I am training a member of staff. A moody customer comes up to our counter.

Customer: *Loudly* “I want a large [meal]. And use only one plate! I am not carrying a bunch of crap!”

Trainee: *Quietly, to me* “Doesn’t [meal] come on three plates?”

Me: *Resigned* “Yes.”

I watch the trainee carefully stack each item onto the plate as demanded, attempting to keep the items separated. It clearly does not meet the customer’s standards.

Customer: *Yelling* “What the f***?! Can you see this slop?!”

Me: *Calmly* “A large [meal], on one dish as requested. What isn’t meeting your standards today?”

Customer: “Everything’s slopped together! When I eat, I expect my food not touching!”

Me: “You requested a single plate for our largest meal. Unfortunately, our plates are only—”

Customer: *Cutting me off* “Your d***ed employee should have used a larger plate! I am the customer, I am right! You will fix this!”

Trainee: “Sir! You can read. The menu says [meal] comes on three plates. You demanded one plate, so clearly you read the menu. What did you expect?”

After a beat, the customer throws the plate of steaming food at me before booming that he is going to “beat some sense” into my trainee. With the sudden threat, I quickly position myself between them.

Me: “He’s new. It doesn’t excuse what he said, and I’ll handle it. Clearly, you’re upset. Please come and see my supervisor. I’ll personally fill him in while you rest comfortably.”

I led my trainee to my boss’s office. I explained what happened while my boss helped me clean up and bandage the burns on my arms. I didn’t want to press charges, but I did want this customer banned. My boss said he would handle it and left us to wait in his office.

Some time passed and my boss returned to fill us in. The customer was still angry when my boss got there and demanded he be allowed to handle the trainee. My boss refused and looked for a solution that would allow this customer to go home and not to jail, but he kept refusing and eventually swung at him!

After my boss slammed him onto the ground, the customer called the police claiming assault. When the police arrived, everything was explained and the police asked if my boss wanted to press charges. He said no, but the customer was banned.

The police explained to the customer what “banned” meant. He didn’t take the news well and went for the cops. He was arrested and guaranteed three free meals a day. I hope he likes them better than ours.

We no longer have dine-in for health reasons. An older man walks up to our window and orders food. Unfortunately, we can’t take walk-up orders because of safety issues; i.e., he gets hit by a car, we could get sued. He starts yelling.

Me: “Sir, do you have a car?”

No answer; he just walked away. After a while, I looked at our camera and saw a giant RV attempting to get to our speaker. The RV almost hit a line of cars already in our drive-thru and started causing a huge problem.

Our manager went out to ask them to leave and it was the same guy! Before she could explain and tell him to call in his order, he started screaming at her and cutting her off.

This continued for about five minutes and one threat of a bad review until finally she could cut him off and get his order. After I ran his food out, he still proceeded to yell at me about the “poor service.”

Bartender: “What can I get you?”

Customer: “Can I get a pint of the chocolate milk stout, but can I get almond milk, instead?”

This happened when I was in high school in the 1970s. We had just finished our production of “Harvey” and had gone to the local twenty-four-hour chain restaurant. We were all still in costume and, as I played the sanitarium assistant, I was wearing what appeared to be medical-type clothing. As I walked into the restaurant, a little behind my fellow cast members, a guy came up to me.

Guy: “Is everyone in the accident all right?”

I had no clue why he asked me that, so I just looked at him and said:

Me: “I don’t know.”

And I went to join everybody.

As I sat down, I noticed that there were cops and an ambulance a few blocks down the street. That’s when it hit me: he thought I was a real ambulance attendant! 

I can only imagine what he thought, a first responder going into a restaurant when there were injured people to deal with. My other thought was, “I’m sixteen; do I look like an adult to you?”

My fellow cast members thought it was funny.

The restaurant where I work is only open 8 am – 3 pm, and we take orders all the way up until we are closed. If someone places an order at 2:59 pm, we take it. If we are busy until closing time, I sometimes allow an order to be placed within a five-minute window after we are closed, though I only do it for carryout only.

If we have no new orders for the last half hour, I’m usually very firm on not accepting orders after 3 pm because the kitchen is cleaning up and putting things away.

Today was a very slow day. We had one customer who came in before two and was still there by three because he was waiting for his ride to come to get him. Between two and three, there are no other orders, and the kitchen staff is cleaning up and putting everything away. By 3 pm, they are putting on their coats and walking out the door.

A woman and her daughter come in a couple of minutes after closing.

Customer: “We’d like a table for two.”

Me: “We are closed, ma’am. Apologies for the inconvenience, but we are open 8 AM – 3 PM every day.”

Customer: “It’s only 3:03, you can’t serve us?”

All this while our head cook is walking out the door.

Me: “Our kitchen staff is literally leaving.”

I point at the cook who is heading to his car, then she points at the customer who had come in an hour before.

Customer: “But you’re serving that guy!”

Me: “He ordered forty-five minutes ago when we were still open, ma’am.”

Customer:*To her daughter* “Wait here.”

This lady then CHASES DOWN MY D** COOK! According to him, she asked him to come back and reopen the kitchen! Which definitely was unsuccessful because she came back and grabbed her daughter and left, while homeboy got in his car and drove off.