Many moons ago, my mother used to own and work in a cafe. She had a waitress working for her who was an older lady — in her mid-sixties at the time, I believe — and an absolute sweetheart — quiet, polite, great with the customers, and just generally lovely.

Around the same time, my mother’s main cook left, and she took on a chap who was (once upon a time) a chef. He was a nice guy most of the time but had a drinking problem and was quick to lose his temper — think Gordon Ramsay, but a bit less fiery and much less sweary.

One day, he got very angry with the waitress over something trivial and stormed out the back of the cafe to calm down with a cigarette. The lovely waitress decided to make him a coffee to help chill him out and took it outside to him.

About five minutes later, my mother heard a scream followed by a crash and legged it out the back, fearing some sort of awful altercation between chef and waitress.

Instead of blood and carnage, she was met with the sight of chef and waitress both leaning against the wall in fits of laughter, with a broken mug and coffee all around their feet.

The waitress, this lovely old lady who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, had secretly taken her spare glass eye and popped it into the angry chef’s coffee cup as a little revenge prank. When he finally drank down that far, he saw this eye peering up at him from the bottom of the cup, screamed, and dropped the cup in his terror.

At least he forgot about whatever it was he’d been angry about!

I work in a café. One of our dishes is a cheese and tomato pasta, which is loaded with cheese and tomato. A family (parents, son, and daughter) comes in and the mum very loudly announces:

Mother: “My son is allergic to cheese and tomato and must not have anything that has been in contact with them.”

Waiter: “Okay, we understand.”

They write this down and make everyone else aware of the allergy. The family orders food, including this pasta dish. The food is brought out and given out. When it comes to the pasta:

Waiter: “Who is the pasta for?”

The mum points to the son and the waiter is taken aback.

Waiter: “We are unable to give this to your son as it has cheese and tomato in it.”

The waiter takes the dish back to the kitchen and explains the situation, saying the mum will be coming up to order something else. The mum comes up to the till, not to reorder food, but to demand the manager, who is called over.

Mother: “You’ve stolen my son’s food and you’re refusing to give it back!”

Manager: “Madam, we can’t give this dish to your son as you have said he is allergic to cheese and tomato, and this dish is predominantly that.”

Mother: “I paid for that dish, and that is what my son wants! It’s pasta; he can have pasta.”

Manager: “Yes, but it’s also covered in cheese and tomatoes, two things you said your child is allergic to and can’t come into contact with.”

Mother: “But it’s pasta! He’s allowed pasta!”

Manager: “But he’s not allowed cheese and tomato.”

This goes on for a few minutes with the mum not backing down. We offer to make a dairy-free cheese option, minus the tomatoes, but the mum wants the tomatoes added, which we refuse. The manager has had enough of this.

Manager: “Madam, I have refunded your entire table. Please leave.”

Mother: “Seriously?! I’m going to give you negative feedback and ring your head office for not serving us!”

Manager: “Yes, please do tell them how we chose not to serve your child the food items he’s allergic to. The number for the head office is here.”

The mum was handed a business card and shown the door. We had an email from the head office a few weeks later asking for our side of the complaint, and when we explained, they sided with us and said we did our jobs correctly.

Even better, the mum left feedback on the website and was laughed at and berated by other people on the site for wanting to make her son ill and trying to get the café in trouble for following guidelines.

Related:
Allergic To Common Sense, Part 25
Allergic To Common Sense, Part 24
Allergic To Common Sense, Part 23
Allergic To Common Sense, Part 22
Allergic To Common Sense, Part 21

I work in a supermarket cafe and I have mild eczema on my forearms. For anyone who doesn’t know, eczema is a skin condition where your skin is flaky, red raw, scabbed up, and sore. My eczema is visible at work and no customer has ever complained about it ever up until today.

I took food over to the s***head customer and after I walked away, he called my manager over and said:

Customer: “That worker should cover up! They’re putting me off of my meal!”

My manager’s face instantly changed and he looked so angry. I felt extremely offended and wanted to cry. This customer essentially said I was so off-putting that he couldn’t eat his meal.

Manager: “Not only have you deeply offended my worker but you have offended me. Eczema isn’t contagious nor is it unhygienic. If you feel as if my worker is putting you off of your food simply due to his skin then I ask that you leave this cafe and grow up.”

The man was about thirty years old and he had been well and truly put in his place, I couldn’t stop smiling.

Our store has two cafes: one on the ground floor and one on the second floor. Until recently, both cafes offered the exact same menu, but now they are targeting different groups of people and have differing menus. The Upper Cafe still does the full menu, focusing on sit-down meals, whereas the Lower Cafe now focuses more on “grab and go”-type items.

About three weeks after the change, it’s 5:20 pm and I am in the Lower Cafe, behind the counter. The Upper Cafe has been closed for nearly an hour and we are only ten minutes away from closing ourselves.

[Woman] walks in.

Woman: *Very abruptly* “I want a jacket potato.”

Me: “I’m sorry, madam, but we don’t do jacket potatoes in this cafe anymore. The cafe upstairs still does them, but they are now closed for the day.”

Woman: “I’ve bought one from here before!”

I begin to explain, but she interrupts me.

Woman: “So, what do you do now, then, huh?”

Due to it being nearly closing time, we don’t have that much left.

Me: “Well, we have a few toasties left, and we still can serve coffee or cake—”

Woman: *Interrupting* “Cakes are for fat people. You are only serving things for fat people.”

Me: “We do have our fruit juices in the fridge—”

Woman: “Toasties are for fat people.” *Angrier* “They. Are. For. Fat. People.”

She keeps repeating this, trying to get me to “admit” that she is right and that all of our food is only for “fat people”. When she realises this isn’t going to work and that I’m not falling for her games, she storms off.

Woman: “You’ve just lost yourself a customer.”

Me: “You’ll have to call corporate in that case.” *Dismissing* “Thank you.”

I tell my colleagues about her a couple of minutes later.

Colleague: “Does she not know how many calories are in our jacket potatoes, especially when you add butter or cheese? I guess they must be for ‘fat people’, too!”

I’m buying my regular morning coffee at my favorite local shop. I pour my coffee and wait in line to pay. I hear them tell the customers in front of me that the card reader is down and that they can only take cash at the moment. Fine with me.

I step up to the counter with my drink and exact change, and the woman who has been in line just ahead of me steps aside but continues talking to the cashier and the manager who’s trying to troubleshoot the card reader.

Manager: “Yeah, I have no idea how to fix it. We’ll have to call tech support.”

Patron: “My dad runs a business, so I’m very familiar with these things. He can read cards from his phone. You should do that, too.”

Manager: “I don’t think that’ll work for us right now, but that’s good to know in case this happens again. We have [Common Small-Business Point-Of-Sale System]; is that what he uses?”

Patron: “Oh, I can call him. He can walk you through setting it up on your phone.”

Manager: “Thanks for offering, but we’d need the boss’s okay to do that. And we might not use the same system. What does he have?”

Patron: “Umm, I think it’s called Point Of Sale? It’s really easy to use. I can show you how it works.”

Manager: “Thanks, but I’m going to go call tech support now.”

I wished the cashier good luck and left at that point, but I wish I’d had time to stick around and see if this very knowledgeable businesswoman was going to call her dad and learn that “Point Of Sale” is not actually the point of sale system that he uses.