April 2010

Recently I was working in the Hamptons and went after work to a restaurant to just have a little to eat. The bill came to 12 dollars and some change, so I gave her a 20 dollar bill. She had the audacity to ask me if I wanted the change back. I looked at her in disbelief and said: “Do I look like the Rockefellers?” I was dressed in a Walmart outfit and needless to say I left no tip because I was really pissed off. In places like the Hamptons one should expect a waiter/waitress to be able to distinguish who is a working stiff and to not ask that type of question.

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Many years ago I worked as an assistant manager for a well known chain of restaurants located in the Washington, DC area. The chain was owned by Mormons who were very generous in helping handicapped and mentally challenged individuals by providing them jobs in the kitchen, and as bus boys and girls.

The particular Shoppe I worked at hired a lovely girl named Eunice. Eunice worked in the kitchen as a general helper and as a bus girl when needed. From time to time Eunice would show signs of stress, and behave oddly. These moments would generally pass, and her demeanor would return.

One spring afternoon during the Cherry Blossom Festival we were slammed, with a line out the door, and all tables were filled. I pulled Eunice from the kitchen and put her on bussing detail. She seemed to be doing well. I was working the “wheel” in the kitchen when all of a sudden I heard a loud commotion in the dining room. I hurried into the dining room, and couldn’t believe my eyes. There was Eunice, practically on top of a young father whose wife and daughter were sitting at the table with a look of horror on their faces. While clearing the table Eunice had reach down and grabbed the young man by his privates. She hung on as his chair tipped over and they both fell to the floor. The wife screamed, the other diners stood up to see what was happening. The Dining Room Manager and I rushed to pull Eunice off of the customer. Once removed she quickly regained composure and went into the kitchen. The police were called, but no charges were filed. I completed a long incident report for the home office. A few days later the DRM and I were interviewed by a company lawyer.

Eunice never returned to the store. We were never informed of the outcome. But it was a day to remember.

- Jack

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The Smelly Man

April 21, 2010

in Diner Stories

I work in a busy restaurant and we have all sorts of people coming and going. But there was one customer that was quite frankly hard to forget. He was well known throughout my hometown as the smelly man because well – he smells. No that is an understatement, he reeks but I do not mean to sound mean when I say that. Every time he came in there was always a big circle of empty tables around him as all the other customers had moved away from him to escape his stench. When a customer did sit near him they would wrinkle their nose, look in all directions for the cause of the stench, and eventually discover it was the old man next to them and move. I did feel sorry for him though and wished I could have helped him, but he was causing some problems for our restaurant as customers were leaving us. My manager as a last resort had to ban him from the premises.

- Peace Lover

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I was visiting my family in Wichita, KS, and right before I was to fly out, we went to a well-known local fast food chain restaurant. We were standing and looking at the menu, when a large man came in with an elderly man and disabled child. They were standing somewhat closer to the counter, off to the side. My family and I moved up to the counter to place our order. That’s when it started…

Two minutes after we placed our order, the large man looked at my father and said something about being inconsiderate. My father politely said, “Excuse me?” The large man began screaming and cursing at my father. According to him, we cut in line. I smiled and calmly explained he and his group were looking at the menu and not standing in line. “F*** YOU,” he shot back. I told him if he were closer to the counter (he was a good 4 feet back) we would have assumed he was already in line. Is it really that big of a deal?

I felt so sorry for the people with him. I’m not sure if they were family or if he was doing some kind of service, but those people did not deserve to be with an ignorant jerk like that.

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Creepy Diner

April 17, 2010 Diner Stories

My mother and I once went to Edinburgh in Scotland for a trip and stopped by to eat at a friendly looking restaurant. It was almost deserted as night had set in. However there was a scruffy, shifty and downright scary gentleman sitting just a few tables away from us. You could tell he was [...]

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Revenge For Refills

April 14, 2010 Dining Hell Commentary

One of my pet peeves regarding customers is when someone asks for more water/iced tea/etc when there’s less than an inch of liquid missing from their glass. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does it annoys me, so I came up with a satisfying solution. I go to their table with the water/iced [...]

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Smashed By A Runaway Wheelchair

April 11, 2010 Accident & Mishap Stories

I once had an unusual and quite frankly painful experience while dropping by one of my favourite restaurants while on my lunch break from work. After grabbing a bottle of soda from the fridge, I took it to the counter to order my food. I was just about to order when two women appeared, one [...]

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More Cheese Please

April 9, 2010 Food & Drink Stories

A year ago we had an incident at the Lexington, SC “S’s” location where an older female employee made a scene when I asked if I could have more cheese on my cheese sandwich. Cheese had been treated like a “condiment,” you could barely see any. She got in my face and was loud, explaining [...]

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A Big Red Smile

April 6, 2010 Diner Stories

I once totally humiliated myself after eating out at a local Italian restaurant. At the time I had only been there a few times but the food was great. I ate a mouth watering spaghetti with sauce that went flying everywhere as I sucked the spaghetti up. It was only when I got home and [...]

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A Sticky Situation

April 2, 2010 Sanitation Stories

A friend and I were having lunch together one day and decided to each order a sandwich/burger and split an order of fries. We got our sandwiches and put the plate of fries between us and began to eat. Everything tasted good as expected, but when we got down to the last few fries we [...]

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