then she starts to gag and complains that the food is too spicy. She says that she uses this seasoning literally every meal and it's never this spicy! So therefore, it must be the restaurant's fault. She aggressively flags down the waiter and demands to be given another plate of food that is less spicy, and she wants it free because they shouldn't have served her such a spicy meal.

  The waiter looks at her confused. The meal she ordered isn't spicy at all... and the seasoning all over her food isn't something that they actually have... So he of course asks if she brought it herself, and she says yes. Waiter goes to ask the manager what to do, and the manager comes out and tells the woman that they can make her a new meal, but she's still going to have to pay for the previous meal because she brought her own seasoning and put too much on it herself.

  She is outraged by this! She insists that it isn't her fault that she dumped a s**tload of ground hot pepper on the food! She uses this all the time, so it's definitely the restaurant's fault! Everyone else at the table is cringing of course.

  She gets progressively more and more irate, until she finally picks up the plate of food and throws it to the floor.

  The cops were called. They asked if they wanted to press charges against her, but they said no, they just wanted her removed from the restaurant at this point. However... she ended up trying to fight the cops and got her dumb a*s [hauled in] anyway.

  Needless to say... my uncle's friend broke up with her...
• (#6) Guy Who Requests Only Female Servers

  From u/GiveHerTheWorks:

  Another guy always refused a male server and requested a female one. If all of them were busy he would demand the female manager wait on him. He was always mad and he'd try to play word games with us, presumably because he was lonely and miserable. He'd make up his own names for the dishes we served and refused to tell us what he actually wanted. One time I had him, he kept telling me he wanted a "large bistro-style salad", something that's not on our menu. I was sick of his s**t so I said "Sure thing Frank, I'll go get it right now" and walked away. He was like "Wait!" because he obviously knew we didn't have such a thing. I just kept walking and told my manager I wasn't serving him anymore. She went over and chewed him the f**k out in front of a full dining room, so that was cool.
• (#7) Corona With Lime

  From u/[deleted]:

  Early 2000's.

  Working in an Italian restaurant, this one cat insists he needs lime juice for his meal. As we're an Italian restaurant, we don't have any on hand for our menu items, but the bar should have some. Thinking out loud I mention that the kitchen doesn't have any, but the bar throws those into bottles of Corona, so I might be able to get some there.

  Customer: Are you going to charge me for that?

  Me: No, I think I can get a garnish for you.

  So I come back with the lime and he looks confused.

  Customer: Where's the Corona?

  Me: I'm sorry - you said you wanted the lime? Did you want to order a Corona as well?

  Customer: Yeah I want one, you said you wouldn't charge me.

  Leading into a back-and-forth wherein he's upset I didn't bring him a free Corona with his free lime, because he misunderstood me.
• (#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.
• (#9) Wine Snobs

  From u/Weird_Map_Guy:

  I worked in a wine store in a dying shopping mall owned by a local winery We had this 'wine club' program and I'm pretty sure this couple were the only active members.

  But the level of entitlement these people had was something else. We'd offer samples of a few of different types - usually a Pinot Grigio or a Chardonnay, a merlot, and maybe a riesling or a fruit wine or something that was mass produced and inexpensive.

  These people would come in and start ordering me around, would start demanding samples of this Cabernet Sauvignon that cost $80 a bottle (which we never sampled for obvious reasons). The guy would drink the strawberry wine and start critiquing it like he's a sommelier or something. Once a quarter the winery sent out coupons to its members where if you bought one bottle, you got another one half price - the woman always tried to buy a $15 bottle then get the $80 bottle for half price. It became this quarterly fight she'd try to pick.

  They'd always try to pull this right at closing time, too, which is really when I lost patience for it.
• (#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.
• (#11) Rose And Her Fruit Slices

  From u/frothyminx:

  I bartended all through college at this bayside bar in Ocean City, MD.

  Every Tuesday, we had “Senior Deck Party,” where we’d set up a free buffet with all the mushy foods you can think of. The seniors would come through, grab a couple happy hour drinks, gorge on potato salad, and head out.

  There was this one lady named Rose that would come, take up 2 seats at the bar (one for her and one for her purse) and sit there all day, demanding the following:

  A ginger ale in a highball glass with 2 orange slices, one lime slice, a lemon slice, 3 cherries, and 2 straws.

  She never touched the fruit, it was only a status thing, and I was supposed to fill up her ginger ale every time it got to half a glass to restore carbonation.

  Any bartender will tell you, fruit is a precious commodity. This routine caused me extreme mental anguish.

  I should also add, SHE NEVER TIPPED.
• (#12) My Son Wants Ranch

  From u/Dpg2304:

  A Mom and young son (maybe 8?) came in to the restaurant I waited tables at for lunch. The Mom asked her son what he wanted to eat, and he replied with “ranch.”

  I politely asked if he meant, like, a salad with ranch? Or French fries with a side of ranch?

  The Mom looked at me, rolled her eyes in embarrassment, and clarified—he wanted a soup bowl full of ranch dressing...

  I walked into the kitchen and discussed with my manager, because I had no idea how to enter that into our POS system. My manager and I came to the conclusion that we should charge her for an entire bottle of ranch, so she paid $10.99 for a soup bowl full of ranch dressing.

  (Yuck)
• (#13) Lobster Bisque

  From u/erikarew:

  I had a customer ask what region the lobster was from in our lobster bisque, because he was allergic to shellfish but only from a certain ocean. All I could think as we had to call the head chef at home to ask about lobster source regions was that maybe the guy could...not eat the bisque.
• (#14) But I Know The Owner

  From u/alwayswantssnacks:

  I used to work in a sub shop that had delivery. A woman called asking if the driver could pick her up a pack of cigarettes and baby forumla when he was bringing her her food... this woman kept claiming she knew the owner (who was not present at the restaurant) and that he told her beforehand that it could be done. It was busy and I didn't have time to fight with her so I asked the delivery driver if he could do that for her and he did. Not really a big deal I guess, just a little ridiculous to ask a delivery driver.

  Also - asked the owner if he knew the woman... he does not know her personally but just knows her from being a wild customer who orders frequently.
• (#15) Iced Vanilla Latte, No Coffee

  From u/BreeBreeTurtleFlea:

  I work in a hipster breakfast restaurant. Two (maybe late teens?) girls ordering coffee:

  Girl 1 (confidently): "Can I have an iced vanilla latte, with no coffee?"

  Me: "..... you want a glass of milk with vanilla syrup?"

  1: "Oh, is that what a latte is? Nevermind I'll just have water"

  Girl 2: "You really sounded like you knew what you were doing!"
• (#16) I'll Pay You Extra?

  From u/Kahzgul:

  The weirdest was a woman who would come in on her lunch break from the Sprint store nearby and would drink a lemon drop martini before heading back to work. This was a fancy bar and it was a $12 drink. She'd give me an extra $5 to swirl my finger around in the drink before she drank it. It was definitely a weird s*x thing.
• (#17) Coffee With Baileys

  From u/AdequateSteve:

  Friend of mine went to Cheese Cake Factory and ordered a "coffee with bailey's in it" for dessert. Took ages. Server comes back and confirms. More time goes by - the cook comes out and confirms.

  Finally the waitress comes back with a cup of coffee with two bay leaves in it. I can only imagine how confused they were putting that one together.
• (#18) Just Ketchup, Mustard, And Pickles

  From u/HollywooDcizzle:

  Dude ordered a burger with just ketchup, mustard and pickles. As in "I'll have the 1/4 pound burger with just ketchup, mustard and pickles."

  Came back and gave it to him. He told me he literally wanted a bun with ketchup, mustard and pickles WITHOUT THE BURGER. F**king psychopath ordered bread with condiments but he paid like $10 haha.
• (#19) Foot Fetish

  From u/GeckoFlameThrower:

  Had a waitress work for me that came to me about a table of guys in her section. 3 of them were teasing the 4th guy b/c he has a foot fetish and they wanted to buy the servers socks for him (his B-Day). She came to me and asked if she could sell them for $50 (their offer). First I asked if she was offended or disgusted by it, she was laughing and teasing about it, no worries she said. I told her this, "Tell the guys it's $100 and they should tip 100% as well. They did just that.

  Now the interesting part: She would sell this guy her socks every few weeks and also sell them online for fetishists. She said she was making really good money doing this as a side income.

  Interesting world we live in.
• (#20) Chicken... "Overcooked To Oblivion"

  From u/ebimbib:

  Not a server, but I used to be a line cook. I once had a server come back to my saute station and tell me she was about to ring in a chicken dish and the guy specifically wanted it just overcooked to oblivion. I cooked it like I normally would, then I microwaved it for three full minutes, then I held it in tongs and burned the s**t out of it directly on the burner flame. I was totally ok with getting reprimanded for overdoing by a mile. She came back to me a while later and told me that the guy insisted that she thank me because it was the best piece of chicken he'd ever eaten. I was absolutely blown away.
• (#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.
• (#22) Powdered Sugar?

  From u/Technicolorlovr:

  Technically a chef but once I got an order for a kids butter spaghetti with a side of powdered sugar.
• (#23) Tell The Cow About Fire

  From u/Kahzgul:

  Had a former NFL lineman come in and order a, "steak, very rare." "How rare would you like it?" I asked him. "Tell the cow about fire," was he response. So yeah, he ordered a 16 oz. piece of raw meat. We briefly described what flames were to the plate after we set it on the table, and he thought that was hilarious.
• (#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.
• (#25) Sit With Me

  From u/throwawayheyheyhey08:

  I also had a regular that would insist you sat and ate with him. Management complied but I think mostly it was because he came in at odd hours, like lunch at 3 pm, when someone was usually wrapping up sidework and about to be cut anyway. He’d order for you both. He was a nice older gay man who loved to talk about the history of the town. I loved him! I often wonder what happened to him. He’d been coming in for years and years. You did have to dump the iced tea and make a new batch for him.
• (#26) Kale, Kale, Kale

  From u/i_am_a_toaster:

  When I waited tables, it was before the whole "Kale is a SUPERFOOD" thing, and I worked at an IHOP where they would put a sprig of kale on every plate as garnish. I didn't even really know it was edible. I thought it was, you know, just a green thing to make the plates look fancy or whatever. A man came in one day and ordered something that came with a side, and he asked if he could have kale. I was like... the garnish? Yes, the garnish. He just wanted a bunch of kale. I was really confused but put a bunch on the plate for him and it made him happy, so... there we go. He was years ahead of his time.
• (#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.
• (#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.

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking