A Regular Group Of Jerks

I am serving a table of regulars whom I’ve known for about four months. It’s two older couples, and they’re normally quite nice, just particular with what they want to eat.

I take their order and bring their food out to them, but one of the men notices his portion is a little smaller than usual. I don’t notice because I am busy and asked one of my coworkers to bring it out. The man becomes slightly angry at my coworker, so I step in to talk to him.

Me: “Sir, I apologize. I can see that it isn’t the right size, either, so I’ll ask the chef to make a half order and I will have it brought straight out.”

Customer: “If this sort of thing happens again, we won’t be coming back.”

I kind of chuckle and don’t take it too seriously, because he makes jokes to me like that all the time.

Customer: “I’m not kidding. If you mess up again, we won’t be coming back here.”

I nervously laugh and apologize again for the mistake and move on with my day.

A few weeks later, the people come again on their normal day. They have been coming in every week and are very pleasant to serve again, but they decide to change up their orders and try different items on our menu.

I take their orders down and put the order in to the chef. When I bring their food out to them, I realize I messed up their order. I wrote down the wrong item. I explain that, the man kind of nods, and I go to the kitchen and have them make up his order correctly.

I apologize profusely to the man and tell him that it was my fault and that I feel very bad. A little bit later, I go to check on the table to make sure everything else is going okay.

Customer: “I found a hair in his food.”

He shows me the hair.

Customer: “Go show the chef the hair and tell him to make sure his hair doesn’t get in the food again.”

The hair was blond-ish grey, same as the customer. Every single person that was working that shift has dark hair, mainly black. My boss made me take the item off the check and as the people left, I heard them talking about me, saying how good of a job they did planting the hair. I told my boss and he said they were not allowed back. Oh, and their tip for the day: $1. Their check: $35.