Worst Restaurant Experiences
 

I've had a few bad ones .

Bennigan's, Chicago, IL: After eating half of my hamburger, I was starting to get full. So I took the bun off the rest of it, intending to just eat the meat. But I discovered half of an Equal packet (blue paper) mixed in with the toppings of the hamburger. WTF ?
Cafe Felix , Ann Arbor, MI: After eating half a sandwich, I discovered a rather big hair in the rest of the sandwich. I understand, these things happen so I wasn't too upset. Until I told the waiter. He asked me, with a straight face, "Would you like me to take it off for you, sir?" I think I was too shocked to respond as I wish I would have. I just said "No, I'd like you to take the sandwich away." He had the audacity to charge full price for the meal and made sure to include the gratuity so I would not pimp him. BASTARD !

any time the restaurant wants to include gratuity on the check, even if i plan on giving a decent amount, i tell them i like to keep my records accurate and tell them i need the gratuity taken off as that is clearly charity and deductible. then proceed to put the meal on plastic, and the gratuity in cash. NOTE: my friends and my sisters were both servers and I personally do NOT think that gratuity is charity, but 1) it usually makes them mad. 2)they usually need to get a manager to separate it in which case the manager is at least aware of it being added to the bill if not already.

I've never really had a good experience.

I was the only customer at a Taco Bell for dinner one night. As two guys were doing the food, another was replacing a flourescent light tube above them. Yep, he dropped it! Smash! little pieces of glass all over the food prep station!

After the two guys shook off the glass, and brushed it off the counter they went back to building my food, looked up and saw me watching them and then decided that maybe they should close down that station and work elsewhere.

I asked for my money back of course.

Outback, Raleigh NC. My wife and I got SUCKY service. The server was slow in coming to our table, slow in getting us our drinks, slow in taking our order, and then the food took forever getting to us. He never came over to offer an explanation or more drinks or ANYTHING. And I had gotten the Outback Special and my wife had gotten a salad - not a complicated order. I tipped him NOTHING, and then complained to the manager on the way out. She went back in the kitchen to get an explanation, and proceeded to tell me that the kitchen was running slow due to new people, blah, blah, blah. Then she told me she wished that I wouldn't take it out on the server. I was like, WHAT???!!! My wife wrote a scathing email to Outback.com, and the very next day, the regional manager called me to apologize. The store manager (the top, top dog) called me next and told me to come back in, and he'd make it right. So, happy ending.

this time, i went to this italian place with my friend after a football game, and they sat us near the kitchen (towards the back where nobody was sitting). we werent dressed well, but we didnt deserve that far back.

My mother was at a Big Boy once and was getting really slow service, bad service, and then a mistake on the check. She asks to see a manager to get the check straightened out and the waitress goes "You wouldn't be doing this if I weren't black."

Roo!? (That's the best scooby doo impression I can do with text, sorry.) They get it straightened out and we spend the next month making fun of her. The end.

How 'bout working in one for about 2 years?

i've never worked in a restaurant, but have worked in various movie theaters where i had to deal with 1000s of customers every weekend night, and 100s every weekday night. i know some of the things we would do was bs, but we only did it to customers that asked for it first. i've gone to restaurants for the first time, and i always cut the server the most slack cuz i know they are making least and doing the most, but i've had experiences where they would put me near the kitchen after i specifically asked not to. i've also had servers flat out refuse to remove something from my bill because it was cooked wrong and i never send anything back. maybe he thought he would get a lesser tip or something but that was inexcusable. but a side note, if the server doesn't do something that would warrant them getting fired, i won't stiff them. that's how they make their living. they don't even get min wage for the most part. anyway, that is my rambling. sorry for the long post

At a local and very well known place in Austin TX, the waitress asked us to watch her purse, and proceeded to enter the women's restroom which were seated near. After being in there for at least 10 minutes, she burst out exclaiming "Whoooweeee, THAT'S ONE BAD PUPPY!!!!!" then immediately asked if needed anything !!!! Seriously. This was so bad, that in hindsight, I tell it as a funny story !!!

maybe it was because you weren't really Texan or Italian.

We were at a Bickford's for breakfast when a very bad B.O. smell hit us. Another patron 2 tables over was the cause. I went to the waitress station to get my family moved to different table but as it was crowded some other poor saps got our original tire. It was kind of funny watching them try to eat while pretending all was OK.

Just read my last post---shouldn't type after being awake for 36 hrs. w/o using spellcheck. Table is now spelled t-i-r-e.

A couple summers ago, I stayed in town for summer school and I stopped by the local diner (Mel's in Boone) one stormy night for a hamburger. Since I was alone I sat at the bar, where I could watch the cooks through the serving window and talk w/ the waitresses.

After I ordered my meal, I noticed that there was a stream of water leaking out of the ceiling and onto the serving counter (remember it's raining). The water was brown.

I continue to watch as the cook consistently places each and every order under that drip of water. The rest of the serving counter was clean and dry, but every single order went under the drip.

Then I notice that the water is dripping off the counter into the silverware tray. A couple moments later, a waitress picks up the tray, holds the silverware in, and dumps the water out. Then she gave me my silverware from the tray. Did I mention, the water was brown?

When my meal finally comes up, it too goes under the drip. When I complained, the waitress responded very reluctantly and kept trying to convince me that there was nothing wrong with the meal, and that it wasn't really dripped on, it just looked that way (there was brown water all over the plate).

Finally, I said suit yourself, but I am not paying for this meal. If you don't like it I will be happy to refer you to the 'health' department. Then I got up and walked out.

I have been avoiding that place ever since and telling all my friends not to go too.

It was really beyond belief how they could have such a complete lack of respect. Oh, I was the only one that could see all this since I was the only one at the bar, so most of the customers never knew what they were eating.

my friend was a texan.

and we both had shirts from the reliant!

Recently, my coworkers and I went to a hole-in-the-wall local place to eat. We sat down, ordered out food, and waited.. about 30 minutes later, the waitress came back to tell us that they were out of bread, so those of us who had ordered sandwiches would have to order something else.

So we did, and waited on our food to get made. Finally, we got our stuff. As one of my friends was just about done with his meal, he got a funny look on his face, reached into his mouth, and pulled out a twistee. We immediately went up and complained about the service (it takes 30 minutes to discover you have no bread and ask us to reorder?) and the food (the twistee), but they were assholes and only gave him half off his meal and ignored the rest of us.

We immediately vowed to never go there again and have since told the rest of the people at work about the experience.

I was cleaning the bathrooms and a kid ran in and threw up all over the toilet.

That was fine. Until he came back in 15 minutes later and did it again when I got done cleaning.

Which also was fine. Until my manager yelled at me for finishing late.

My family and I recently went on a cruise, and as I was eating my salad one night, I came across a dead ladybug. The waiter offered to get me another salad, but I just didn't really care. I actually found it to be rather humorous.

My local Pizza Hut used to be a favorite of mine to take the kids and grab pizza dinner. I even wrote their customer service frachise rep a nice e-mail complimenting them on fine service and good food one day.

Since then however they have changed management/owners and the place has gone to shit. My last visit there was my last visit there.

I e-mailed back to the customer service, but the address bounced. Turns out the parent co. used to be called "Tricon" because they had "Pizza Hut", "Kentucky Fried Chicken, and "Taco Bell", but since then have aquired "A&W" and "Long John Silvers" so they changed company name to "Yum".

Their "Yum" website has no contact info for customer service, so I left a note (including my correspondence with customer service from before) and my problems with the local PH. I of course never heard back from them.

Just another small note in the vast wasteland of crappy franchise customer service. And companies wonder why customers are staying away ?? duh!

We had a reservation for a party of 11 at a favorite restauarant of mine. When we got there the hostess seats us at the table and proceeds to hand us 4 menus. I ask where the rest of them are, and she says that's all they can spare at the moment. I can see a two-foot stack of menus on a table by the hostess podium, and I ask about those. She proceeds to tell me she needs those for other tables.

Every table in the place is packed. There is no way she's going to be seating that many people any time soon, so I ask her to please provide menus for everyone at the table. She refuses. After she's out of sight I actually go up and retrieve seven menus from the pile and hand them out at the table. One of the waitresses actually offers to help me hand them out. Hostess bitch sees the table with everyone looking at a menu, comes up and demands that we give all but four of them back!

I looked her square in the eye and said "How about we give you all 11 menus back, my friends and I find another restaurant to spend about $500 at, and you bring the owner out here to talk with me for a few minutes."

We kept the menus, but she actually had the gall to include a gratuity as part of our bill. I haven't been back since.

I live in a sleepy little Midwestern town. A new "upscale" restaurant opened here last year. I wasn't really interested in going there, but I ended up going with my whole family when my sister came in town to visit. First of all, this place does not accept walk-ins, you have to have a reservation. I know people who have been turned away when the place was completely empty because they didn't have a reservation, which is ridiculous. Anyway, we went in and got our table for 10, there were 3 other tables in the restaurant including the owner's family. We waited for a while, and then when our waiter finally came by, the choices were basicly steak and seafood because many of the regular menu items were out. I'm allergic to seafood, so my choices were pretty slim. I ordered the special, which was a Jack Daniels' grilled sirloin with onions and mushrooms. When I ordered, I specifically asked our waiter if their chef tended to overcook or undercook the steaks. I asked because I am a cook and I know that if I err on a steak, it tends to be undercooking it. I do this because I can put the steak back on. If it is overcooked, I need a new steak. I don't do this on purpose, but sometimes it is difficult to tell on a thick steak. My point is, I understand that a steak isn't going to be exactly like you ordered it. I prefer my steaks medium well, but I will eat a medium steak, it doesn't bother me. I will not however, eat a burnt steak. So, if the chef tends to overcook things, I will order my steak medium. If the chef undercooks things, I will order it Medium well. Anyway, I asked how the chef cooked things and the waiter said (direct quotation) "Actually, he is right on, he cooks things perfectly." So I ordered my steak (the daily special) medium well. When my steak came, I cut into it and it was blood-red. Rare, maybe, maybe medium rare in a stretch, but definately not medium well. Usually, I don't send things back, but because of where I was and what the waiter had said, I called him over and asked them to put my steak back on the grill. He took it away, but then he came back and said that it must have been the lighting in the dining room, because in the kitchen, the steak was completely done, but that the chef was putting it back on the grill anyway. I couldn't believe it because I'm not an idiot and I can tell when a steak is done or not when it is cut into. Furthermore, other people at the table saw the steak and agreed that it was done. Besides, if the steak was done, why would they put it back on the grill. Essentially, he was telling me I was stupid and they were humoring me. Amazingly, they must have switched out the lightbulbs in the dining room while they put my steak back on, because when it came back, while still not done, my steak was much closer to medium well. My wife never got her potato, neither did my brother in law. When they brought the dessert tray by to show us the choices, more than half of them were out. We were there nearly 4 hours (remember, only 3 other tables in the whole place) and I only got one drink refill the entire time I was there. Unfortunately, I was unable to express my displeasure with the service because they added a gratuity to the check, even though we all had separate checks.

i've had to wait for what seemed like 30+ minutes just for them to finally get around to ordering our food at a little vegan restaurant. the little waitresses would prance around by us, in the corner of the room, cleaning up tables and bussing shit.. and people that came in later than we did got their orders first...
grrrrrrr. that's happened twice the both times i've been there. and at the same table too.


also, at an IHOP around town. it was a sunday lunch hour. so i'm sure a lot of the churchgoers were there. we weren't exactly dressed nice but we weren't exactly dressed BAD. yet we still stood out a little ya know? it seemed like right away we were looked down on or something and we just got terrible service and the food was crappy. :P

No shit.

I worked in one for 5 years during my teens/early 20s.

I would rather dig ditches ankle deep in sewage without shoes than get stuck working in a restaurant again. :)

I worked at a restaurant. If i was a customer, I wouldn't have wanted to deal with me.

www.stainedapron.com. Waiters ranting about customers. They really have a shitty job...

Last year, my girlfriend and I went out for my birthday in downtown Chicago. We go to a well-known steak place that features wood grills and ovens. We had a reservation for 7 and showed up at 6:50.

I should have known that it would be a problem when there was a bus parked out front. I generally have a pretty high tolerance for waiters/waitresses and hostesses because I know that it can be a really tough job. We checked in at the front desk, and the woman said "it looks bad, but it shouldn't be more than 10 minutes before we can seat you" and hands me one of those light-up pagers. Fine, we can have a drink at the bar. We muscle our way in and actually manage to find a couple of stools. 2 vodka tonics later, I'm checking my watch and seeing that 25 minutes has passed since we hit the bar. The pager is sitting silent in front of us.

5 minutes later, after convincing the girlfriend that it's ok to say something, I hit the hostess stand again. If anything the place is more crowded now, and I'm starting to worry. I put the happy face on, though, and ask how much longer it will be. They look at the pager and say "oh, we already called you". No, the thing never went off, but fine, get me seated. The manager is standing right beside her as she says "I'm really sorry, sir. The batteries must be low. Here's a new one. We'll have a table for you in 5 minutes."

I head back to the bar and settle up with the bartender. The pager is in site at all times. It takes me about 10 minutes to pay the tab, and we head back up the hostess station. Another 15 minutes goes by, making it almost an hour since we walked in the door. As I stand there, the hostess looks me directly in the eye no less than 10 times and looks down at her book. The pager is sitting on a shelf between the girlfriend and I and it still doesn't go off.

After the aforementioned 15 minutes, I head to the podium again. Third trip and I'm not a happy camper. The manager has disapeared by now, but I ask to talk to him. The hostess asks why and I said that we'd been waiting an hour, I'd been promised twice that I would be seated quickly, and that it was now an hour AFTER our reservation. She got huffy and told me that she had paged us TWICE in the last 10 minutes. I handed her the pager and said that it must be broken, but fine, let's eat. She'd already given the table away. Now I'm pissed.

I tell her that's unacceptable and raise my voice about seeing the manager. He trots over and asks what the problem is. I tell him about the reservation and point out the time. He apologizes, grabs a couple of menus and looks at the seating chart. We end up at a very nice booth. He writes something on our check, apologizes again and waives the server over. I'm placated.

We hear the specials and order a nice bottle of wine ($60+). After the waiter leaves, my curiosity gets the better of me, and I sneak a peak at the check, which is still sitting on the edge of the table. It says "comp desert and appetizer". I start feeling pretty good about myself and the manager.

Dinner comes, and my steak is overdone and her salmon is underdone, but not too badly. One of the sides comes out 10 minutes after the rest of the meal and only after we remind the waiter. I start grumbling again but hold my tongue. Desert is very good.

The check comes, and it's all wrong. They've billed us twice for the wine AND THE DESERT. I point it out and say something about the manager telling us the desert was comped. The waiter says that he doesn't know anything about that but fixes the bill. We are waiting for revised bill when the hostess (same one) comes over and asks us if we can wait over by the podium since she really needs the table (it's 10:30 pm and the place is still packed). This was my breaking point.

I very quickly said, "F*ck no. Get us our bill so that we can get the f*ck out of this sh*thole. We're never coming back to this place again." The hostess and my girlfriend turned just about matching shades of red. The hostess stomps off and I get kicked under the table. We finally get the bill, desert and gratuity already included. I take a walk with it up to the manager, who's talking to the hostess. I interrupt them, and tell him how poor my experience has been, that everything was screwed up beyond belief. He starts apologizing about busy nights and tourists. I pull out my wallet, pay the exact amount due after taxes and tell him to shove it.

In the end it actually being a very satisfying experience. It's not real often that I can blow up like that and not have to worry about it coming back to bite me.

A friend of mine sent this last week. He didn't write it either, but it's funny enough to include.

Funniest damn thing that has ever happened to me. A couple of weeks ago we decided to cruise out to Ryan's Steakhouse for dinner. It was a Wednesday night which means that macaroni and beef was on the hot bar, indeed the only night of the week that it is served. Wednesday night is also kid's night at Ryan's, complete with Dizzy the Clown wandering from table to table entertaining the little bastards. It may seem that the events about to be told have little connection to those two circumstances, but all will be clear in a moment.

We went through the line and placed our orders for the all-you-can-eat hot bar then sat down as far away from the front of the restaurant as possible in order to keep the density of kids down a bit. Then I started my move to the hot bar. Plate after plate of macaroni and beef were consumed that evening, I tell you - in all, four heaping plates of the pseudo-Italian ambrosia were shoved into my belly. I was sated. Perhaps a bit too much, however.

I had not really been feeling well all day, what with a bit of gas and such. By the time I had eaten four overwhelmed plates of food, I was in real trouble. There was so much pressure on my diaphragm that I was having trouble breathing. At the same time, the downward pressure was building. At first I thought it was only gas, which could have been passed in batches right at the table without too much concern.

Unfortunately, that was not to be. After a minute or so it was clear that I was dealing with explosive diarrhea. It's amazing how grease can make its way through your intestines far faster than the food which spawned the grease to begin with, but I digress... I got up from the table and made my way to the bathroom. Upon entering, I saw two sinks immediately inside the door, two urinals just to the right of the sinks, and two toilet stalls against the back wall. One of them was a handicapped bathroom. Now, normally I would have gone to the handicapped stall since I like to stretch out a bit when I take a good shit. But in this case, the door lock was broken and the only thing I hate worse than my wife telling me to stop cutting my toenails with a pair of diagonal wire-cutters is having someone walk in on me while I am taking a shit.

I went to the normal stall. In retrospect, I probably should have gone to the large, handicapped stall even though the door would not lock because that bit of time lost in making the stall switch proved to be a bit too long under the circumstances. By the time I had walked into the regular stall, the pressure on my ass was reaching Biblical portions. I began "The Move."

For those women who may be reading this, let me take a moment to explain "The Move." Men know exactly what their bowels are up to at any given second. And when the time comes to empty the cache, a sequence of physiological events occur that can not be stopped under any circumstances. There is a move men make that involves simultaneously approaching the toilet, beginning the body turn to position ones ass toward said toilet, hooking ones fingers into ones waistline, and pulling down the pants while beginning the squat at the same time. It is a very fluid motion that, when performed properly, results in the flawless expulsion of shit at the exact same second that one’s ass is properly placed on the toilet seat. Done properly, it even assures that the choad is properly inserted into the front rim of the toilet in the event that the piss stream lets loose at the same time; it is truly a picture of coordination rivaling that of a skilled ballet dancer.


I was about halfway into "The Move" when I looked down at the floor and saw a pile of vomit that had been previously expelled by one of those little bastards attending kids night. It was mounded up in the corner so I did not notice it when I had first walked into the stall. Normally, I would not have been bothered by such a thing, but I had eaten so much and the pressure upward was so intense, that I hit a rarely experienced gag reflex. And once that reflex started, combined with the intense pressure upward caused by the bloated stomach, four plates of macaroni and beef started coming up for a rematch.

What happened next was so quick that the exact sequence of events is a bit fuzzy, but I will try to reconstruct them as best I can. In that moment of impending projectile vomiting, my attention was diverted from the goings-on at the other end. To put a freeze frame on the situation, I was half crouched down to the toilet, pants pulled down to my knees, with a load of vomit coming up my esophagus.

Now, most of you know that vomiting takes precedence over shit no matter what is about to come slamming out of your ass. It is apparently an evolutionary thing since shitting will not kill you, but vomiting takes a presence of mind to accomplish so that you do not aspirate any food into the bronchial tubes and perhaps choke to death. My attention was thus diverted. At that very split second, my ass exploded in what can only be described as a wake...you know, as in a newspaper headline along the lines of "30,000 Killed In Wake of Typhoon Fifi" or something similar. In what seemed to be most suitably measured in cubic feet, an enormous plug of shit the consistency of thick mud with embedded pockets of greasy liquid came flying out of my ass.

But remember, I was only halfway down on the toilet at that moment. The shit wave was of such force, and of just such an angle in relation to the back curve of the toilet seat, that it ricocheted off the back of the seat and slammed into the wall - at an angle of incidence equal to the angle at which it initially hit the toilet seat. Then I sat down. Recall that when that event occurred, I was already halfway to sitting anyway and had actually reached the point of no return. I have always considered myself as relatively stable gravitationally, but when you get beyond a certain point, you're going down no matter how limber you may be. Needless to say, the shit wave, though of considerable force, was not so sufficient so as to completely glance off the toilet seat and deposit itself on the walls - unlike what you would see when hitting a puddle with a high-pressure water hose; even though you throw water at the puddle, the puddle gets moved and no water is left to re-form a puddle. There was a significant amount of shit remaining on about one-third of the seat rim which I had now just collapsed upon.

Now, back to the vomit...

While all the shitting was going on, the vomit was still on its way up. By the time I had actually collapsed on the toilet, my mouth had filled up with a goodly portion of the macaroni and beef I had just consumed. OK, so what does the human body instinctively do when vomiting? One bends over. So I bent over. I was still sitting on the toilet, though. Therefore, bending over resulted in me placing my head above my now slightly-opened legs, positioned in between my knees and waist. Also directly above my pants which were now pulled down to a point just midway between my knees and my ankles. Oh, did I mention that I was wearing not just pants, but sweatpants with elastic on the ankles. In one mighty push, some three pounds of macaroni and beef, two or three Cokes, and a couple of Big, Fat Yeast Rolls were deposited in my pants...on the inside...with no ready exit at the bottom down by my feet. In the next several seconds, there were a handful of farts, a couple of turds, and the event ended. Yet I was now sitting there with my pants full of vomit, my back covered in shit that had bounced off the toilet, spattered on three ceramic-tiled walls to a height of about five feet, and still had enough force to come back at me, covering the back of my shirt with droplets of liquid shit. All while thick shit was spread all over my ass in a ring curiously in the shape of a toilet seat.

And there was no fucking toilet paper. What could I do but laugh. I must have sounded like a complete maniac to the guy who then wandered into the bathroom. He actually asked if I was OK since I was laughing so hard I must have sounded like I was crying hysterically. I calmed down just enough to ask him if he would get the manager. And told him to have the manager bring some toilet paper. When the manager walked in, he brought the toilet paper with him, but in no way was prepared for what happened next. I simply told him that there was no way I was going to explain what was happening in the stall, but that I needed several wet towels and I needed him to go ask my wife to come help me. I told him where we were sitting and he left. At that point, I think he was probably assuming that I had pissed just a bit in my pants or something similarly benign.

About two minutes later, my wife came into the bathroom not knowing what was wrong and with a certain amount of worry in her voice. I explained to her (still laughing and having trouble getting out words) that I had a slight accident and needed her help. Knowing that I had experienced some close calls in the past, she probably assumed that I had laid down a small turd or something and just needed to bring the car around so we could bolt immediately. Until I asked her, I'm sure she had no idea that she was about to go across the street and purchase me new underwear, new socks, new pants, a new shirt, and (by that time due to considerable leakage around the elastic ankles thingies) new sneakers. And she then started to laugh herself since I was still laughing. She began to ask for an explanation as to what had happened when I promised her that I would tell her later, but that I just needed to handle damage control for the time being. She left.

The manager then came back in with a half-dozen wet towels and a few dry ones. I asked him to also bring a mop and bucket upon which he assured me that they would clean up anything that needed to be cleaned. Without giving him specific details, I explained that what was going on in that stall that night was far in excess of what I would expect anyone to deal with, what with most of the folks working at Ryan's making minimum wage of just slightly above. At that moment, I think it dawned on him exactly the gravity of the situation. Then that manager went so far above the call of duty that I will be eternally grateful for his actions. He hooked up a hose. Fortunately, commercial bathrooms are constructed with tile walls and tile floors and have a drain in the middle of the room in order to make clean up easy. Fortunately, I was in a commercial bathroom. He hooked up the hose to the spigot located under the sink as I began cleaning myself up with the wet towels.

Just as I was finishing, my wife got back with the new clothes and passed them into the stall, whereupon I stuffed the previously worn clothing into the plastic bag that came from the store, handing the bag to my wife. I finished cleaning myself off and carefully put on my new clothes, still stuck in the stall since I figured that it would be in bad taste to go out of the stall to get redressed, in the event I happened to be standing there naked and some little bastard kid walked in. At that point, I had only made a mess; I had not yet committed a felony and intended to keep it that way.

When I finished getting dressed, I picked up the hose and cleaned up the entire stall, washing down the remains toward the drain in the center of the room. I put down the hose and walked out of the bathroom. I had intended to go to the manager and thank him for all he had done, but when I walked out, three of the management staff were there to greet me with a standing ovation. I started laughing so hard that I thought I was going to throw up again, but managed to scurry out to the car where my wife was now waiting to pick me up by the front door.

The upshot of all this is that I strongly recommend eating dinner at Ryan's Steak House. They have, by far, the nicest management staff of any restaurant in which I have eaten.

I heard of a similar story when I was working at a Red Lobster. On New Year's Eve, an elderly couple was eating when something similar happened to the husband. The manager was eventually notified of the situation (described with shocking similarity to the one above). However, the manager decided to assign the dishwasher the unenviable task of cleaning up. The dishwasher, an incredibly hard working man by the name of Abdullah didn't even flinch when he saw what he was up against, he just grabbed his mop and went to town.

The elderly man was quietly escorted through the back door wearing a pair of rain pants which we used on rainy nights when we'd send someone with an umbrella to customer's cars to walk them into the restaurant.

Abdullah has never had to work a holiday ever again, and earned complete control over the shifts he works, something that's nearly impossible to do in a restaurant.

I went to pizza hut in this small town one time. I got my own small pizza because the rest of the party was getting a Chicken pizza and I just believe the two shouldn't mix. After two hours of waiting for our food we called the waitress over to the table. She then discovered that she never put in out ticket. So 30 minutes later she birngs thier pizza and not mine. So we ask her and she looks puzzled, she goes in the back and brings out the most burnt pizza I have ever seen in my life. I actually ate bits and pieces that were still edable. After we leave, and we don't leave a tip mind you, our waitress says loud enough for the eintire restaurant to hear her "Asshole!!"
ERRRR

Didn't really bother me, but today there was a gnat in my iced tea. Worst experience I can really think of though.

have had pretty good luck lately. Nothing really beats having the waitress bring you food with a cigarette between her fingers. You just know if you say anything you'll get an ash in you food and a "Kiss my grits"

About a year ago I found a moth(cooked) stuck to the bottom of my pizza. Not pleasant.

At that point, y'all should have walked.

I found a bumblebee in my salad at Wendy's once. I laughed my ass off, it was hilarious.

Normally I don't post much but after reading some of the above I have to say yes, a lot of the above can and does happen at some point in nearly every restaurant. I have been in the business for 17 years owning and amanging restaurants. No matter how hard you teach and train your staff each day, some employees really don't care about having pride in themselves or their jobs. In fact in todays culture, it's more of a "lets see what I can get away with" with some employees. Those are the ones who cause the problems that are mentioned above.

Do you really think that a major restaurant company wants to see their name attatched to a story like the ones above? Not really, but the reality of the situation is the labor market is extremely tough to find good employees. Working in a restaurant these days is on the lower rung of the job ladder and it is unbelievably hard to find employees or managers that have the proffessional attitude, work ethic or just plain care that was in the industry just 10 years ago.

I deal with employees every day. I'm the guy who will do anything I can for my guests. I don't want guests to leave unhappy and 'll do anything I can to take care of you if there is a problem. If a manager is any good at all, they want you to let them know so they can fix it for you. Sometime though, a server does not want to get in trouble and won't tell me about the problem. So if I don't know about it i can't fix it. Take it from me, Let the manager know if you have a problem. If you are nice you'll get anything you want. If you are a jerk, well, in my restaurant you get what you want.....You get the picture

I also have to deal with scammers-the ones looking for a free meal-or much worse-a cash payoff by setting us up by finding something that could not have gotten in their food unless it was placed there by the guest, etc. Remember the lady who sued over hot coffeee??? It's supposed to be hot. Maybe she would sue if it was cold. Or the lawsuits against the fast food giants for making people fat? Come on now, you really did not have to eat 3 big macs at once did you? It is incredible what goes on in a restaurant.

One more thing-I have found that generally the guest with the smallest problem complains the loudest. the guest who has the biggest problem, complains the least. It's amazing what people complain about.

How about stories from people who work in a restaurant?????

I've got a decent one from my Red Lobster days. I was cooking one night, and a woman at a table ordered grilled trout. No big deal, I grill the trout and ship it off. About 10 minutes later, the waitress comes back with the trout and says to me bluntly "this is salmon". I take a moment to take a deep breath and tell her "no it's not, it's the exact same trout I inspected this morning and cut 3 hours ago, we don't even have any salmon." the waitress snaps back at me "the woman who ordered it is a real chef, she says it's not trout." I snatch the plate back from her, throw the half eaten trout away and put a new piece of trout on the grill. Food goes out, and comes back in again, the waitress is furious now, she says it's not trout again. I grab the plate, find the kitchen manager and ask him "what kind of fish is this?" he says trout, I then fill him in on how this woman had wasted two servings of grilled trout, which is what she ordered. The manager took the plate and spoke with the customer, I think she took the meal, cause I didn't have to make her anything else.

Makes me glad I can kick people out for being assholes where I work now.

I work in a restuarant, usually as a dishwasher though I do some other things. Though what really bugs me is when the bartender makes me go get her beer when I'm up to my eyes in dishes and there are three other workers not doing anything. And customers who order stuff thats not on the menu. That tends to get annoying.

Was at a restaraunt with a very large group includeing my parents...it was a fancy yacht club, well at least it had been before we went there and found it had burned down and there was only a small building rebuilt on the site. Well they said they had the same food so proceeded to get tables and order food...after an hour or so we got our orders in, after they told us they were out of just about everything...the staff began to make it more and more apparent that they did not want to help us as the night went on...slowly our food started to come out...but from the first order until the last order hit the table it was about 1 1/2 hours. Everyone was so pissed we just up and left...later that night we were hanging out at our hotel room when a cop pulled up and asked my parents and their friends to come out and have a word with them...turns out one of the groups had actually paid and used a check, which was used to track them to their hotel....Officer Tom was rather nice and simply made them pay the bill...so if this is a less to all of us..dine and dash is the best game in the world.

Waited an hour for my meal, it was a drop down order too!

One I was dining at a rather nice, waiters-in-ties, swiss-themed restaurant. I can't remember what I ordered, but Inside the dish were the actual cooking instructions. The label was about the size, shape, and taste of a mattress tag.

That's hilarious.

A used bandaid in a Subway Sub we picked up in New Jersey on a road trip to Florida in 1986. By the time Dexter bit into the sub and pulled it out, we weren't going to turn around. Boy did we laugh though.

I think my worst story was my dads fault...

My family was at Chi-Chi's with my family and girlfriend at the time, as well as my little brothers girfriend. We were having a regular old dinner, the service was great, everything was good up until the end of the dinner. However, it wasn't the service that was poor.

Now, a little background first. My dad is a funny guy, but he's really quiet and serious. He's a retired Marine of 20 years so he typically comes off really kind of stern and stoic. He's not one to make off the wall comments.

So back to dinner, as our server was clearing our plates she asked all of us how our meals were. My dad, out of the blue, says "Everything was pretty good but the beans really sucked!"

Everything ground to a halt. We all looked at my dad with a strange mixture of hilarity and horror... He responds with "What? They did!"

I haven't been to that Chi-Chi's since.

we went to a HOJO's for breakfast once, about 8 of us. After about 20 minutes of sitting at our table, our waitress shows up with red rimmed eyes and quite visably upset. We asked her if anything was wrong and she said she was OK and took our order. Remember this is breakfast, the orders were nothing fancy. After about 45 minutes go by we ask another waitress where our waitress went and she said she was on break. I said we ordered 45 minutes ago and still haven't gotten our food. Munching on her gum she said she would look into it. Another 10 minutes go by and we hear from inside the kitchen. "Jesus Christ! I'm going ! I'm going!" next thing we see is our waitress comming through the door with a huge tray and our breakfast. She takes about 4 steps and drops the breakfast on the floor and starts to cry right there. She gets up off the floor and runs back into the kitchen. The other waitress comes out and asks if we'd like a fruit cup. We said no and left to go to IHOP.

I work at a cafeteria, and the worst thing that I can remember happening on Our end was finding a well cooked latex glove at the bottom of a pan of food.

I've worked as a waitor for a couple of months.. I was fairly good at it, but i hated every second of it. You get shit from everybody, your boss, the chef, the idio.. coustomers. In my opinion they should frbid te idea of restaurants simply because of the harsh working-conditions the serving-staff has to endure.. But anyways.. I'd rather be a bum, living on the street than go back to the restaurantbuissines.
Your brain gets completly toasted after a while, it is really degrading waiting on true idiots.

this one really isnt that bad but kinda funny.....the basketball team went on a trip and we stopped at a restaurant after one of our games....anyway the waitress asked us our names and the guys made up these corny stupid names just to mess around.....when the waitress came to me i was lazy and just told her my real name......she burst out laughing and said that was the best one yet and asked if i would tell her my real name......i just hung my head in shame

me and a a few friends got but ass naked in the bathroom of a restraunt by my house and started pisiing int the urinals... w ethoufght it was hilarious but the ppl who walked in looked at us leik "WTF????" and on person who walked in just happened ot be gay... so he was looking at a buffet of ass

One time, on my moms bday, the restaraunt was overcrowded and understaffed. It took about 1.5 hours for teh food to arrive after we ordered it.

i can deal with bad food usually, but when waitresses/waiters ignore you and make you wait and do not ask if you need anything or offer refils it ruins everything. im at a restaurant b/c i dont want to worry about details and i dont want to work.

Each and every fucking time somebody brings a baby to a restaurant.

But I guess if I had to single out one particular episode, it would be as follows:

Place called Wallaby's in Ames, Iowa. It's sort of like a hometown Applebee's. A group of young parents met there for dinner one night and sat near us, and they brought all of their kids. Two of the parents brought bags (yes, BAGS) of toys which were dumped out on the floor, and the place turned into a carnival funhouse. All of the parents clearly had a "oh yeah, do something about it" attitude, and my wife and I were apparently the only people there who didn't think it was cute.

Finally, to top it all off, one of the mothers changed a set of dirty diapers right there at the table.

On a family vacation when I was about 10, driving from NJ to FL, we stopped at a Pizza Hut. Meal seemed great, went back to the hotel where we were spending the night and around 11pm I didn't feel so hot. Went to the bathroom and puked like crazy. As I was going back to bed, passed my sister headed to the bathroom. Everyone in our family alternately went back to the head to get rid of this wonderful meal for the rest of the night.

I couldn't eat or smell Pizza Hut again without feeling sick to my stomach until I was in college. Then I guess the beer just numbed the senses.

I was at Taco Mac in Marietta, Georgia one day eating with some friends. Ordered a salad, got about halfway into it, and found somebody's credit card receipt in my salad. Needless to say our entire group got half off the bill.

i went out to eat at this breakfast joint and ordered a ham and cheese omlet. when i cut into my omlet i found plastic it turned out they used that fake cheese in it that comes individually wrapped and never thought to unwrap it. yum!

I suggest you try doing anything you can for your EMPLOYEES, and perhaps they in turn will try a little harder for your customers.

I have not worked for you in your resteraunt (at least I think not), so I am speaking about the business in general when I say that....

Employees who are treated like shit treat customers like shit.

If you work in a restaurant you can pretty much count on being treated like shit. But at least the money is terrible and the hours are worse.

While this statement is true, it ignores what he was saying. There are some people who will not work for their paycheck and will do anything they can to slack off. That was the point he was making.

Reminds me of a job I took a long time ago where the only training I received from the current employee was how to say the right things to the boss, how to look busy without doing much, and what kind of excuses work best.

Point taken.

On the other hand there must be enough workers who given due respect, and decent work environment you could staff a place. Rid yourself of the above described slackers.

We don't like to sit near people with small children and if we are seated next to them, we will ask to be moved (we being my husband and me). Sometimes this is met with good humor, others with dark looks. Once we were moved from where there was one child to were there was one at every table around us. We left.

Our worst experience was at the Mason Jar on 1960 in Houston. We were seated immediatly, but it took a good half an hour for the waiter to come get our order. Ok, I can handle that. Maybe it's busy.

We get our food and it's all wrong. My stuff has peppers in it (I hate peppers and make a friendly point of it when I order something) and my husband's stuff isn't even close to what he actually ordered. Ok, these things happen. I don't say anything about the peppers, but we send back Eric's food.

I discovre that picking out the peppers is no good because this stuff is cooked with them and it all tastes like green pepper, which would be great if I didn't detest the damn things. And, yes, I had asked specifically if what I was ordering had green peppers in it and had been told no, it didn't. Ok, maybe this guy is new or something and didn't know since it wasn't listed on the menu. I'll just eat more bread - uh oh, we didn't actually GET any bread. Hmm.

Eric's actual order never comes back. We never get refills on our cokes (but we now know enough to be thankful that we got the first ones). Eric actually had to go to the bar to get someone to bring us the check... and by this time, the manager. I was ready to be told that the waiter had gone home sick, had a family emergency, become invisable, entered an alternate plane of existance were our table did not reside, died, or whatever, but wait! As soon as the manager appears at our table, so does the waiter!

It was embarrassing. The manager proceeded to chew out the waiter right there at the table. He comped our inedible dinner and gave us a $20 gift certificate (yeah, like we were going to go back), while the waiter stood there with a dead/stoned look in his eye and said nothing. Not 'sorry about that', not 'fuck you', nothing.

We didn't go back. I wouldn't have gone back just because of the manager yelling at the waiter in public. That's just wrong (so's the yelling part.)

I'm pretty lenient, especially after reading Nickeled & Dimed. They are definately going through hell back there.

Personally, I'd prefer it if the prices for the food already included enough for the servers to receive an actual salary, and tips would be just if people felt like it. I mean, I don't tip the people at the movie theatre or the clothing store.

But, that's not the way the USA operates, so I default to 20% unless something has gone horribly wrong, and the fault lies with the server.

I've noticed a trend in this thread of gratuities being added to the bill. With the exception of my cruise earlier this year, i have never been presented with a bill already including the tip.

Is this common in american restaurants? Because even in all my travels south of the border i have not experienced this.

Now let me point out that i tend to overtip anyways, so my issue isn't the money. However, if i am ever presented with a restaurant bill with tip included, someone's going to get an earfull in a hurry.

It's not up to them to determine my level of satisfaction for me.

That said.... i'm not hard to please and don't need to be waited on hand and foot to enjoy my restaurant experience.

My other issue is that, as a rule i prefer to tip in cash, even if i pay for the meal with a credit card.

Groups of six or more are generally charged gratuity in the US. There are many reasons behind this but the fact is that servers make their money on tips and if they aren't getting them they will move on to to a restaurant where they will. Can't say if it is fair or not, but its usualy printed on the menu, right next to the no splitting bills that the rube's like to ignore.

Rubes? or rather "rube's"? When people go out, they don't always carry large sums of cash on them. It's very common these days for people to use check or credit cards. When several people in a group want to pay with plastic, the bill must be split.

If it is that hard of a task, just let me know and I'll take my check card elsewhere.

It bothers me also when servers expect tips. If I don't perform my job duties to a satisfactory level for my company, I don't get rewarded.....I feel that the tip is the motivation for servers to do their job to the best of their ability. Not an expected addition to their salary.

employees who don't give a shit and just want to get paid do as little as possible.

I don't work in food service but when I had people to manage, I treated them very well and those people that didn't give a crap still didn't give a crap.

heh, see I waitored over the summer so I have stories on the flip side...

back in like 6th grade, i kept my hair pretty long, so i got a few "and what would you like miss?"'s, but the worst was i asked to go to the bathroom, and the waitress showed me to the ladies room. i literally cut my hair the next day. Hanson syndrome i guess. hehe.

Absolute worse I had was in a little town in Michigans upper Penninsula called L'Anse about 30 miles south of Houghton (where Michigan Tech is). I was working for a tower company and we pulled into town after working late. Only place open was this dive called the Night Owl Cafe. Hours 10pm til 4am...

Sign right as you walk in says "Caution: Microwave in Use." Pretty standard sign. Excep they microwaved everythin. Burgers, Chicken, Hotdogs... Even the damn Frenchfries.. Not a grill or a deep fryer in sight.. They cater to the drunk crowd.. thats the only reason I think they stayed in business.. Most god aweful food I've ever had. I ate maybe 5 bites total from my whole meal..

I was out with my girlfriend at a nice restaurant. We had a decent meal and had coffee afterwards. Well sort of... One of the cups of hot coffee fell off the tray and crashed on the table. Where it got ALL OVER the two of us.

that's terrible

I guess I've been fairly lucky. Nothing more than the occassional slow service, cold food, or just plain bad food. Usually, I simply mention the problem and it gets fixed quickly.

Now the good service really stands out! The waitresses at one of my favorite places, Tokyo Sushi, practically know me by name, and they know one of my friends by name. I go in there, get seated fast, get my salad and soup quickly, which is soon followed by my sushi, and they always keep my cup full of tea. I'll tip 20% without batting an eye. They take good care of me, I take good care of them.

As far as tips being added on to the bill goes, unless I'm in a large group and it is stated ahead of time, I'm going to have it taken off. Tips are earned, not expected. I'll tip what they deserve, and if they deserve it, they will not be unhappy.

I've been rather lucky in terms of service and food.

My dining partners, on the other hand...

My father is a complete ass to people who work in food service, even if they're polite and trying to do their best.

We were once at a seafood restaurant and were about to sit down at a table when a booth was vacated [there were still plates and glasses, etc]. My father proceeded to ask for the booth and started being a jerk to the [rather cute] waitress, since the booth wasn't cleaned the instant he asked. He was rude to her for the rest of the meal -- demanding instant service and complaining that the food took too long to get there [20 minutes].

This worked out to my advantage, however -- after my father left the restaurant, I slipped her a tip and she slipped me her phone number. :D

Went to a local KFC and as I walked into the bathroom I saw one of the cooks come out of a stall. They just ignored me and walked on out without even pausing at the sink. I needed to go so I continued and discovered that the bathroom was filthy. It looked a couple days old even. Stains on the floor and seat even. When I got done I went out to complain about the lack of hygene in the employee and the filthy bathroom too. They were told to wash up. Don't really know why I stayed but I did. We got the lunch buffet and there was no chicken or buscuits left except one broken up buscuit and a scrawny wing. I watched a woman come out, run a washcloth across the edge of the counter and around the drink machine. Never stopping to pay attention to the lack of foods. Finally I asked if they were planning on refilling the food anytime soon. They did immediately. Then I noticed that one woman dropped the tongs on the floor as she was replacing the pan of chicken. She just picked it up without even a glance and stuck it in the chicken. I used different tongs to get chicken far from the dirty ones and mentioned it to the manager on the way out. He apologized and said they would try to fix things. I've been back since - don't really know why I do that - and the bathroom didn't look better. I don't think I should go again.

Bad restaurant experiences? I've had lots...but I'll go with just one of the restaurants. The restaurant is now out of business so no sense naming it.

A group of were going to the restaurant before a Canucks game. We made a reservation and got to the restaurant and there was no table available and about a 30-40 minute wait. No good...the manager apologized and gave us a free meal.

My wife and I and another couple decided to go try the place considering we had two free meals. So we go to the place and eat and everything is ok..until we try to use the free meal certificate. Turns out they fired that manager about 2 weeks before. Should NOT have mattered at all if the restaurant was good..but they decided not to honour the free meal. We were rightly pissed off.

I don't know why but we decided to go back to this restaurant a third time (this was over the course of a year or so). The food hadn't been too bad and it was the only restaurant around this area. So we go in. We order. I ordered a burger and got one but on some strange buns. Actually turned out all right. My wife orders a caesar salad. And when she tastes it something doesn't taste right. She goes back to the waiter and asks them and is told..get this...

"The kitchen staff have been told they have to use up what's in the kitchen and they can't go out to get anything else. So they used Mayonnaise on the caesar salad instead of..well Caesar dressing."

Absolutely unbelievable. The waitress came out and gave everyone a round of drinks...My wife never got a replacement meal..and we were talking about the bill when the manager came over and ripped it out of my friend's hand (and I mean actually tore it from his grasp). She then said in a very angry voice.."Here..I hope you're happy!" and proceeded to rip up the check.

It was scary....

My family was at a very nice restaurant in DC called Old Ebbitt Grill. The food was fantastic and the dining was very nice, although the waiter was a bit snotty. We're enjoying ourselves thoroughly when at the end of the table, my mom starts laughing.

It turns out there's a moth in her salad. Fortunately it's a whole moth, but a moth nevertheless.

So she turns to the waiter and beckons him over. The waiter smiles, but looks as if he's too important to be bothered. Smiling wider, mom does the "come hither" thing with the finger. The waiter comes over, sees the moth, and his look goes from snooty to "oh shit" in less than a millisecond.

The manager comes out by himself, apologizes profusely, and apparently they cut the bill significantly. At least the look on my grandfather's face seemed to indicate that when he paid it.

All in all a hilarious dining experience.

Went into a very busy Denny's once and all the empty tables still had dirty dishes on them. After the hostess seated me, the waitress ambles up, asks me if I'd like anything else and hands me a bill for the previous guest. Guess he/she walked.

I generally have pretty good restaurant experiences, but I am easy to please. However there was one night when I went to a Burger King and asked for a burger with everything but pickles and onions. Of course, I got my food, and when I got to the car, it had buns, meat, pickles and onions only. I drove back to the restaurant and pointed to my ticket that said minus pickles and onions, and the cashier told me that the burger was prepared correctly. I was pretty ticked off about it. They ended up fixing it. I did get some free food out of it when I called the Burger King Customer Service line. Moral of the story: Don't eat at Burger King :)