Customers, Am I Right?

I was a hostess in my early twenties at a steakhouse. A family of four came in, and when I sat them, the mom wanted to move to an area where no tables were open.

Me: “There are no tables open there. You can wait back up front, and we’ll seat you when one of those tables opens.”

She insisted on standing right by the bus station so she had a view of the people sitting in her desired area.

The four of them were in the way of guests and servers, but [Customer] did not notice; she was too busy staring daggers at people eating. I went to the manager, who tried to move her, but to no avail. Finally, we just let them stay because we noticed a couple in a booth packaging up their food.

I checked in a few minutes later to see if that table had left yet and was dismayed to see they had ordered dessert and coffee. [Customer] was still standing there, watching them. The kids were bored and running up and down the wheelchair ramp.

Me: “Ma’am, could you and your family please move back down to the waiting area? You’re blocking servers, and your kids are an accident waiting to happen.”

Customer: *Loudly* “When will my table be ready?!”

She pointed right at the couple sipping their coffee. Knowing we were talking about them, the couple looked at us and smiled. It hit me then that they were not leaving on purpose. F***.

[Customer] must have realized it, as well, because she got very angry.

Customer: “They’re holding my booth hostage! You should kick them out!”

Me: “We will not ask anyone to leave until they’re ready.”

Then, I watched in horror as the woman approached the couple.

Customer: “You’re done here; this is my table now. Pay the bill and go.”

Couple: *Smiling sweetly* “We just got our coffee and dessert.”

Customer: “THEN TAKE IT TO GO! WE ARE HUNGRY AND YOU’RE IN OUR BOOTH!”

Couple: “This is our booth. It’s not yours until we leave.”

[Customer] raged insults at them until the manager came rushing up to help. He tried to intervene but could not be heard over her screaming about her starving children. The couple kept their cool the whole time, nibbling their dessert and stirring their coffee at a sloth’s speed.

Finally, the manager had had enough and told the woman to get out. She was utterly FLOORED that we were asking her to go and not the couple. She picked up an empty dessert plate from their table and chucked it across the room, where it hit a wall and smashed into pieces. The manager screamed for someone to call 911. I kept trying to hide my smile from the people around me. What adult acts like this? This woman was in her forties! There were a ton of open booths, too, just not in that area.

[Customer]’s husband appeared, grabbed her by the sleeve, and started pulling. She let him lead her toward the front door as she continued to yell insults at us. She called the manager a loser and mocked his career choice. She told me I was “a plain nothing going nowhere” and “f****** worthless,” and when they’d gone, I went into the back for a while to hide. I needed to get away from people. When I returned, the server who’d taken care of the couple ran up to me.

Server: “That couple left, but they wanted to talk to you. They felt so bad about how that woman acted. They saw her watching them and she was being so rude that they decided to take their time to mess with her. They didn’t think she’d do that! They waited a few minutes to talk to you, but they thought you went home and asked me to give you this as an apology.”

He handed me a $100 bill.

It was a s***ty night, but it kind of made me feel better. It’s not every day a customer acknowledges when they’ve made your life miserable. Thankfully, [Customer] was never seen again.