We've all had those dining experiences when things went dreadfully wrong. Perhaps it was a social blunder, an obnoxious diner, a waiter or waitress with an attitude, an embarrassing faux pas, or a food or beverage incident. Find out what others have had to endure by reading stories about dinners gone bad.
My wife (I’ll call her “Karla”) told me about an odd dining experience she had the other night. After hearing it, I thought that Dinners From Hell would be a good site to share it with.
Karla and her 98-year-old mother dined at a well-known Italian-themed U.S. chain restaurant. As they were about to get up from the table after paying the check with an 18% tip, the waiter, who was attending to the adjacent table, came up and leaned towards Karla’s mother and half-whispered matter-of-factly, “I see you have the smells.”
Karla was taken aback and said, “What did you say?”
The server turned back to mom and replied, this time more loudly so that both Karla and her mother (and others nearby) could clearly hear him, “I see you have the smells.”
Mom, who appeared somewhat bewildered by the comment, sheepishly said, “Well, I did have some cabbage with my meal.”
Karla at this point knew full well that the server was stating that her mother had passed gas. Stunned and embarrassed, Karla grabbed her mom’s hand and made a quick exit.
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In October 2010, I drove 300 miles to spend the weekend with my first love from high school, 26 years later (we had recently reunited after not seeing each other for over 20 years). I met him at the hotel and we left for dinner in his car.
We went to a fairly nice chain steak restaurant (think Texas). The food was great but the service was something else altogether.
We were seated immediately and the server came to our table quickly and asked if we’d like something from the bar. My (now) fiance ordered a commonly known beer and I asked if they had a riesling. My question was met by a blank stare. I said, “It’s wine.” She said, “I’ve never heard of it so I don’t think we have it.” So I replied that I would just have a chardonnay… any kind. No big deal. Again… blank stare.
Really… who hasn’t heard of chardonnay? Anyway, I again told her it was wine. She said she didn’t know anything about wine so she had no idea if they had it. I asked for a wine list, which she pulled out of her apron! (I don’t know why she didn’t offer it to me to begin with.) I showed her the chardonnay so she’d know what I wanted and she went off to get our drinks. My date and I laughed a bit… in a good mood and not easily annoyed.
Then came time to order our food… we still didn’t have our drinks… I ordered one of their salads. My date ordered steak, but he doesn’t like salad so he asked about the soups; specifically the “Steak Soup.” She said it was a just like a beef vegetable soup. (He ordered it… it was a thick beef stew!)
Finally she arrived with his soup and my wine. My date reminded her of the beer and she apologized and went to get it. While she was gone, he leaned over to give me a kiss. We were not making out or anything and it was brief, but a nice kiss (the restaurant was nearly empty and no one around our area). I opened my eyes to see her just standing at our table, basically watching us, with his beer in her hand… smiling. She was literally inches from him where he was sitting! I moved back quickly and she sat the beer on the table and walked away. You would think she would have just sat down the beer, or took a walk around to give us a second or at least cleared her throat or something… not just watch until we were done!
She never checked back to see how the food was or if we needed another drink (a runner brought the food). We saw her hanging out near the bar the whole time, chatting. We finally flagged her down to get another beer for my fiance.
She never asked about our meals and arrived with his beer nearly 15 minutes later! We asked for the check and he quickly finished his beer. Fortunately our mood really could not be ruined and we just laughed it off as her probably being new. He left her about a 10% tip.
We are getting married next month and seriously considering eating dinner there that evening just for old time’s sake. We still laugh about that “first date” all the time! But had we not been in such good moods, this would have been a REALLY bad experience!
~ ArtIsLove
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This experience happened about a week ago when my family decided to order a pizza for dinner. The pizza place was a small deep-dish restaurant that also delivered. We love deep-dish pizza and we knew it would be about 35-45 minutes until it was done. They quoted us a time of about an hour and we were fine with that and we had snacks. An hour went by and we continued to wait. And wait.
Finally we called the pizza place (after almost two hours) and they assured us it was on its way. So we waited some more. Finally after 45 minutes we called back. The delivery guy had gotten locked out of his car with the pizzas in it. By then it was 9:30 and we were hungry. They had to remake our pizza, and it was going to take another hour before it arrived. My brother had to wake up early for a standardized test and did not want to be going to bed late.
I understand accidents happen, but waiting three hours for a pizza was ridiculous. They sent us a gift card and a bottle of wine, but it was still a bad experience.
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I was once dining out at an Italian restaurant which I had been to many times before. I was just eating my garlic bread when I heard what sounded like water dripping. I ignored it and carried on eating when I saw water dripping from a crack in the ceiling. Okay no big deal, I’m sure every restaurant sprouts the occasional leak. But this little leak quickly turned into a waterfall. The dripping escalated into water pouring from the ceiling. The pressure continues to build until it rivals that of a bathroom shower. All the while I’m sitting there meters away with a rapidly growing pool of water filling the dining room.
I didn’t know what to do; I was the only customer as it was the quiet time of the day and the server was up in the kitchen so I was alone. Fearing what could happen if the leak hit an electrical cable or the roof came falling in, I quickly fled up the stairs with the pool of water spreading further into the restaurant. I poked my head into the kitchen where all the staff were working as if nothing was wrong. The server who took my order suddenly notices me and asked if something is wrong. “You do realise your restaurant is flooding don’t you?” I ask him. I explain the situation to the horrified staff who run downstairs.
The leak had thankfully stopped but the floor was soaked with a fair few inches of water. My heart went out to the waiting staff who began mopping up the great mess. Apparently the leak was due to the chefs doing some tinkering with the pipes. A lesson to all restaurant personnel – always leave plumbing work within the capable hands of trained and qualified professionals if you do not want your dining room turned into the set of Titanic!
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