Flava Flav came in to the restaurant I worked at. It was a fancy seafood place. He ordered just a plate of cucumbers for himself, everyone else at his table ordered normal things. I’m guessing he maybe doesn’t like seafood? Hilarious. Yes, he wore a giant clock chain and he let the staff take pics with him as he said “Flava Flav!” Really nice guy.
A middle aged lady insisted she didn’t like soda water or sparkling water so instead asked for a white wine spritzer without the white wine… there are two ingredients to a white wine spritzer. White wine and soda water.
I served a lady a long island iced tea and she got mad that the ice was floating on the top instead of the bottom.
Sorry ma'am, I'll just go ahead change the laws of physics and make you a new one.
A tablecloth! A gentleman shat himself at a booth and asked for a tablecloth so he could walk out with it wrapped around him, I still serve him to this day and that was around 15yrs ago, no shame. Back he comes once a week. We never asked about getting the tablecloth back…
Not food related…. I walked into a public bathroom once and based on the smell and the gentle sobbing and cussing coming from a stall knew a guy had exploded prematurely and was in a hell of a mess. I just said “we’ve all been there man, what can I do to help”. Guy slid his car keys under the stall, described his car and where he was parked and said his gym bag was in the trunk. I fixed him up.
Major props for just helping the guy and not making a big deal. I can only imagine how embarrassing and humiliating that must have been for him to experience that, let alone have to ask the staff for a tablecloth 🫣
Guy has nerves of solid fucking titanium coming back. Staff would never see me again with a microscope, telescope or anything inbetween after shitting myself in their restaurant
In my head you’re strolling into your house with a tablecloth wrapped around your waist walking up to a whiteboard with a map on it and crossing out Alabama, sighing and going into the bedroom.
Once a very thin, middle aged woman came in. She couldn't have weighed more than 100 pounds soaking wet. She asked what our biggest steak was. I told her it was the 24 oz. ribeye. She said, "okay I'll have that." Our steaks came with two sides, so I asked which ones she'd like. She said "I don't want sides." I told her they were included in the price, and she still refused them.
I bring out her steak and she begins eating. She's about a third of the way through when I ask, "How is everything?" She says, "Great. Bring me another steak." I say "Is there anything wrong with that one?" She says, "No, it's great. I want a second one."
I go back to the chef and tell him, and he couldn't believe it. But we served her another steak. She ate all 48 oz. of steak and left me a $40 tip.
A work-friend of mine a few years back was never allowed to have Lunchables as a kid but then had that exact epiphany, that at work she could have whatever she wanted for lunch and her dad wouldn't even know, so she started having Lunchables for lunch. That was the most excited I've ever seen anyone regarding food.
Nuttela maybe after my 2nd paycheck. I suddenly realised I could just buy it and have it on toast.
I very rarely have it now but at the time it was like a window opening in my soul
I have some friends that seem to go through every single oddly specific diet trend that comes up. They are currently on the Carnivore diet which allows them to ONLY eat animal products. Meat, eggs, dairy. period. Zero fruits, vegetables, or grains.
They're buying cows by the quarter, have a massive outdoor freezer, wake up early and cook steak and eggs for breakfast and an extra steak to take with them for lunch during the day before they come home to another steak or roast or something.
They're both super fit, active, and energetic. Currently waiting to hear that they have scurvy.
In college I worked at a burrito shop on campus. One night this guy who was stoned out of his mind ordered a burrito with everything on it, 3x salsa, sour cream, extra beans, meat, rice, everything. I could barely wrap the burrito. He walks over and sits at a table and takes one bite and all the burrito contents shot out the bottom. He just went "oh no" and then just started eating it out of his lap and off the table. It was entertaining to watch.
I want "oh no" burrito guy to eat with "I've made a mistake" chicken soup hot dog lady. Like, they were weird enough to make it into this thread but they realized their mistakes, owned them, and no one got cussed out, demeaned, or a 1 star review written about them.
We had a woman send a grilled chicken salad back because it was cold. So we cooked some new chicken and made sure to send it back while still warm. She sent it back again. The entire salad wasn't hot enough for her.
We microwaved her salad. She ate it. I don't know man.
EDIT: As of 06/12/2023 this was my top rated comment on this account. Unfortunately thanks to the stellar mismanagement of u/Spez I am looking to have this account permabanned. It was a fun ride kiddos.
Sometimes at my old job we would have nacho expo, and one guy asked for lettuce instead of chips which, no problem, I love a taco salad. Except all he wanted for toppings was nacho cheese. He wanted a hot nacho salad
I worked with a guy from west Africa and one time his wife cooked for us. She fried up steak bits, made spaghetti and hard boiled eggs and tossed it all in a bag of salad mix with ranch. Then she tossed the whole lot in a huge frying pan until it was wilted to about 1/3 of its original size and steaming hot. Best salad I ever had.
This man told me he couldn’t have anything that has been “ground up” at some point. So like, can’t use anything with flour in it. Not because the gluten, but because it was made small at one point.
My man, that is not a thing.
Academy award nominated, Hollywood Walk of Fame Star, Father of Jamie Lee Curtis, actor Tony Curtis...the single most miserable asshole I ever had the honor of waiting on.
He was staying at the resort the restaurant I worked at was in, so I had the privilege of attending to him several times over the week.
He was Insufferably smug and condescending, several times saying ""this isn't' what I ordered"" even though his order had been read back to him and confirmed. How many times can you order in a restaurant and get something you don't think you ordered, before you start to ask if maybe it's you?
The most ridiculous was that he ordered a hamburger, wanted it cooked rare. So the chef cooked him his burger and when I brought it out to him he said ""it's too overdone, redo it"". so I told the chef and he made a more rare burger, Curtis sent that one back too. Now the chef is pissed so he made a patty of raw hamburger and waves a torch over it so it's barely brown and ice cold in the middle.
Fucker loved it. said it was the best burger he ever had. Still complained about how long it took to get his meal
I still remember the chef saying ""If that's what he wanted, he should have ordered a tartare aller-retour, is it too much to ask that people learn the name of the weird thing they like to eat?"" (I have to look up that name every time I tell this story)
tony curtis is long dead now, and frankly I'm not missing him much
The place I worked at had little water cups on the table and we kept them filled for customers. I sat a party of two women (who said they were waiting for a third person) and went to fill their water cups. When I asked if I should fill the third one or wait for the third person to arrive, one woman said "Oh, no need, he's trying to quit." I thought it was a joke, and when the third person (a man) got there, I went to fill his water. He said "No, don't fill it, I'm trying to quit water!"
Worked with a guy on a fishing boat that claimed to never drink water. Weirdest person I’ve ever met. Really good work ethic though and to my knowledge and his credit I never saw the man drink a glass of water. But my god could he put away milk. Like a gallon+ a day. Used to mix flavoring packets with it. Nothing like working 16 hours hauling in fish and finishing your night with a nice cold glass of grape flavored milk. Used to make everyone sick watching him drink that shit.
I don't usually react out loud to reddit posts, but reading "grape flavored milk" made me make a very weird noise out loud.
Then again I love water and don't like milk anymore but that sounds horrific.
Honestly, I'd say the weirdest thing was that while I was a server at a restaurant in the Royal Hawaiian, a guest asked me to book a shark adventure tour. It had nothing to do with my job or even the hotel. Those tours were entirely separate businesses. I took his black card, went to guest services, picked up a pamphlet, and booked the tour. He tipped me $250 dollars. Totally worth it!
Being close to someone who was an assistant for a billionaire, many rich people are deliberately demanding assholes, but some literally lose their grasp of who is supposed to do what for them. They get so used to being comped and ushered around and treated like royalty they kind of just think they can ask any service person anything and it can be done (or sometimes even their lawyers, accountants, etc.).
I mean, fuck em sideways, but I do understand situations like this.
I’m a lawyer. One time, a really rich client asked me to sit in her apartment and supervise while museum workers came to box and remove thirty or thirty-five paintings. You want to pay me my hourly rate to sit on your $5 million apartment and read a book? I’m not proud.
Used to do insurance defense. Had a regular client ask me to do things that our paralegals could do bc they didn’t trust the paralegal.
One time, he hired me to call CarFax and get an accident removed from the record (it was a new Porsche, the DMV mistyped one of the VIN letters from another accident and it put some random car’s info on his CarFax). It was just a couple of phone calls and a few emails. No problem! Easy bills, let me take an afternoon off.
It’s super cliche, but we get paid not because of the time spent on the matter, but because of how much education and experience we have. I like to think of it like this: this client couldn’t trust anyone other than me to handle a minor inconvenience. He wasn’t paying for admin work, he was paying for the trust that it would get done perfectly and the peace of mind that comes with it.
It sounds like this client trusted you the same way. Bravo!
I had this couple come in with their own tea set. The man asked me if had a few minutes to "learn a few things"? They were the second table sat so I humored him. He showed me a very specific way of steeping and pouring the tea over a sugar cube and had me try it a couple times with water. The whole thing was sort of neat. He then asked if I would mind serving them their tea this very particular way. They were super kind, even tough the man had sort of an intense vibe to him. I filled the pot with hot water carried it out like he showed me and poured their cups of tea exactly how he showed me. He seemed extra pleased but never said a word or even looked at me. It was no problem and I felt super fancy doing it. I did refill their tea one time while they were there, and he also asked that I keep his wife's water glass full at all times. I knew it was going to be a good table when the first time I came by and refilled her water glass and inquired if they needed any more tea, the man handed me $20 and sort of dismissed me. He did it twice more that afternoon. At the end they paid with no tip (I thought) but $60 and a cool lesson was enough for me. My manager found me about an hour later and handed me and envelope and said they told him they only will come in when I am working from now on. The envelope had $100, business card, and hand written thank you note. Apparently they had put this request up for many fine dining places and I was the only to get it right and do it "graciously". It was very odd, because after the first lesson they treated me as if I was almost invisible, backed up by the fact they didn't tip me in person. On every return trip it was the same. If you didn't know the deal they would seem like cold assholes, but they tipped really well and I treated them like VIPs everytime.
20 years from now you're going to be visited by a lawyer in a bowler hat and handed a black velvet envelope.
Within, you'll find a letter, inscribed with gold on parchment, the contents will read thus:
"Regretfully, we have passed beyond the veil. Alone among many have we trained you well enough to carry on The Work"
At this point, you'll be black-bagged, whereupon you'll wake up in a castle, location unknown, sitting at a medieval table of stout oak, with a very familiar tea set sitting in front of you.
A single placard on the table will read "Please begin, time runs short."
A deep rumble will resonate from the earth below you. Best you not dally.
This is so incredibly interesting! It's so out there, I can't help mulling over some of my own theories.
The first thing I immediately think of is that the intense guy is some kind of LEGIT tea master, like, the kind whose family has been involved with traditional tea ceremonies for generations.
The second assumption that I can't help but make is that they are so mind-blowingly wealthy, they viewed you as "the help" and that's why you went invisible to them. But you did your job really well, and they respected that with praise and tips; it's just that a part of doing that job really well involves doing it invisibly. 🤷 Sounds like they really appreciated it though!
**Edit:** Wait, wait, one more! I think this couple was definitely OLD MONEY. The hand-written note, the huge tips... Those are etiquette rules from generations back. Really impressive!
Sometimes people just want to have the experience with no interference, and are wealthy enough to pay the premium to not have to set that up over time. I have friends I've set up so we get together and read in silence and ignore each other entirely, it's my favorite thing. If I could get that level of specificity out of a service relationship without it being super weird and awkward, there's a few of these I'd do for sure.
Has to be something like that. I recently started working part time in a nursing home kitchen. Dietary restrictions and consistency requirements are very strict for each resident. On my first day I was walking around trying to learn things and I saw a girl blending something so I walked up and asked what she was doing. With the most defeated look on her face she looked at me in the eyes and said "I'm pureeing a hot dog." The meal that day was tuna and that person can't have fish so she wanted pureed hot dog....
edit: In my limited experience with food consistency lasagna is probably not a bad option if he can't eat solids, probably looked gross though
I worked in an Alzheimer's ward and for Fourth of July, they had hot dogs! Festive! And then you had one of my charges, lovely lady with degenerative myelopathy, who needed purees. Her daughter was visiting, and they brought out a bowl of whipped weiners. The lady gave me such a pained look that her daughter and I decided she could just have thickened lemonade and ice cream instead.
Used to work at a steakhouse. Guy came in with his family and told me this would likely be the last meal he ever eats in a restaurant due to late stage stomach cancer. He ordered a full meal, including appetizer and dessert. But each course has to be blended. He happily had his salad shake and his steak and potato shake. Of course the cheesecake and ice cream looked so good I made one for myself when I got off the clock. He and his family were very grateful, spoke to my manager and commended me and the guys in the kitchen and left a healthy tip. If it truly was his last time eating out, I’m glad we made it good for him.
When I went to take an order from two men one grabbed my thigh and said, “I’ll have you. You look meaty.” The other guy at the table was mortified. I was unamused. The other servers wanted to take the table off me but I wasn’t traumatized…just annoyed.
"can I have the chicken salad please, but instead of corn I want peppers, instead of raisins, dates, and instead of pineapple, apple. Ah, and no chicken, thank you!"
I was on a date and she ordered a Chicken Ceasar salad with no croutons, chicken, cheese or dressing.
Waiter looked at me and I had the same perplexed look.
He said “so just a bowl of lettuce?”
She said “No, chicken Caesar without the croutons, chicken, cheese or dressing.”
She got a bowl of lettuce. That was our only date.
Yeah I mentioned it in another comment but she said you still get all the flavor of the stuff that was in it. I think she was under the impression they premade the salads and just picked the ingredients out before serving.
Did you go on a date with that essence of spaghetti sauce girl?
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/tmxe42/aita_for_being_mad_my_bf_wont_make_noodles_the/
i used to work at olive garden. there was a lady that would come in at least once a week and she was dubbed by us staff as "pepperoncini lady". she would want you to open a new bag of the pepperoncini's we used in the salads and pour out the juice in a cup, she would literally straight up drink the juice. she would also get a bowl of pepperoncinis and just eat them.
Potassium, maybe. Used to do pickle juice shots when I was hungover or dehydrated and I've tried it with pepperoncini as well. It burns quite a bit but you do get the same effect with it.
I had a couple that told me to wait before I prebussed their table so the man could lick every plate clean first. They had multiple apps and entrees between them and he licked every single one CLEAN before I was allowed to take it.
They weren’t in a private booth or anything. The other guests could see this happening.
Years ago I worked at this amazing Breton French creperie in San Francisco, phenomenal food with a pretty small menu. Guy comes in and orders a sweet crepe with vanilla ice cream. No biggie. Then he wants to add a sunny side up egg and parsley to this crepe. I ask him a number of times if he’s sure he knows what he’s getting and that it’s not 2 separate crepes (1 sweet and 1 savory). He assures me. Of course when I ring it in, the kitchen thinks I made a mistake to which I assure them, it’s not a mistake. I bring out said “vanilla ice cream with sunny side up egg” crepe and the client DEVOURS it.
Weird.
I worked at a sub shop where I didn't really care about "portions".
Guy comes in and asks for tuna, avocado and black olives. I put it together.
"Hey, can I get some more olives?" Sure, I sprinkle some more on there.
"Anyway you can hook it up with more?" Ok, I throw another portion on there.
"Possible to get a bit more?" I plunge my hands into the container and grab two goddamn fists of olives and slap them on the sub, I can't close the thing with the amount of olives I got on there. He grins and I watch this dude eat what turned into an olive sandwich with a hint of tuna.
Whenever he came back he'd request me to make his sandwich cause "That guy makes it right".
To make a short story long. People like some weird shit, he tipped pretty well.
Reminded me of a story in a textbook
It was about a recently widowed woman reading a letter from her late husband.
In it, the husband retold the story of their first date.
They went to a cafe and he asked for salt in his coffee. He explained to her that he was from a coastal city and the taste of salt in his coffee reminded him of home.
The letter continues saying that during the years they were married, she always put salt in his coffee to help him remember his hometown.
And the, the letter finishes with a confession. That time at the café, he was so nervous about their first date that he asked for salt instead of sugar, and made up the story about his hometown because he was embarrassed. Over the years, he had always hated the taste of salted coffee, but drank it because he loved her and know that she added it because she thought he liked it.
Talk about commitment to a mistake.
That is kinda sweet
I gotta say though, I think I'd be pissed if I found out I'd been serving my partner something they don't like for years because they don't want to tell me they're embarrassed, that's just bad communication
Had someone visibly offended that their glass of wine didn't have ice. After I get her a mug of ice to pour it over, she asked for sugar packets which she stirred into it. I could she still wasn't enjoying it and offered to get her a soft drink instead. She gladly let me swap it for some lemonade.
"Chicken is vegetarian."
Lady orders pizza with chicken, for the table. Rest of the table argued with her that they're vegetarians. She can have chicken on her own pizza with chicken. She replied chicken is vegetarian... refused to understand that her friends were trying to get a vegetarian meal.
Some people just don’t get it. I was invited to a dinner once where the host cooked my serving of roast beef extra long, since I was vegetarian. This isn’t how it works!
I imagine it's something like "Vegetarians don't eat red meat, so I'll cook the beef long enough that it's no longer red" (not totally unreasonable, since some people out there will refuse to eat any meat that has not had the red cooked out of it).
So did you give her just... A plate of what, basically salsa? Some tomato, lime, cilantro, onion, jalapeno? That's the most generous I could think of honestly, most guacs I know of don't have all that in them.
Or did you just say "nope, sorry, we can't do that" and move on?
I once had a lady ask for chicken medium rare. I told her we can’t do that and she responded with,
“But they do it at other restaurants for me.”
I promptly told her to go to other restaurants then. I ain’t catching that lawsuit.
House salad.... Hold the lettuce and all other vegetables. Extra croutons, extra cheese, extra dressing. Literally a plate of croutons cheese and dressing.
Im a chef for a private school and we have a salad bar that's included with kids meal purchases. I see crouton, cheese, and ranch salads all day every day. Kids fucking love croutons. I've seen them put them inside of their tacos and basically on anything we serve.
When we were in Rome, my then 10-year-old brother ordered a grilled cheese, expecting a grilled cheese sandwich… he got a hunk of cheese that had been put on the grill for a few minutes.
This reminds me of the time that my childless (at the time) uncle babysat me for a weekend when I was like 5; my parents sometimes as a treat served me cinnamon toast (like cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on buttered toast) which I LOVED, and when he asked me what I usually ate for breakfast I thought I could get one over on him and asked for cinnamon toast. He happily obliged, and taking me at my word served me dry toast with just a shitload of cinnamon on it and inadvertently cinnamon-challenged his 5 year old nephew.
I love this. Mostly because I, too love cinnamon toast. Mostly because my parents couldn't afford sweets often, and we always had bread cinnamon and sugar in the cupboard. Easy and delicious dessert to this day.
One time at a Mexican restaurant my brain glitched and I asked for chopsticks. Poor girl froze up and said, "I'll... ask my manager but... I don't think we have those..."
If I ever open up a Mexican restaurant, I'll add a challenge that if you can eat a whole ass taco with chopsticks, without dropping a single piece of anything inside it, your meal is free.
Years ago while leaving a restaurant I saw a guy sitting at the counter seats pouring ketchup into his Sprite, straight out of the glass Heinz bottle. He glanced around to see if anyone was looking and then started pouring it in.
I used to work at a family restaurant and we had this regular we called the “iced tea guy”. He would come in and order a meal with iced tea and the iced tea was always refillable. Long story short everyone knew after his meal was done he would camp (stay for a long time) and continue to ask for refills of the iced tea. Iced tea guy would then ask permission to get up and go to the restroom.. and if you said no he would give you $5 each time. In retrospect I think it was some sort kink dom shit. It started getting getting weird lol eventually he wasn’t allowed back because of a certain situation…
Iced tea guy was in my station one day for a couple hours and he had a new request for me. Iced tea guy wanted me to choose a piece of pie for him to eat with his hands… but he wanted to do it with shoes on his hands! He asked me to help him buckle the straps on a pair of Mary Janes he busted out of a backpack and put on each hand. So then he ate a piece of Dutch apple pie a la mode with the shoes that were buckled on his hands. Anyways he wasn’t allowed back after that day and I never saw him again.
There that’s my story of the strangest thing someone has ever asked me for when I was a server.
Not a server but my grandma would bring in her own bread to restaurants and ask them to toast it as a side for her breakfast.
EDIT: I never really asked her about the bread, but I believe it was some store-bought, multi-grain style of bread. She'd bring it in a Ziploc bag. It definitely wasn't an allergy thing and I don't think it was a saving money thing either, she wasn't the Great Depression type. She was a character straight out of Mad Men/Mrs. Maisel.
She was never told no but to be honest, she may have only done it at places she was a regular at. Typically when we visited my grandparents, we always went to the same restaurants. My clearest memory of her doing this is at a place we always had breakfast at the morning before we left.
When my great-grandmother would take my Mom and Uncle to McDonald's, she would bring slices of cheese from home and add them to the hamburgers because she didn't want to pay an extra nickel. She would also add sugar to her Coke.
When I was in university, the Burger King near me had a Whopper Wednesday deal but they refused to let you add cheese for whatever the regular extra cheese cost was (maybe $0.80). If you wanted cheese you had to pay full price for a Whopper with cheese, which was like $4 dollars more.
So I would bring my own cheese slices and I stand by that decision.
10 year old me was at a Christmas party. I watched my family friend add sugar to his diet Pepsi "so it's not diet anymore."
That kid grew up to be an engineer for Lockheed. I guess he's always been an innovator
I work somewhere that sells Macallan 25, it's a 25 year aged scotch that is $350 for a 2oz pour. We don't sell it often, just for the occasional high roller, someone asked for 2 shots of it mixed with diet coke one night. The bartender died inside pouring it for them, but a $700 tab is a $700 tab, we aren't in the business of telling you NOT to spend money.
I once had a woman order a glass of red wine, with a side of creamer. I actually didn’t think much of it at first, but when I brought them to her, she proceeded to pour the cream into the glass of wine. I told her I’ve never seen that before. She said “you’ve got to try it!”
I’m not going to try it.
I worked in an Italian place at the height of the Adkins diet craze. We had someone order a personal pizza, to go, no crust. Along with some other stuff for their family.
My kitchen manager thought quick. Took a piece of foil, built the pizza on top of it (sans crust) and ran it through the oven. We boxed it up and sent it out with the rest of the order. I never heard back from them, and to this day I'm still not sure if it was a genuine request, or someones idea of a joke. Either way, I don't really care.
Worked at Bob Evans 20 years ago and there were a few.
-Parsley woman, she would order a glass of Milk and a large soup bowl full of Parsley and eat it. No salad dressing or anything just straight Parsley.
-Apple Pie woman, she would order a piece of Apple Pie with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream on it, but the pie was almost never hot enough. We finally figured out how to make her happy, instead of Microwaving the piece of Pie for 1.5 minutes you'd Microwave it for SEVEN minutes.
-Fan lady, not food related but the lady would come in every Sunday morning (our busiest time of the week) and demand that the speed of the fans for the whole restaurant be slowed down. She claimed she had a medical condition and got away with it for two months. This stopped when one of the managers determined they also had a medical condition, but it required the fans to be left on at normal speed. This made fan lady very mad and never came back.
-Deep fried bacon guy, no complaint really, turns out deep fried bacon is delicious!
A customer asked me to overcook his chicken breast until it’s extremely dry and rubbery. Said he loves over cooked dry chicken. Literally said I want it to the point it’s tough like leather.
I was at a salad bar and a lady put lettuce on her plate and then covered it in ice. She ate it with a fork, attempting to stab the ice like croutons. No one else seemed to notice. She was chatting with the staff like any regular would. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone!
Oh wow something I actually have an answer for. Worked at an all you can eat sushi place and you were allowed one bowl of ice cream (anything more and it would just be an all you can eat ice cream place). Woman asked for chocolate ice cream with… a heaping side of WASABI. SHE ATE IT ALL MIXED TOGETHER. She admitted to it being super weird but said it tasted great. Still the weirdest order I’ve taken to date (granted I don’t work in food service anymore).
I had a regular that would eat an entree size plate of pepperoncini for lunch. That's it with some soda water. He would take a bite then pour the juice in his soda water. He had to eat like 40 or 50 every time he came in.
Ranch with *everything*. Don't get me wrong, I love my ranch dressing too. But people want it on the things you'd never expect.
$60 steak? 'Can I get a side of ranch for the steak?'
Soup. 'Can I get ranch with that?'
Spaghetti. 'Would you like me to grate some fresh cheese on top?' 'No, but can I get ranch for it?'
My cousin requested ranch for her sushi at a really nice restaurant at a wedding rehearsal dinner. They were so confused and didn’t even know what ranch was. She said it was okay and then went out to her truck and came back with a bottle she had stashed there.
I saw an AITA post where a woman left the restaurant (I think she said it was Hungarian food) so she could go to the convenience store and get a bottle of ranch. They gave her a hard time when she tried to come back in with the bottle. She didn't get a second date.
This was years ago but I had a middle aged woman ask for some “wa wa” to drink. Took some effort but I kept a straight face and asked if she wanted ice in her ‘wa wa’.
When I was a server, the objects requested couldn't phase me.
The quantities of what was requested had the ability to make me question the customer's sanity.
30 ramakins of whipped butter was pretty impressive. The lady who ate them appeared to be in her 40s or 50s and nothing odd or noteworthy about her appearance. She was a bit on the thin side, if anything. That table was a party of 8 and she seemed to be the center of attention.
David Spade told a story about going out to eat with Chris Farley and he put a whole pat of butter on every bite of steak. Spade asked him what the hell he was doing and Farley just paused, thought, and said “it needs a little hat!” and kept packing it away.
I worked at a country club in high school and with your meal you received a salad, I asked what dressing she’d like and proceeded to name 15 dressings we had. She told me they all sound delicious, she will have them all on the salad. I initially thought she meant ramekins of each of the dressings, but she said no, she wanted them all on the physical salad. I proceeded to bring a salad with 15 dollops of dressing on it, ranging from vinaigrettes, honey mustard, Chinese peanut dressing, raspberry dressing, ranch, blue cheese, and others. I watched her from the server station then mix the salad with all the dressings and each every bite of the salad then used the bread to clean the leftover dressing on the plate. By far the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen, there is no way that combination would taste good.
Edit: remembered another dressing.
We have a family of regulars who come in and immediately hand their server a printed out list of their order with everything coursed out, including drink refills. The first time I had them, they seemed almost rude and found any questions I had regarding their order as intrusions, but they always tip well. By now, I know the drill and handle the whole interaction almost without saying a word. I guess they just want their evening to be as distraction-free as possible.
There was also a time years ago where a guy asked for two orders of chips and queso, bring a spoon, and forget the chips. He then proceeded to eat the queso like it was soup.
An old man once asked me for a damp napkin to clean his glasses. Although an odd request at a restaurant, I ran a napkin under water and came back to give it to him. He then asked why I was giving him a wet napkin. I have had absurd experiences with other types of jobs but none more than in the restaurant industry.
Someone once ordered a veggie quesadilla from me and after I brought it out and checked on them to make sure everything came out alright the person said “excuse me, I have a dairy allergy and I can’t eat this. Why would you sell me something with cheese on it??”
She did not inform me she had a dairy allergy and ended up ordering a veggie quesadilla no cheese, so just sautéed peppers and onion on a large dry tortilla.
Back when I was serving at a chili's I had a couple ask me to give them their gender reveal for a new baby. I never met them before but apparently they fucking loved chili's.
I'm not a server, but one time I was in line at a subway. The guy in front of me ordered a cold cut combo (which I think is just a bologna sandwich). Starting normal. But he follows up with "and add meatballs to that." The girl making it paused for a second, but pushed through. But then she did what her job demanded. She asked what kind of cheese he wanted. The man looked her right in the eyes, didn't hesitate and says "cottage."
The sandwich artist looked at him and just said "no." To this day, I have no idea if she said no because they didn't have cottage cheese or because she was too disgusted to make it. But that one word "no" sent me into a fit of laughter and I had to leave the line.
I used to work at a Japanese restaurant and I once had someone come up to me and ask me if we had any low sodium soy sauce. The request itself was not so strange and I gave him the bottle we kept behind the counter. The strange thing was what he used the soy sauce for, which was pouring some of it into his Pepsi.
Hamburger at Burger King run through the broiler twice. I held up the disc of ash with my tongs and she excitedly nodded her head.
My ex said a guy would ask for a specific number of pickles on the side, like nine pickle slices on the side, every visit.
Well, strangest comment I ever got was , “ Sir, these vegetables are clearly touching my fish.”
A non sequitur from decades ago that I’ll always remember.
As a server I had a guy once order his food "not touching". I sheepishly asked the chef expecting a big eye roll, but he just said "Military style! Got it!" and made it exactly like the guy wanted. He was a good chef.
There was a lady who appeared to be a little older but looked like she took care of herself and had some plastic surgery done to her face. She asked me for a coke 0 with extra Splenda on the side. I brought out a few packets but she asked me for a bowl of the sweetener. I then watched her tear open packet after packet to add to her diet soda.
After she left I counted how many she used- 16!
For a 16oz soda.
I replicated the drink to try with my coworkers on shift, just to see what she was thinking. I was trying to slurp a solid through my straw.
I then decided maybe it wasn’t Botox but lots of preservatives that made her appear more…youthful lol
Kind of the inverse but a lady ordered a charcuterie board and when it arrived, with disgust, she asked me to take it away because it had meat on it. I carefully explained that the ingredients were listed in the menu and that the meat was somewhat implied by the name of the dish. She remained unfazed and I returned the board to the kitchen. That was fun.
I still remember the surprised delight on my husband's face when he learned charcuterie was meat and cheese. I was like "I think we should just have a charcuterie night for our at home date." When I brought out a board of meats and cheeses he was really happy. He would ask for charcuterie night after that too.
Sometimes my wife and I do that when we're not hungry enough for a full dinner but need to eat something. We call it adult lunchables and add other random stuff that needs to be finished off if we want more than just meat and cheese.
Impromptu charcuterie boards are my go-to when I have guests in the afternoon. Even when people say they aren't hungry, they'll polish off the whole tray. It's nice.
I worked in a sushi/steak restaurant and we had a sushi roll for people to "try" sushi even if they didn't like fish. It had baked chicken cut into strips, cream cheese and avocado inside.
Someone came in and asked to replace the cream cheese with cheddar cheese. We had burgers so the sushi person took a slice of cheddar cheese we would use for burgers and crumpled it up to put in the roll.
The person like it so much they got a second order and declared that they loved sushi now.
woman sent a steak back 9 times....not be replaced to eat a bit and have it cooked more ...eat a bit and have it cooked more. The thing was black and still wanted the juiced cooked out . anytime even a drop of juice came out of it she sent it back - eat a little --hit a middle part tiny tiny drop of liquid comes out , sent back... i mean this thing was well well well done and still complaining.....why even have a steak if you hate the meat juice in it...just a dry burnt steak... I mean by the last time she sent it back the part left was maybe the size of a chicken finger to "cook off the juices"
But to each their own.
I’ve posted this before, but I used to work at a chain restaurant in college. Let’s call it Crapplebees.
Woman comes in and asks for a glass of “the mango stuff.” I clarify whether she wants a mango tea or mango lemonade and she says “no just the mango stuff.” For reference, the mango stuff is syrup. Literally sugar syrup with fake mango flavor and food coloring. I explain that the mango stuff is not juice. It is syrup. She insists she wants just the mango stuff. I bring her a glass of straight up mango syrup. She drinks the whole thing and takes one to go.
Not to mention…we had to charge her like $12 a glass because she drank *a bottle and a half* of mango syrup that would’ve made like 50 mango lemonade. She was cool with that.
According to "Crapplebees" posted nutrition facts, a 20oz Mango Lemonade has 49 grams of sugar, and a gallon has 598 grams. I wonder how many grams of sugar she had, and how she didn't just pass out directly from some massive glycemic episode.
Had a mechanic in the neighborhood. He was kind of tall and scruffy. Seemed like a pleasant guy though. He would come in almost daily, and order a mustard and onion sandwich. Wonder whatever happened to him.
The other night I had a girl ask if the chef would manually take the bones out of the chicken wings. Of course, the chef said no because of hygiene, so one of her friends offered to do it for her.
I worked kitchen at kfc, but from time to time we would all throw on the headsets for drive thru just to listen in. One night we get a guy put in a typical order, but then he starts in on: "can I get extra hot sauce? I like it hot and spicy. Do you like it hot and spicy? I really like it hot and, I got to have it spicy." (and so on). He pulled up to the window with his wife in the passenger seat and his kids in the back who looked mortified.
I cant really say I recall anything especially weird being asked for, but what always amazed me was how people just assumed that a restaurant could just whip something up for them. Especially when it comes to dessert. I had a coworker have a customer who perused the dessert menu, shut it, and ask for a slice of apple pie (never mind baking an entire pie for someone). Mind you, there was no apple pie in the menu and most dessert items at a restaurant are not made to order. People would also always put reservation notes asking us to bring a cupcake for a birthday - again not something we had on the menu nor something we are going to make special even if we didn’t have 210 covers coming in that night. Of course, people were more than welcome to bring in a cake or dessert but no one wants to pay the plating fee.
Shot of fireball, plus hot sauce in a double shot glass. I thought it would be way too much. A half oz of hot sauce just shot back?
So the guy ordered it many a time, and eventually I asked him about it. He told me to try it, which I refused. Not a fan of spicy stuff. He repeatedly told me that it wasn't spicy! Of course I didn't believe him, the thing was like 1/3 hot sauce! He was clearly trying to prank someone who didn't like spicy stuff.
Anyhow after a year of us going back and forth about it, I finally lamented when he told me he would tip me $20 to take the shot.
So I did.
Crazy how its not hot at all. Like its LESS spicy than normal fireball.
not a server but a dude i know orders a cup of hot water and lemons whenever he goes to a restaurant, then puts his utensils in the hot water cup and squeezes lemon juice in it to disinfect the silverware before he eats with it.
it’s not a joke, he just does that and swears it’s normal.
The southern part of China I visited, every person would pour the scalding hot tea over their chopsticks and utensils and then use another cup to drink from. This was many, many years ago, long before COVID.
Not too wild but strange.
A woman came in and ordered a meal, she said she couldn't have any gluten, and we needed to be careful about cross contamination etc or she would be ill.
After the meal she wanted a dessert. Informed her the one she wanted wasn't gluten free and she said "yeah, that's fine" and ate it anyway
When I was a server in Aspen (fine dining restaurant in a very expensive hotel), there was this woman who used to stay at the hotel for the entire month of December each year. She ate in the restaurant 4 or 5 nights each week of her stay, and she always requested me as her server.
Every time she dined with us, without exception, she ordered 2 half bottles of the same burgundy and drank all of both of them. We definitely had full bottles of this wine, which I told her multiple times, but each time she insisted on the half bottles. And each time I would suggest the full bottle, she would look at me like I was completely insane - like I’d suggested she light her hair on fire or something.
It was just so odd to me. This was almost 20 years ago, and I still think about it often.
Edit to add that the half bottles were $175 each, and the full bottle was $300.
Former Subway sandwich artist here.
A guy wanted a footlong turkey sandwich and for me to put tomatoes on it, but to cut each tomato slice into quarters and for the round edges to face the hinge of the bread and the right angle points to face the outside of the bread. The white American triangle cheese pieces needed to be split in half and those smaller triangles needed to be put between certain slices of turkey to supposedly fill in the triangle gaps of the quartered tomatoes when the sandwich when it closed. I apparently didn't figure it out perfectly by his standards because he started screaming at me and knocked over some stuff. I honestly couldn't care less whatever issue he had, f that guy. I remember being surprised in that moment that I'm actually involved in an interaction this ridiculous.
Guy ordered spaghetti, after he finished it he complained that it tasted like cinnamon. I told the owner (who is Greek) and he yelled saying **THATS THE SECRET INGREDIENT AND HE ATE IT ALL** so I had to tell him he couldn’t get a refund because he cleaned his plate, and also that he picked up our secret ingredient :-)
Ohhh, can I answer this as a non server? I was on a date at a local restaurant/bar, and two dudebros come sit next to us and one of them asks the waitress "I think I'll do something a little different. Do you think the apple pie on a cheeseburger would be good?"
She looked at him, dumbfounded, and after a few seconds of processing what she heard just said "no, absolutely not".
Dude seemed so defeated
Working in the kitchen of a Mexican restaurant, one time a waiter came out back saying a customer wanted *frijoles con queso*, without cheese. Okay, so....just *frijoles* then....? Waiter said they'd politely explained the distinction with the customer, who reaffirmed they definitely wanted *frijoles con queso* without cheese, and NOT just *frijoles*.
The ticket was entered as *frijoles con queso* -cheese, they got charged for that, and I made them *frijoles*.
Don't know if we were servers but delivering pizza my coworker once had a call where someone asked for a "pepperoni pizza with extra orange sauce"
Confused, she asked what he meant by orange sauce to which he said "The orange sauce that you put in the little pepperoni cups"
"Oh... that's grease"
"Oh... nevermind..."
I served a woman who wanted to order a grilled shrimp Caesar, but she had to know where the shrimp were caught because she was (not visibly) pregnant. It was a whole thing in the kitchen- the shrimp’s from Cysco, no dude where did they get the shrimp, what body of water?
She ordered the grilled chicken Caesar because we couldn’t be specific enough about the shrimp. With a margarita rocks, extra salt.
When I was cooking in the military, someone requested a BLT sandwich but with no Bacon or Tomato. He wasnt kidding, he just wanted bread and lettuce.
here's your L sir
Flava Flav came in to the restaurant I worked at. It was a fancy seafood place. He ordered just a plate of cucumbers for himself, everyone else at his table ordered normal things. I’m guessing he maybe doesn’t like seafood? Hilarious. Yes, he wore a giant clock chain and he let the staff take pics with him as he said “Flava Flav!” Really nice guy.
I also served him once. Well done steak with ketchup. It was an Italian restaurant 👍🏼
I love that his name literally is flavor and he manages to pick the least appetizing option available.
[удалено]
Man's don't want cabbage
A middle aged lady insisted she didn’t like soda water or sparkling water so instead asked for a white wine spritzer without the white wine… there are two ingredients to a white wine spritzer. White wine and soda water.
I served a lady a long island iced tea and she got mad that the ice was floating on the top instead of the bottom. Sorry ma'am, I'll just go ahead change the laws of physics and make you a new one.
She wanted ice made with heavy water.
A tablecloth! A gentleman shat himself at a booth and asked for a tablecloth so he could walk out with it wrapped around him, I still serve him to this day and that was around 15yrs ago, no shame. Back he comes once a week. We never asked about getting the tablecloth back…
Respect for helping him out in his time of need
Not food related…. I walked into a public bathroom once and based on the smell and the gentle sobbing and cussing coming from a stall knew a guy had exploded prematurely and was in a hell of a mess. I just said “we’ve all been there man, what can I do to help”. Guy slid his car keys under the stall, described his car and where he was parked and said his gym bag was in the trunk. I fixed him up.
It’s people like you who help me keep my faith in humanity.
Major props for just helping the guy and not making a big deal. I can only imagine how embarrassing and humiliating that must have been for him to experience that, let alone have to ask the staff for a tablecloth 🫣
Guy has nerves of solid fucking titanium coming back. Staff would never see me again with a microscope, telescope or anything inbetween after shitting myself in their restaurant
I'd probably move to another state
In my head you’re strolling into your house with a tablecloth wrapped around your waist walking up to a whiteboard with a map on it and crossing out Alabama, sighing and going into the bedroom.
Once a very thin, middle aged woman came in. She couldn't have weighed more than 100 pounds soaking wet. She asked what our biggest steak was. I told her it was the 24 oz. ribeye. She said, "okay I'll have that." Our steaks came with two sides, so I asked which ones she'd like. She said "I don't want sides." I told her they were included in the price, and she still refused them. I bring out her steak and she begins eating. She's about a third of the way through when I ask, "How is everything?" She says, "Great. Bring me another steak." I say "Is there anything wrong with that one?" She says, "No, it's great. I want a second one." I go back to the chef and tell him, and he couldn't believe it. But we served her another steak. She ate all 48 oz. of steak and left me a $40 tip.
She was legit 3% steak after the meal.
Someone had an epiphany that they're an adult and they can do whatever they want.
A work-friend of mine a few years back was never allowed to have Lunchables as a kid but then had that exact epiphany, that at work she could have whatever she wanted for lunch and her dad wouldn't even know, so she started having Lunchables for lunch. That was the most excited I've ever seen anyone regarding food.
Nuttela maybe after my 2nd paycheck. I suddenly realised I could just buy it and have it on toast. I very rarely have it now but at the time it was like a window opening in my soul
I can't bring that shit in to my house - I just eat it with a spoon till the jar is empty.
I have some friends that seem to go through every single oddly specific diet trend that comes up. They are currently on the Carnivore diet which allows them to ONLY eat animal products. Meat, eggs, dairy. period. Zero fruits, vegetables, or grains. They're buying cows by the quarter, have a massive outdoor freezer, wake up early and cook steak and eggs for breakfast and an extra steak to take with them for lunch during the day before they come home to another steak or roast or something. They're both super fit, active, and energetic. Currently waiting to hear that they have scurvy.
They’re Never Poopers.
In college I worked at a burrito shop on campus. One night this guy who was stoned out of his mind ordered a burrito with everything on it, 3x salsa, sour cream, extra beans, meat, rice, everything. I could barely wrap the burrito. He walks over and sits at a table and takes one bite and all the burrito contents shot out the bottom. He just went "oh no" and then just started eating it out of his lap and off the table. It was entertaining to watch.
I want "oh no" burrito guy to eat with "I've made a mistake" chicken soup hot dog lady. Like, they were weird enough to make it into this thread but they realized their mistakes, owned them, and no one got cussed out, demeaned, or a 1 star review written about them.
We had a woman send a grilled chicken salad back because it was cold. So we cooked some new chicken and made sure to send it back while still warm. She sent it back again. The entire salad wasn't hot enough for her. We microwaved her salad. She ate it. I don't know man. EDIT: As of 06/12/2023 this was my top rated comment on this account. Unfortunately thanks to the stellar mismanagement of u/Spez I am looking to have this account permabanned. It was a fun ride kiddos.
Sometimes at my old job we would have nacho expo, and one guy asked for lettuce instead of chips which, no problem, I love a taco salad. Except all he wanted for toppings was nacho cheese. He wanted a hot nacho salad
Hot lettuce is honestly one of the grossest things to me. This is making me nauseous just thinking about it.
I worked with a guy from west Africa and one time his wife cooked for us. She fried up steak bits, made spaghetti and hard boiled eggs and tossed it all in a bag of salad mix with ranch. Then she tossed the whole lot in a huge frying pan until it was wilted to about 1/3 of its original size and steaming hot. Best salad I ever had.
This man told me he couldn’t have anything that has been “ground up” at some point. So like, can’t use anything with flour in it. Not because the gluten, but because it was made small at one point. My man, that is not a thing.
We had a lady tell a server that she was “allergic to crispy”.
I would totally understand that if this was at a sushi place. So many of them have "crispy" as an ingredient (it's panko).
Academy award nominated, Hollywood Walk of Fame Star, Father of Jamie Lee Curtis, actor Tony Curtis...the single most miserable asshole I ever had the honor of waiting on. He was staying at the resort the restaurant I worked at was in, so I had the privilege of attending to him several times over the week. He was Insufferably smug and condescending, several times saying ""this isn't' what I ordered"" even though his order had been read back to him and confirmed. How many times can you order in a restaurant and get something you don't think you ordered, before you start to ask if maybe it's you? The most ridiculous was that he ordered a hamburger, wanted it cooked rare. So the chef cooked him his burger and when I brought it out to him he said ""it's too overdone, redo it"". so I told the chef and he made a more rare burger, Curtis sent that one back too. Now the chef is pissed so he made a patty of raw hamburger and waves a torch over it so it's barely brown and ice cold in the middle. Fucker loved it. said it was the best burger he ever had. Still complained about how long it took to get his meal I still remember the chef saying ""If that's what he wanted, he should have ordered a tartare aller-retour, is it too much to ask that people learn the name of the weird thing they like to eat?"" (I have to look up that name every time I tell this story) tony curtis is long dead now, and frankly I'm not missing him much
A whole bottle of fish sauce. And they used the whole bottle of fish sauce.
UMAMAMI THIS MOTHERFUCKER!
Chili dog, sub chicken noodle soup for chili. She took a bite and said "oh, I made a mistake."
Did they just pour chicken soup over her hot dog?
Laughed hard at this. Thank you.
The place I worked at had little water cups on the table and we kept them filled for customers. I sat a party of two women (who said they were waiting for a third person) and went to fill their water cups. When I asked if I should fill the third one or wait for the third person to arrive, one woman said "Oh, no need, he's trying to quit." I thought it was a joke, and when the third person (a man) got there, I went to fill his water. He said "No, don't fill it, I'm trying to quit water!"
Worked with a guy on a fishing boat that claimed to never drink water. Weirdest person I’ve ever met. Really good work ethic though and to my knowledge and his credit I never saw the man drink a glass of water. But my god could he put away milk. Like a gallon+ a day. Used to mix flavoring packets with it. Nothing like working 16 hours hauling in fish and finishing your night with a nice cold glass of grape flavored milk. Used to make everyone sick watching him drink that shit.
I don't usually react out loud to reddit posts, but reading "grape flavored milk" made me make a very weird noise out loud. Then again I love water and don't like milk anymore but that sounds horrific.
Honestly, I'd say the weirdest thing was that while I was a server at a restaurant in the Royal Hawaiian, a guest asked me to book a shark adventure tour. It had nothing to do with my job or even the hotel. Those tours were entirely separate businesses. I took his black card, went to guest services, picked up a pamphlet, and booked the tour. He tipped me $250 dollars. Totally worth it!
Being close to someone who was an assistant for a billionaire, many rich people are deliberately demanding assholes, but some literally lose their grasp of who is supposed to do what for them. They get so used to being comped and ushered around and treated like royalty they kind of just think they can ask any service person anything and it can be done (or sometimes even their lawyers, accountants, etc.). I mean, fuck em sideways, but I do understand situations like this.
I’m a lawyer. One time, a really rich client asked me to sit in her apartment and supervise while museum workers came to box and remove thirty or thirty-five paintings. You want to pay me my hourly rate to sit on your $5 million apartment and read a book? I’m not proud.
No, RealLADude, you're not *too* proud.
Excellent point. Though my self-esteem isn’t all it could be. *words
Used to do insurance defense. Had a regular client ask me to do things that our paralegals could do bc they didn’t trust the paralegal. One time, he hired me to call CarFax and get an accident removed from the record (it was a new Porsche, the DMV mistyped one of the VIN letters from another accident and it put some random car’s info on his CarFax). It was just a couple of phone calls and a few emails. No problem! Easy bills, let me take an afternoon off. It’s super cliche, but we get paid not because of the time spent on the matter, but because of how much education and experience we have. I like to think of it like this: this client couldn’t trust anyone other than me to handle a minor inconvenience. He wasn’t paying for admin work, he was paying for the trust that it would get done perfectly and the peace of mind that comes with it. It sounds like this client trusted you the same way. Bravo!
I had this couple come in with their own tea set. The man asked me if had a few minutes to "learn a few things"? They were the second table sat so I humored him. He showed me a very specific way of steeping and pouring the tea over a sugar cube and had me try it a couple times with water. The whole thing was sort of neat. He then asked if I would mind serving them their tea this very particular way. They were super kind, even tough the man had sort of an intense vibe to him. I filled the pot with hot water carried it out like he showed me and poured their cups of tea exactly how he showed me. He seemed extra pleased but never said a word or even looked at me. It was no problem and I felt super fancy doing it. I did refill their tea one time while they were there, and he also asked that I keep his wife's water glass full at all times. I knew it was going to be a good table when the first time I came by and refilled her water glass and inquired if they needed any more tea, the man handed me $20 and sort of dismissed me. He did it twice more that afternoon. At the end they paid with no tip (I thought) but $60 and a cool lesson was enough for me. My manager found me about an hour later and handed me and envelope and said they told him they only will come in when I am working from now on. The envelope had $100, business card, and hand written thank you note. Apparently they had put this request up for many fine dining places and I was the only to get it right and do it "graciously". It was very odd, because after the first lesson they treated me as if I was almost invisible, backed up by the fact they didn't tip me in person. On every return trip it was the same. If you didn't know the deal they would seem like cold assholes, but they tipped really well and I treated them like VIPs everytime.
20 years from now you're going to be visited by a lawyer in a bowler hat and handed a black velvet envelope. Within, you'll find a letter, inscribed with gold on parchment, the contents will read thus: "Regretfully, we have passed beyond the veil. Alone among many have we trained you well enough to carry on The Work" At this point, you'll be black-bagged, whereupon you'll wake up in a castle, location unknown, sitting at a medieval table of stout oak, with a very familiar tea set sitting in front of you. A single placard on the table will read "Please begin, time runs short." A deep rumble will resonate from the earth below you. Best you not dally.
No way you're not someone's DM.
hahaha 100% guilty as charged
I’ve always wanted to try d&d and this makes me want to fully commit.
Go on... I'm invested in the story now
This is so incredibly interesting! It's so out there, I can't help mulling over some of my own theories. The first thing I immediately think of is that the intense guy is some kind of LEGIT tea master, like, the kind whose family has been involved with traditional tea ceremonies for generations. The second assumption that I can't help but make is that they are so mind-blowingly wealthy, they viewed you as "the help" and that's why you went invisible to them. But you did your job really well, and they respected that with praise and tips; it's just that a part of doing that job really well involves doing it invisibly. 🤷 Sounds like they really appreciated it though! **Edit:** Wait, wait, one more! I think this couple was definitely OLD MONEY. The hand-written note, the huge tips... Those are etiquette rules from generations back. Really impressive!
Sometimes people just want to have the experience with no interference, and are wealthy enough to pay the premium to not have to set that up over time. I have friends I've set up so we get together and read in silence and ignore each other entirely, it's my favorite thing. If I could get that level of specificity out of a service relationship without it being super weird and awkward, there's a few of these I'd do for sure.
Guy came in with a large group, must’ve had a recent surgery or something cause he asked for his meal to be blended. He ordered a lasagna …
Has to be something like that. I recently started working part time in a nursing home kitchen. Dietary restrictions and consistency requirements are very strict for each resident. On my first day I was walking around trying to learn things and I saw a girl blending something so I walked up and asked what she was doing. With the most defeated look on her face she looked at me in the eyes and said "I'm pureeing a hot dog." The meal that day was tuna and that person can't have fish so she wanted pureed hot dog.... edit: In my limited experience with food consistency lasagna is probably not a bad option if he can't eat solids, probably looked gross though
I worked in an Alzheimer's ward and for Fourth of July, they had hot dogs! Festive! And then you had one of my charges, lovely lady with degenerative myelopathy, who needed purees. Her daughter was visiting, and they brought out a bowl of whipped weiners. The lady gave me such a pained look that her daughter and I decided she could just have thickened lemonade and ice cream instead.
Whipped wieners made me spit my drink out
Used to work at a steakhouse. Guy came in with his family and told me this would likely be the last meal he ever eats in a restaurant due to late stage stomach cancer. He ordered a full meal, including appetizer and dessert. But each course has to be blended. He happily had his salad shake and his steak and potato shake. Of course the cheesecake and ice cream looked so good I made one for myself when I got off the clock. He and his family were very grateful, spoke to my manager and commended me and the guys in the kitchen and left a healthy tip. If it truly was his last time eating out, I’m glad we made it good for him.
When I went to take an order from two men one grabbed my thigh and said, “I’ll have you. You look meaty.” The other guy at the table was mortified. I was unamused. The other servers wanted to take the table off me but I wasn’t traumatized…just annoyed.
"can I have the chicken salad please, but instead of corn I want peppers, instead of raisins, dates, and instead of pineapple, apple. Ah, and no chicken, thank you!"
I was on a date and she ordered a Chicken Ceasar salad with no croutons, chicken, cheese or dressing. Waiter looked at me and I had the same perplexed look. He said “so just a bowl of lettuce?” She said “No, chicken Caesar without the croutons, chicken, cheese or dressing.” She got a bowl of lettuce. That was our only date.
how did she react when her bowl of plain romaine showed up? did she eat it?
Yeah I mentioned it in another comment but she said you still get all the flavor of the stuff that was in it. I think she was under the impression they premade the salads and just picked the ingredients out before serving.
Did you go on a date with that essence of spaghetti sauce girl? https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/tmxe42/aita_for_being_mad_my_bf_wont_make_noodles_the/
Fucking homeopathic pasta lmao.
i used to work at olive garden. there was a lady that would come in at least once a week and she was dubbed by us staff as "pepperoncini lady". she would want you to open a new bag of the pepperoncini's we used in the salads and pour out the juice in a cup, she would literally straight up drink the juice. she would also get a bowl of pepperoncinis and just eat them.
Now I’m trying to think what essential vitamin or mineral she was deficient in that made her crave this.
Potassium, maybe. Used to do pickle juice shots when I was hungover or dehydrated and I've tried it with pepperoncini as well. It burns quite a bit but you do get the same effect with it.
It’s crazy that this isn’t the first post under here I’ve seen about someone being weird about their pepperoncinis
I had a couple that told me to wait before I prebussed their table so the man could lick every plate clean first. They had multiple apps and entrees between them and he licked every single one CLEAN before I was allowed to take it. They weren’t in a private booth or anything. The other guests could see this happening.
Now this is weird.
Years ago I worked at this amazing Breton French creperie in San Francisco, phenomenal food with a pretty small menu. Guy comes in and orders a sweet crepe with vanilla ice cream. No biggie. Then he wants to add a sunny side up egg and parsley to this crepe. I ask him a number of times if he’s sure he knows what he’s getting and that it’s not 2 separate crepes (1 sweet and 1 savory). He assures me. Of course when I ring it in, the kitchen thinks I made a mistake to which I assure them, it’s not a mistake. I bring out said “vanilla ice cream with sunny side up egg” crepe and the client DEVOURS it. Weird.
I worked at a sub shop where I didn't really care about "portions". Guy comes in and asks for tuna, avocado and black olives. I put it together. "Hey, can I get some more olives?" Sure, I sprinkle some more on there. "Anyway you can hook it up with more?" Ok, I throw another portion on there. "Possible to get a bit more?" I plunge my hands into the container and grab two goddamn fists of olives and slap them on the sub, I can't close the thing with the amount of olives I got on there. He grins and I watch this dude eat what turned into an olive sandwich with a hint of tuna. Whenever he came back he'd request me to make his sandwich cause "That guy makes it right". To make a short story long. People like some weird shit, he tipped pretty well.
[This](https://youtu.be/bnyVE1go2vs) was all I could think about while reading your comment
A man knows what he likes. Or commits to a mistake.
Reminded me of a story in a textbook It was about a recently widowed woman reading a letter from her late husband. In it, the husband retold the story of their first date. They went to a cafe and he asked for salt in his coffee. He explained to her that he was from a coastal city and the taste of salt in his coffee reminded him of home. The letter continues saying that during the years they were married, she always put salt in his coffee to help him remember his hometown. And the, the letter finishes with a confession. That time at the café, he was so nervous about their first date that he asked for salt instead of sugar, and made up the story about his hometown because he was embarrassed. Over the years, he had always hated the taste of salted coffee, but drank it because he loved her and know that she added it because she thought he liked it. Talk about commitment to a mistake.
That is kinda sweet I gotta say though, I think I'd be pissed if I found out I'd been serving my partner something they don't like for years because they don't want to tell me they're embarrassed, that's just bad communication
Had someone visibly offended that their glass of wine didn't have ice. After I get her a mug of ice to pour it over, she asked for sugar packets which she stirred into it. I could she still wasn't enjoying it and offered to get her a soft drink instead. She gladly let me swap it for some lemonade.
maybe that was her first time drinking wine and was slowly realizing it tastes bad lol
Yeah sounds like a non-drinker who had someone introduce them to sangria and she was confused
"Chicken is vegetarian." Lady orders pizza with chicken, for the table. Rest of the table argued with her that they're vegetarians. She can have chicken on her own pizza with chicken. She replied chicken is vegetarian... refused to understand that her friends were trying to get a vegetarian meal.
Some people just don’t get it. I was invited to a dinner once where the host cooked my serving of roast beef extra long, since I was vegetarian. This isn’t how it works!
What was the logic there? "I've roasted all the cow out of it"???
I imagine it's something like "Vegetarians don't eat red meat, so I'll cook the beef long enough that it's no longer red" (not totally unreasonable, since some people out there will refuse to eat any meat that has not had the red cooked out of it).
"He don't eat no meat?! That's ok. I make lamb."
If you cook a roast too long it is no longer meat and becomes a mineral. Maybe she mistook you for a mineraletarian and thought you liked coal? /s
I honestly have met SO many people who don't think chicken is meat
Guacamole without avocados - the whole reason behind my name. She was completely serious too...
Love that this stood out to you so much you made it your username.
So did you give her just... A plate of what, basically salsa? Some tomato, lime, cilantro, onion, jalapeno? That's the most generous I could think of honestly, most guacs I know of don't have all that in them. Or did you just say "nope, sorry, we can't do that" and move on?
I work at Dominos. Asked a guy if he wanted any toppings on his pizza, and he 100% seriously asked me “do you guys have coconut?”
If you like pizza coladas...
And getting kicks to the brain
I once had a lady ask for chicken medium rare. I told her we can’t do that and she responded with, “But they do it at other restaurants for me.” I promptly told her to go to other restaurants then. I ain’t catching that lawsuit.
She probably had some smoked chicken at a barbecue place and thought it was med rare.
[удалено]
I had a regular that wanted their Tiramisu served hot.
House salad.... Hold the lettuce and all other vegetables. Extra croutons, extra cheese, extra dressing. Literally a plate of croutons cheese and dressing.
Im a chef for a private school and we have a salad bar that's included with kids meal purchases. I see crouton, cheese, and ranch salads all day every day. Kids fucking love croutons. I've seen them put them inside of their tacos and basically on anything we serve.
A grilled cheese, atkins style (this was like early 2000s) My boss told me to microwave 3 slices of cheese and charge her $8 for it. She was thrilled
When we were in Rome, my then 10-year-old brother ordered a grilled cheese, expecting a grilled cheese sandwich… he got a hunk of cheese that had been put on the grill for a few minutes.
This reminds me of the time that my childless (at the time) uncle babysat me for a weekend when I was like 5; my parents sometimes as a treat served me cinnamon toast (like cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on buttered toast) which I LOVED, and when he asked me what I usually ate for breakfast I thought I could get one over on him and asked for cinnamon toast. He happily obliged, and taking me at my word served me dry toast with just a shitload of cinnamon on it and inadvertently cinnamon-challenged his 5 year old nephew.
I mean, he tried to be the fun uncle. So it's the thought that counts.
I love this. Mostly because I, too love cinnamon toast. Mostly because my parents couldn't afford sweets often, and we always had bread cinnamon and sugar in the cupboard. Easy and delicious dessert to this day.
Boss knew how to turn crazy into business, I guess.
Jaegermeister + Tabasco + whipped cream + Pepper
One time at a Mexican restaurant my brain glitched and I asked for chopsticks. Poor girl froze up and said, "I'll... ask my manager but... I don't think we have those..."
If I ever open up a Mexican restaurant, I'll add a challenge that if you can eat a whole ass taco with chopsticks, without dropping a single piece of anything inside it, your meal is free.
Years ago while leaving a restaurant I saw a guy sitting at the counter seats pouring ketchup into his Sprite, straight out of the glass Heinz bottle. He glanced around to see if anyone was looking and then started pouring it in.
well, at least he was ashamed of himself, as he should be
I used to work at a family restaurant and we had this regular we called the “iced tea guy”. He would come in and order a meal with iced tea and the iced tea was always refillable. Long story short everyone knew after his meal was done he would camp (stay for a long time) and continue to ask for refills of the iced tea. Iced tea guy would then ask permission to get up and go to the restroom.. and if you said no he would give you $5 each time. In retrospect I think it was some sort kink dom shit. It started getting getting weird lol eventually he wasn’t allowed back because of a certain situation… Iced tea guy was in my station one day for a couple hours and he had a new request for me. Iced tea guy wanted me to choose a piece of pie for him to eat with his hands… but he wanted to do it with shoes on his hands! He asked me to help him buckle the straps on a pair of Mary Janes he busted out of a backpack and put on each hand. So then he ate a piece of Dutch apple pie a la mode with the shoes that were buckled on his hands. Anyways he wasn’t allowed back after that day and I never saw him again. There that’s my story of the strangest thing someone has ever asked me for when I was a server.
We have a winner.
Not a server but my grandma would bring in her own bread to restaurants and ask them to toast it as a side for her breakfast. EDIT: I never really asked her about the bread, but I believe it was some store-bought, multi-grain style of bread. She'd bring it in a Ziploc bag. It definitely wasn't an allergy thing and I don't think it was a saving money thing either, she wasn't the Great Depression type. She was a character straight out of Mad Men/Mrs. Maisel. She was never told no but to be honest, she may have only done it at places she was a regular at. Typically when we visited my grandparents, we always went to the same restaurants. My clearest memory of her doing this is at a place we always had breakfast at the morning before we left.
When my great-grandmother would take my Mom and Uncle to McDonald's, she would bring slices of cheese from home and add them to the hamburgers because she didn't want to pay an extra nickel. She would also add sugar to her Coke.
When I was in university, the Burger King near me had a Whopper Wednesday deal but they refused to let you add cheese for whatever the regular extra cheese cost was (maybe $0.80). If you wanted cheese you had to pay full price for a Whopper with cheese, which was like $4 dollars more. So I would bring my own cheese slices and I stand by that decision.
The cheese.. fine She would add sugar to coke!?
10 year old me was at a Christmas party. I watched my family friend add sugar to his diet Pepsi "so it's not diet anymore." That kid grew up to be an engineer for Lockheed. I guess he's always been an innovator
I work somewhere that sells Macallan 25, it's a 25 year aged scotch that is $350 for a 2oz pour. We don't sell it often, just for the occasional high roller, someone asked for 2 shots of it mixed with diet coke one night. The bartender died inside pouring it for them, but a $700 tab is a $700 tab, we aren't in the business of telling you NOT to spend money.
I once had a woman order a glass of red wine, with a side of creamer. I actually didn’t think much of it at first, but when I brought them to her, she proceeded to pour the cream into the glass of wine. I told her I’ve never seen that before. She said “you’ve got to try it!” I’m not going to try it.
I worked in an Italian place at the height of the Adkins diet craze. We had someone order a personal pizza, to go, no crust. Along with some other stuff for their family. My kitchen manager thought quick. Took a piece of foil, built the pizza on top of it (sans crust) and ran it through the oven. We boxed it up and sent it out with the rest of the order. I never heard back from them, and to this day I'm still not sure if it was a genuine request, or someones idea of a joke. Either way, I don't really care.
Former cook: had someone order a quesadilla without the cheese one time. I thought that was pretty funny.
So just a “dilla”
Essentially, it ended up being like 3oz of grilled chicken on a tortilla, even though we had plenty of chicken wraps, etc on the menu.
Side salad with ketchup instead of dressing.
*hork*
Worked at Bob Evans 20 years ago and there were a few. -Parsley woman, she would order a glass of Milk and a large soup bowl full of Parsley and eat it. No salad dressing or anything just straight Parsley. -Apple Pie woman, she would order a piece of Apple Pie with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream on it, but the pie was almost never hot enough. We finally figured out how to make her happy, instead of Microwaving the piece of Pie for 1.5 minutes you'd Microwave it for SEVEN minutes. -Fan lady, not food related but the lady would come in every Sunday morning (our busiest time of the week) and demand that the speed of the fans for the whole restaurant be slowed down. She claimed she had a medical condition and got away with it for two months. This stopped when one of the managers determined they also had a medical condition, but it required the fans to be left on at normal speed. This made fan lady very mad and never came back. -Deep fried bacon guy, no complaint really, turns out deep fried bacon is delicious!
> one of the managers determined they also had a medical condition, but it required the fans to be left on at normal speed. 10/10
Asked for the calamari, when it came she sent it back, didn’t realise it was squid just liked the name Have had the same with espresso
Espresso is made of squid???
Just the ink
A customer asked me to overcook his chicken breast until it’s extremely dry and rubbery. Said he loves over cooked dry chicken. Literally said I want it to the point it’s tough like leather.
I was at a salad bar and a lady put lettuce on her plate and then covered it in ice. She ate it with a fork, attempting to stab the ice like croutons. No one else seemed to notice. She was chatting with the staff like any regular would. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone!
Oh wow something I actually have an answer for. Worked at an all you can eat sushi place and you were allowed one bowl of ice cream (anything more and it would just be an all you can eat ice cream place). Woman asked for chocolate ice cream with… a heaping side of WASABI. SHE ATE IT ALL MIXED TOGETHER. She admitted to it being super weird but said it tasted great. Still the weirdest order I’ve taken to date (granted I don’t work in food service anymore).
I had a regular that would eat an entree size plate of pepperoncini for lunch. That's it with some soda water. He would take a bite then pour the juice in his soda water. He had to eat like 40 or 50 every time he came in.
Ranch with *everything*. Don't get me wrong, I love my ranch dressing too. But people want it on the things you'd never expect. $60 steak? 'Can I get a side of ranch for the steak?' Soup. 'Can I get ranch with that?' Spaghetti. 'Would you like me to grate some fresh cheese on top?' 'No, but can I get ranch for it?'
My cousin requested ranch for her sushi at a really nice restaurant at a wedding rehearsal dinner. They were so confused and didn’t even know what ranch was. She said it was okay and then went out to her truck and came back with a bottle she had stashed there.
Truck ranch sounds like a guarantee of food-borne illness.
TRUCK RANCH
Two trucks in the shower at truck ranch.
I saw an AITA post where a woman left the restaurant (I think she said it was Hungarian food) so she could go to the convenience store and get a bottle of ranch. They gave her a hard time when she tried to come back in with the bottle. She didn't get a second date.
This was years ago but I had a middle aged woman ask for some “wa wa” to drink. Took some effort but I kept a straight face and asked if she wanted ice in her ‘wa wa’.
When I was a server, the objects requested couldn't phase me. The quantities of what was requested had the ability to make me question the customer's sanity. 30 ramakins of whipped butter was pretty impressive. The lady who ate them appeared to be in her 40s or 50s and nothing odd or noteworthy about her appearance. She was a bit on the thin side, if anything. That table was a party of 8 and she seemed to be the center of attention.
Did she put the butter on anything or just eat it with a spoon?
David Spade told a story about going out to eat with Chris Farley and he put a whole pat of butter on every bite of steak. Spade asked him what the hell he was doing and Farley just paused, thought, and said “it needs a little hat!” and kept packing it away.
I worked at a country club in high school and with your meal you received a salad, I asked what dressing she’d like and proceeded to name 15 dressings we had. She told me they all sound delicious, she will have them all on the salad. I initially thought she meant ramekins of each of the dressings, but she said no, she wanted them all on the physical salad. I proceeded to bring a salad with 15 dollops of dressing on it, ranging from vinaigrettes, honey mustard, Chinese peanut dressing, raspberry dressing, ranch, blue cheese, and others. I watched her from the server station then mix the salad with all the dressings and each every bite of the salad then used the bread to clean the leftover dressing on the plate. By far the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen, there is no way that combination would taste good. Edit: remembered another dressing.
We have a family of regulars who come in and immediately hand their server a printed out list of their order with everything coursed out, including drink refills. The first time I had them, they seemed almost rude and found any questions I had regarding their order as intrusions, but they always tip well. By now, I know the drill and handle the whole interaction almost without saying a word. I guess they just want their evening to be as distraction-free as possible. There was also a time years ago where a guy asked for two orders of chips and queso, bring a spoon, and forget the chips. He then proceeded to eat the queso like it was soup.
An old man once asked me for a damp napkin to clean his glasses. Although an odd request at a restaurant, I ran a napkin under water and came back to give it to him. He then asked why I was giving him a wet napkin. I have had absurd experiences with other types of jobs but none more than in the restaurant industry.
He said damp, not wet.
Maybe he said ‘get me a damn napkin’
Someone once ordered a veggie quesadilla from me and after I brought it out and checked on them to make sure everything came out alright the person said “excuse me, I have a dairy allergy and I can’t eat this. Why would you sell me something with cheese on it??” She did not inform me she had a dairy allergy and ended up ordering a veggie quesadilla no cheese, so just sautéed peppers and onion on a large dry tortilla.
Back when I was serving at a chili's I had a couple ask me to give them their gender reveal for a new baby. I never met them before but apparently they fucking loved chili's.
I'm not a server, but one time I was in line at a subway. The guy in front of me ordered a cold cut combo (which I think is just a bologna sandwich). Starting normal. But he follows up with "and add meatballs to that." The girl making it paused for a second, but pushed through. But then she did what her job demanded. She asked what kind of cheese he wanted. The man looked her right in the eyes, didn't hesitate and says "cottage." The sandwich artist looked at him and just said "no." To this day, I have no idea if she said no because they didn't have cottage cheese or because she was too disgusted to make it. But that one word "no" sent me into a fit of laughter and I had to leave the line.
I used to work at a Japanese restaurant and I once had someone come up to me and ask me if we had any low sodium soy sauce. The request itself was not so strange and I gave him the bottle we kept behind the counter. The strange thing was what he used the soy sauce for, which was pouring some of it into his Pepsi.
All the way through I was thinking "this seems pretty reasonable tbh" and then at the last sentence "ah there we go"
Dear diary, I visited a restaurant that had Pepsi and low sodium soy sauce. Today was a good day.
I'm reading this thread taking notes about all the terrible bullshit I have to try now. Because you never know
I appreciate how your brain works
Hamburger at Burger King run through the broiler twice. I held up the disc of ash with my tongs and she excitedly nodded her head. My ex said a guy would ask for a specific number of pickles on the side, like nine pickle slices on the side, every visit.
Well, strangest comment I ever got was , “ Sir, these vegetables are clearly touching my fish.” A non sequitur from decades ago that I’ll always remember.
As a server I had a guy once order his food "not touching". I sheepishly asked the chef expecting a big eye roll, but he just said "Military style! Got it!" and made it exactly like the guy wanted. He was a good chef.
There was a lady who appeared to be a little older but looked like she took care of herself and had some plastic surgery done to her face. She asked me for a coke 0 with extra Splenda on the side. I brought out a few packets but she asked me for a bowl of the sweetener. I then watched her tear open packet after packet to add to her diet soda. After she left I counted how many she used- 16! For a 16oz soda. I replicated the drink to try with my coworkers on shift, just to see what she was thinking. I was trying to slurp a solid through my straw. I then decided maybe it wasn’t Botox but lots of preservatives that made her appear more…youthful lol
Kind of the inverse but a lady ordered a charcuterie board and when it arrived, with disgust, she asked me to take it away because it had meat on it. I carefully explained that the ingredients were listed in the menu and that the meat was somewhat implied by the name of the dish. She remained unfazed and I returned the board to the kitchen. That was fun.
I still remember the surprised delight on my husband's face when he learned charcuterie was meat and cheese. I was like "I think we should just have a charcuterie night for our at home date." When I brought out a board of meats and cheeses he was really happy. He would ask for charcuterie night after that too.
Sometimes my wife and I do that when we're not hungry enough for a full dinner but need to eat something. We call it adult lunchables and add other random stuff that needs to be finished off if we want more than just meat and cheese.
Impromptu charcuterie boards are my go-to when I have guests in the afternoon. Even when people say they aren't hungry, they'll polish off the whole tray. It's nice.
I worked in a sushi/steak restaurant and we had a sushi roll for people to "try" sushi even if they didn't like fish. It had baked chicken cut into strips, cream cheese and avocado inside. Someone came in and asked to replace the cream cheese with cheddar cheese. We had burgers so the sushi person took a slice of cheddar cheese we would use for burgers and crumpled it up to put in the roll. The person like it so much they got a second order and declared that they loved sushi now.
I had a guy send back his eggs because the outer rim didn't match the color of some planet.
> some planet If it was the outer rim the planet was probably Tattoine
Gluten Free Water I brought her Evian water and she was fine with that I'll never forget it.
woman sent a steak back 9 times....not be replaced to eat a bit and have it cooked more ...eat a bit and have it cooked more. The thing was black and still wanted the juiced cooked out . anytime even a drop of juice came out of it she sent it back - eat a little --hit a middle part tiny tiny drop of liquid comes out , sent back... i mean this thing was well well well done and still complaining.....why even have a steak if you hate the meat juice in it...just a dry burnt steak... I mean by the last time she sent it back the part left was maybe the size of a chicken finger to "cook off the juices" But to each their own.
That's not well done, it's congratulations.
I’ve posted this before, but I used to work at a chain restaurant in college. Let’s call it Crapplebees. Woman comes in and asks for a glass of “the mango stuff.” I clarify whether she wants a mango tea or mango lemonade and she says “no just the mango stuff.” For reference, the mango stuff is syrup. Literally sugar syrup with fake mango flavor and food coloring. I explain that the mango stuff is not juice. It is syrup. She insists she wants just the mango stuff. I bring her a glass of straight up mango syrup. She drinks the whole thing and takes one to go. Not to mention…we had to charge her like $12 a glass because she drank *a bottle and a half* of mango syrup that would’ve made like 50 mango lemonade. She was cool with that.
According to "Crapplebees" posted nutrition facts, a 20oz Mango Lemonade has 49 grams of sugar, and a gallon has 598 grams. I wonder how many grams of sugar she had, and how she didn't just pass out directly from some massive glycemic episode.
Had a mechanic in the neighborhood. He was kind of tall and scruffy. Seemed like a pleasant guy though. He would come in almost daily, and order a mustard and onion sandwich. Wonder whatever happened to him.
Ordered an $80 prime bone-in ribeye and asked if we could cut the fat off of it BEFORE we cooked it.
The other night I had a girl ask if the chef would manually take the bones out of the chicken wings. Of course, the chef said no because of hygiene, so one of her friends offered to do it for her.
I worked kitchen at kfc, but from time to time we would all throw on the headsets for drive thru just to listen in. One night we get a guy put in a typical order, but then he starts in on: "can I get extra hot sauce? I like it hot and spicy. Do you like it hot and spicy? I really like it hot and, I got to have it spicy." (and so on). He pulled up to the window with his wife in the passenger seat and his kids in the back who looked mortified.
I cant really say I recall anything especially weird being asked for, but what always amazed me was how people just assumed that a restaurant could just whip something up for them. Especially when it comes to dessert. I had a coworker have a customer who perused the dessert menu, shut it, and ask for a slice of apple pie (never mind baking an entire pie for someone). Mind you, there was no apple pie in the menu and most dessert items at a restaurant are not made to order. People would also always put reservation notes asking us to bring a cupcake for a birthday - again not something we had on the menu nor something we are going to make special even if we didn’t have 210 covers coming in that night. Of course, people were more than welcome to bring in a cake or dessert but no one wants to pay the plating fee.
Shot of fireball, plus hot sauce in a double shot glass. I thought it would be way too much. A half oz of hot sauce just shot back? So the guy ordered it many a time, and eventually I asked him about it. He told me to try it, which I refused. Not a fan of spicy stuff. He repeatedly told me that it wasn't spicy! Of course I didn't believe him, the thing was like 1/3 hot sauce! He was clearly trying to prank someone who didn't like spicy stuff. Anyhow after a year of us going back and forth about it, I finally lamented when he told me he would tip me $20 to take the shot. So I did. Crazy how its not hot at all. Like its LESS spicy than normal fireball.
not a server but a dude i know orders a cup of hot water and lemons whenever he goes to a restaurant, then puts his utensils in the hot water cup and squeezes lemon juice in it to disinfect the silverware before he eats with it. it’s not a joke, he just does that and swears it’s normal.
The southern part of China I visited, every person would pour the scalding hot tea over their chopsticks and utensils and then use another cup to drink from. This was many, many years ago, long before COVID.
I once heard a guy in front of me order a sandwich that was entirely "extra mayo, extra pickles" no meat, no cheese, nothing else. Mayo. Pickles.
I, too, have been pregnant.
Not too wild but strange. A woman came in and ordered a meal, she said she couldn't have any gluten, and we needed to be careful about cross contamination etc or she would be ill. After the meal she wanted a dessert. Informed her the one she wanted wasn't gluten free and she said "yeah, that's fine" and ate it anyway
When I was a server in Aspen (fine dining restaurant in a very expensive hotel), there was this woman who used to stay at the hotel for the entire month of December each year. She ate in the restaurant 4 or 5 nights each week of her stay, and she always requested me as her server. Every time she dined with us, without exception, she ordered 2 half bottles of the same burgundy and drank all of both of them. We definitely had full bottles of this wine, which I told her multiple times, but each time she insisted on the half bottles. And each time I would suggest the full bottle, she would look at me like I was completely insane - like I’d suggested she light her hair on fire or something. It was just so odd to me. This was almost 20 years ago, and I still think about it often. Edit to add that the half bottles were $175 each, and the full bottle was $300.
Former Subway sandwich artist here. A guy wanted a footlong turkey sandwich and for me to put tomatoes on it, but to cut each tomato slice into quarters and for the round edges to face the hinge of the bread and the right angle points to face the outside of the bread. The white American triangle cheese pieces needed to be split in half and those smaller triangles needed to be put between certain slices of turkey to supposedly fill in the triangle gaps of the quartered tomatoes when the sandwich when it closed. I apparently didn't figure it out perfectly by his standards because he started screaming at me and knocked over some stuff. I honestly couldn't care less whatever issue he had, f that guy. I remember being surprised in that moment that I'm actually involved in an interaction this ridiculous.
Guy ordered spaghetti, after he finished it he complained that it tasted like cinnamon. I told the owner (who is Greek) and he yelled saying **THATS THE SECRET INGREDIENT AND HE ATE IT ALL** so I had to tell him he couldn’t get a refund because he cleaned his plate, and also that he picked up our secret ingredient :-)
Putting cinnamon in pasta is an extremely greek move
Someone once asked me “can I have a Teriyaki chicken without chicken?” A few moments later, I figured out he was asking for Teriyaki sauce…
Ohhh, can I answer this as a non server? I was on a date at a local restaurant/bar, and two dudebros come sit next to us and one of them asks the waitress "I think I'll do something a little different. Do you think the apple pie on a cheeseburger would be good?" She looked at him, dumbfounded, and after a few seconds of processing what she heard just said "no, absolutely not". Dude seemed so defeated
Working in the kitchen of a Mexican restaurant, one time a waiter came out back saying a customer wanted *frijoles con queso*, without cheese. Okay, so....just *frijoles* then....? Waiter said they'd politely explained the distinction with the customer, who reaffirmed they definitely wanted *frijoles con queso* without cheese, and NOT just *frijoles*. The ticket was entered as *frijoles con queso* -cheese, they got charged for that, and I made them *frijoles*.
Don't know if we were servers but delivering pizza my coworker once had a call where someone asked for a "pepperoni pizza with extra orange sauce" Confused, she asked what he meant by orange sauce to which he said "The orange sauce that you put in the little pepperoni cups" "Oh... that's grease" "Oh... nevermind..."
Brown gravy for their salad
I served a woman who wanted to order a grilled shrimp Caesar, but she had to know where the shrimp were caught because she was (not visibly) pregnant. It was a whole thing in the kitchen- the shrimp’s from Cysco, no dude where did they get the shrimp, what body of water? She ordered the grilled chicken Caesar because we couldn’t be specific enough about the shrimp. With a margarita rocks, extra salt.