Angry Customer Assaults Employee with Pizza

October 8, 2016

in Diner Stories

I work at a “family owned” pizza parlor in Tennessee. Everyone in town raves that we serve the best pizza they’ve ever had, and people come from all over the country for our famed volcano pizzas. It is not uncommon for us to get complaints about the price of our pizzas, or the wait time (we tend to fall behind occasionally). Since I am not a manager, I cannot give the customer any refunds or anything. I have to get a manager to do anything surrounding complaints.

Probably the worst customer I’ve dealt with was a woman who threatened to sue me for her incorrect order. It was a busy Saturday night and we had an hour wait. I was taking an order over the phone and it was obvious that the woman on the other end was hard of hearing. She told me she wanted a 14″ everything pizza. This was not uncommon, but it was a thirty dollar pizza. She told me her brother was in the hospital two hours away and she wanted us to wrap the pizza in aluminum foil so it would stay hot. Normally we don’t wrap cooked pizzas simply because the cheese would stick to the foil. I asked the woman several times if she wanted the pizza baked or unbaked. She assured me that she wanted us to put the pizza in the oven. I told her the wait was about an hour. She said she would see us then.

Twenty minutes later her daughter walks in. She demands the pizza right then. I told her that it still had a little time left on it and if she wanted to wait we would have it out to her ASAP. She sat right in front of the register and glared at me until the pizza came out. I sat the pizza on the counter and called her name. She walked up to the counter and opened the pizza box. I asked if everything was okay. She picked up the pizza and threw it at my head (it had to weigh at least 8 pounds). She was livid. “MY MOTHER TOLD YOU THE PIZZA WAS TO BE UNBAKED! YOU ILLITERATE F**K.” (I still do not know how this made me illiterate). I apologized and told her I would go get a manager, sauce dripping from my face.

One of the managers rushed over to see if they could try to make things better. She pointed at me and said, “My uncle is in the hospital two hours away. Who in their right mind would get a cooked pizza to take two hours away? This pizza was my uncle’s dying wish. He will BE DEAD TONIGHT. If he dies without his pizza, I will sue her ass. I will make her life so awful that she will wish it was her in that hospital bed.” I was a mess by this point. I excused myself to the back and cleaned the pizza off my face.

My manager took thirty dollars out of the register, threw it on the counter, and told her to get out. To this day I always repeat the order several times each time a customer calls. I’m utterly terrified of something like that happening again.

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

Karen October 9, 2016 at 11:47 am

This as assault, plain and simple. The woman is lucky the poster didn't press charges.

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Nunya Business January 6, 2017 at 2:44 pm

Absolutely. I was a server for a while & have a horrible temper. No job is worth that & servers don't make enough to put up with that crap. That lady would've had me over the counter & in her face in a heartbeat.

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Gary Shan November 16, 2016 at 7:02 pm

SOME FOLKS GRIEVE POORLY AS ANY HOSPITAL STAFFER CAN TELL YOU-but this lady was a bitch

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Sir Mittens November 24, 2016 at 12:35 am

Don't take this shit from no one as this is clearly verbal abuse and assault & battery, you are well within your right as a human being to call the police and have your attacker arrested and charged for throwing at you with a pizza that is both oven fresh hot and heavy. The woman has no justification to blame you for the pizza being baked as that is what she said she wanted, it is her fault for being the cause of her daughters attack as she did not state explicitly that she wanted it unbaked.

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Diablo January 6, 2017 at 1:54 am

Dang, that's just cold. Also, I'm pretty sure a pizza is a great dying wish, but make sure your order is correct. It's a dying wish.

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Chris February 16, 2017 at 2:38 am

it should've been the daughter on that deathbed and not the uncle. If there is a God, may he smite her viciously! Once again, I truly hope there is a hell for people like that. I would have called the cops and asked them to arrest her for second degree assault. She was obviously of an urban persuasion and deserves to be in jail. The manager really dropped the ball on this one. The server should be just as upset with him/her!

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