Dinners From Hell offers true stories about restaurant dining disasters written by diners, servers and chefs.

We've all had those dining experiences when things went dreadfully wrong. Perhaps it was a social blunder, an obnoxious customer, a waiter or waitress with an attitude, a temperamental chef, 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.

Teens Get Chilly Treatment

February 5, 2012 Server Stories

It was a Sunday afternoon a few years ago and my teenaged sister and my teenaged self were dining out with a huge group of friends at a pretty popular sit down restaurant. This was after a weekend teen camp and my sister and I had pitched in for gas and such for the trip […]

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Diner has “The Smells”

January 19, 2012 Server Stories

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 […]

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First Date, Second Time Around

January 8, 2012 Couples Stories

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 […]

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Long Wait for Pizza Delivery

January 6, 2012 Fast Food Stories

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 […]

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Deluge in the Dining Room

January 4, 2012 Accident & Mishap Stories

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 […]

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Server with a Snippy Attitude

December 30, 2011 Server Stories

This was about a week ago in a local mom and pop restaurant (where by the way Hilary Clinton once visited). It was our first time there and we asked the server, “Do you have any Hillary pictures? Her response was, “Just look around.” (With a “duh” expression on her face). We laughed and said […]

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Shrew at the Juice Station

December 2, 2011 Fast Food Stories

This incident happened at least 10 years ago. I was in a food court in a local mall with my niece (she was about 6 at the time) for her dance class. After dance class she wanted a frozen fruit juice from the new stand that just went in (not part of a chain). The […]

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Slow Service and Poor Pizza

November 25, 2011 Odds & Ends Stories

About 4 years ago, to celebrate an occasion when I was in primary school, we went to a local pizza restaurant. We had been here several times before and we were satisfied with the service and food. But on this particular night, we were shocked with the service that we were provided with. We had […]

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Gas Pump Jockey Banished to Dirty Table

November 23, 2011 Odds & Ends Stories

This happened back in the 1970s. I was working a summer job as a gas pump jockey on the New York State Thruway (back before self-service.) For the first few days, I went next door to the cafeteria (back before they became fast food outlets) for lunch. Then one day, the cafeteria manager came up […]

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Ruckus in the Restaurant

November 18, 2011 Kitchen & Chef & Boss Stories

I went to a local chain Italian restaurant a few years ago with my sister. This was a restaurant that we frequented about once a month up until this incident. Over the years we had become “friends” with the manager in that he would come over to chat when we were there. What happened was […]

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Fouled Up Chicken Order

November 4, 2011 Fast Food Stories

I had a very bad experience at a restaurant last night; it was the second time I had a bad experience there this month. Let me preface last night’s disaster with the original encounter: Two weeks ago, I decided to treat the family to take-out. I was going to pick up some Buffalo chicken fingers […]

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Mr. Cussing Creeper

September 2, 2011 Diner Stories

About 2 years ago, my family and I went out for dinner at a nice chain restaurant on a Wednesday evening. After being led to our booth, given our menus and had our drink orders taken, I glanced around the area we were seated in. It seemed that we were in a sort of “family […]

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