When You Go From Having No Reservation To Having All Of Them

I worked at a pretty high-end bistro. My second Valentine’s there was probably the busiest night I’ve ever worked as a server. We had reservations that booked basically the entire restaurant including the bar and patio from 4 PM to 11 PM. No walk-ins were to be seated unless a reservation was canceled, or someone with a reservation didn’t show up.

Most of the customers were pretty understanding and either waited or simply left. One dude however kept pushing and pushing, asking every ten minutes how much longer until he is seated, constantly saying how he is a regular customer; and how his date is going to be there at 7 PM (he got there at 6 PM), etc.

We insisted that once a table was available, and all the customers before him were seated, he would get a table, but because of the number of reservations, we couldn’t guarantee he would even get a table at all.

At about 6:50 PM the guy loses it, fast walks up to the hostess stand where the reservation book is, grabs the reservation book, and practically runs out the front door.

Now everything is going to complete s*** because that was the only copy of the reservations for the night and we’re barely halfway through it. Two of the owners ran outside to follow the guy and try and get the book back, but by the time they got out, he had already left the parking lot.

Even better is, two hours later, chaos is still running rampant, and the dude shows back up saying he has a reservation for two. Three of the five of the owners (all brothers) escorted the dude and his date out to the parking lot and banned him from the restaurant permanently.

They even took a picture of him and posted it in the window saying “Do Not Serve This Man.”