(I am working as a waitress during a slow night, and someone comes up and asks me if I was the one to bring out food to table #7. I tell them no, but I did take their order. When I get over there, there’s a woman sitting alone and sobbing profusely with a burger in front of her.)

Young Woman: “I- I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! Was I rude? I just don’t know what I did wrong!”

(I try to calm her down, but she refuses to stop crying. I go back to the kitchen and get her order slip back, thinking that she has just lost something she ordered. It turns out she is deathly allergic to onions, and the cook has messed up and put extra onions on her burger. Apparently the customer thinks we are trying to poison her for being rude. We get her a new burger with zero onions, and she calms down instantly.)

Young Woman: “But… you’re not still mad at me, right?”

(There is a sign right above our desk in the restaurant that says, “THIS IS NOT FAST FOOD. This is good food, cooked as fast as I can,” made by one of my bosses after people complained about wait time. We are a restaurant specializing in burgers, so sometimes people mistake us for a fast food place, when we are not. We can make orders as fast as 10 minutes if it’s not busy, but with the boss it’s usually 15 minutes as he’s a perfectionist.)

Customer: “Hi, I’d like to make a to-go order.”

Me: “Certainly! That will take about 15 minutes.”

Customer: “Oh… that long? Don’t you have anything premade?”

Me: *pointing to sign* “No, ma’am… we make everything fresh. Ten to fifteen minutes is generally the fastest we can get orders out if it’s not busy. It’s certainly worth the wait.”

(The customer rolls her eyes and walks out.)

Me: “Have a great day!”

(I work at a restaurant that specializes in amazing burgers. This situation happens to one of my coworkers when she serves some local regulars, who generally come in big groups at the worst times.)

Coworker: *brings over food to table* “Enjoy your meal, folks! Let me know if I can get you anything else!”

(A couple minutes later, one of the people at the table runs up to the desk with their burger.)

Customer: *angry tone* “Excuse me, but my Union Pacific burger with bleu cheese and bacon doesn’t have any grilled onions on it!”

(The Union Pacific comes with our normal burger toppings of tomato, lettuce, and onion, as well as bleu cheese and bacon. No grilled onions.)

Waitress: “Oh, I am so sorry! I don’t remember you saying you wanted grilled onions on it. I must have not heard you. Let me fix that for you.”

Customer: “Of course I didn’t tell you! We’re locals and we come here all the time! You should know our order!”

Waitress: “I apologize… there are six of you here tonight and I was unaware that I was supposed to memorize your orders. I’ll have the cooks fix this for you, though.”

(The waitress happens to be the owners’ 16-year-old daughter. The customers continue to complain to her mother, until the mother decides to comp their whole table. I hear about the mishap the next day…)

Boss: “…and then they talked about how stupid [Boss’s Daughter] was right in front of her! I couldn’t believe it.”

Daughter: “It was horrible. You shouldn’t have comped their whole table, Mom.”

Boss: “Well, I wanted to make them feel like a**-h***s. When I comped it the man told me to just comp that one burger, but then I told them that they were SO important to us and hope that they come back soon. Kill them with kindness, [Daughter]!”

(I work at a restaurant on a river that has a bar area and a function room for weddings and such. For weddings, we set up the wedding breakfast in the function room, and after the party has finished, we usher them through a set of double doors to the bar area for drinks and to take photos outside, set up for the evening do, and then usher them back through the double doors to the function room and stick a sign on them saying “NO ENTRY” to stop the party spilling through to where people are having meals. One night a persistent older gentleman keeps going through the doors to get his drinks from the bar in the bar area, not the bar in the function room [where I am working]. I ask him a couple of times not to go through the doors, but he ignores me until this happens.)

Me: “Sir, will you please not go through the doors to the bar area?”

Customer: “Well, you’re just being pernickety.”

Me: *sighing* “Sir, why do you keep coming through this door?”

Customer: “The beer is colder on this side.”

Me: *I stare at him.* “Sir, they come off the same barrel; they are exactly the same temperature. NOW who’s being pernickety?”

(The customer sheepishly went back through the doors, and we never had any more trouble from him.)

(A man orders a piece of salmon at our restaurant. Later, he complains that the one on the menu looks bigger than what he gets. After the customer argues with the server and the manager for about 15 minutes, the manager reluctantly takes 25% off his entrée. This exchange occurs when he sees his server again:)

Customer: “How about you give me a dessert for free and we’ll call it even?”

Server: “No.”

Customer: “Excuse me?”

Server: “It is even, sir. We have already taken 25% off your dish, even though it’s against our restaurant’s policy. There is nothing I can do to change that.”

Customer: “Well, what the f*** is this?”

Server: “[Restaurant] in [City, State].”

Customer: “I want a dessert for free to make things even!”

Server: “Sir, I can’t do th—”

Customer: “I will go to the f****** U.S. Supreme Court if I have to!”

Server: “You do that. Have a nice night.”

(The man didn’t leave a tip, nor did anyone else at his table, but a nearby table enjoyed the comedy show and left enough to cover it.)

This story is part of the dessert day roundup!

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