I am working the summer of 1972 at a gas station on the New York State Thruway. It’s a toll road with rest areas that have gas stations and restaurants.

At my lunch break, I wander over to a restaurant, order my food, and eat it there. I am wearing my gas station uniform. On the third or fourth day of doing this, the restaurant manager comes over to me.

Manager: “The next time you’re here, please sit at a dirty table.”

Me: “Huh?”

Manager: “The tables that have been cleaned are for our patrons. You don’t mind sitting at a dirty table.”

He said this as a declaration, not a question. I just stared at him. From then on, I brought my lunch from home and ate it in the back of the gas station service bay.

I was visiting my brother for our weekly get-together, and I called a new restaurant to place a to-go order as I do every week so we have something to munch on as we visit. The message on the restaurant’s machine asked that calls only relate to existing orders and that they wanted orders to be made online.

I hung up, pulled the website up on my phone, and went through the order process, but when I got to the payment option, I stopped. I had the intention of paying with debit upon pickup and, even though it seemed as if that were an option, the information they demanded about me was far too much.

I tried to place the order without filling in all the boxes but couldn’t get to the next step without telling them everything about me.

Frustrated, I called the restaurant back and asked to place the order over the phone. The woman who picked up the phone was a bit miffed, but I was clear that I wasn’t about to give all my information for some pizza.

Looking back, I guess I could have lied on the form, but it was just such a ridiculous ask that I wasn’t going to play along.

A group is asking about breakfast options on the lunch menu. I list a few options that are available, and the mom questions me about ingredients in most of them. Thinking they may have dietary restrictions, I give as much detail as possible. 

Mom: “Does the omelet have eggs in it?”

I just repeated her question back to her and waited for it to click.

Related:
When An Omelette Is Not An Omelette

I work at a local family-run food chain. It’s a slow shift due to a snowstorm that is hitting the area. My manager walks over to me while holding a phone on mute.

Manager: “Hey, could you take this order? They would like to place a delivery.”

Me: “Of course!” *Takes the phone* “Hi there! Can I get your phone number for the delivery?”

This customer seems calm and normal while I am getting his information for the delivery.

Me: “All righty, what can I get started for you tonight?”

Customer: *Silence*

Me: “Sir?”

Customer: *Suddenly snappy* “What?!”

Me: *Slightly taken aback* “How can I help you tonight?”

Customer: *Begins to yell* “How many d*** people am I gonna have to talk to before I can get my f****** food?!”

Me: “Sir, this is the same person you were speaking to as before.”

Customer: “What do you want from me?!”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir. Would you like to continue placing your order?”

He goes back to his original relatively normal demeanor.

Customer: “Oh, yeah! Can I get [order]?”

The rest of the transaction goes relatively smoothly until the very end after getting his payment information.

Me: “You’re all set! Give us about forty-five minutes and that should be out to you!”

Customer: *Yelling again* “That’s what they say every time!”

Me: “I am very sorry, sir, but I am not in charge of delivery times. Please contact us if you have an issue with your delivery.”

He hung up. I went to tell my manager what happened and she apologized profusely, explaining that he had originally called complaining about his delivery not arriving when it turned out he hadn’t even placed an order with us yet!

She told me he was normal when she was talking to him and that if she had known he would have acted so rudely she would’ve handled the call instead. What a weird dude.

It’s my dad’s birthday. Every year, during normal circumstances, my mum will pay for dinner at a restaurant of my dad’s choice as a present. As the restaurants are currently closed because of the crisis, this is, of course, impossible. Instead, my dad searches for restaurants that deliver. After quite a bit of bad reading skills on my dad’s part, which is a whole different story, he decides on a restaurant.

Immediately when we get the box, we realize something is off. The restaurant did not deliver fully-finished hot dishes, but what I can only call a puzzle box. There are vacuum-sealed bags, plastic boxes in different shapes and sizes, and one set of plastic plates taped together. With this come instructions on how to piece everything together and how long to heat these things. My dad, disappointed by what he got, slinks off and leaves my mum and I to piece together what we have to do.

And that’s when the second problem comes to light. While the instructions are fairly easy, the ingredients are not clearly marked and the pictures are discoloured and a bit blurry. On top of that, one of the pieces does not match what’s shown on the picture at all, though the restaurant assures us it is the same.

And that’s not the worst of it. There are pieces missing. And not just small pieces. My mum’s entire appetizer is missing apart from one tube of goat cheese cream, and her main course is missing the thing which structures it all and a tube of its own flavoured creamy stuff.

My mum calls the restaurant and they send us more food, but they send two pieces of something we already had, another double, and also most of the abovementioned stuff, apart from the watercress for my mum’s appetizer. On top of that, while preparing, we realize there are more pieces missing — the apple slices for my crepes and the truffle sauce for my mum’s main dish — but by that point, we are done with the restaurant and just want to eat.

I do look on the website to see if they mention anything of the meal being pieced together like that and they do, all the way at the bottom, under the header “Allergies and food restrictions.”

I get that restaurants have to find a way to survive in this troublesome time, but this was very poorly executed. This was a fairly high-class restaurant, too, and the food wasn’t cheap. We ordered food for only three people and this much was messed up. Even though my dad enjoyed that restaurant before, I doubt he’ll ever want to do business with them again.