There’s something about unlimited quantities of mass amounts of food that seems to bring the worst out of people. Whether it be outrageous displays of gluttony or having zero regard for hygiene and food safety, the following stories definitely rank among the worst of the worst of people’s disgusting behaviors at buffets.
Dinner And A Show
“The case of the naked Lo Mein!
I was in a ubiquitous Chinese Buffet, minding my own business and overdosing on MSG. Life was good.
A lady walked up to the Shrimp Lo Mein and spent five minutes picking out just the shrimp while angry folks lined up behind her. As she walked away with her plate piled high there were muttered curses from the other patrons.
A couple of minutes later a manager walked by the buffet station and spotted the now naked Low Mein. He was no dummy. He scanned the room and spotted her right away. Now she was a marked woman!
Flash forward a few minutes and a worker comes out to refresh the Shrimp Lo Mein. Our shrimp thief jumps up and begins the process again! She was picking out her third shrimp when the manager accosted her. She looked up, glared at him and flipped him the famous middle finger!
That earned her banishment from the restaurant. As she was escorted out, yelling all the way that she was entitled, folks were clapping. As she was going out the door she vowed never to return. Now folks were laughing at her. She stalked away shouting curses and I loved every minute. An MSG overdose and entertainment all for about $10 is not a bad deal!”
She Had Her Cake And Ate Them Too
“Once watched a really massive lady (I mean Hoveround bound, so heavy the chair squealed and groaned when she shifted) take entire PANS from the dessert table, like, you know not a plate full of pie, the whole damn pie, and the ones on either side.. she actually took about half the table herself.
But after the dessert, yes AFTER dessert, she went back and picked all the meat out of the meat and veggie or meat and pasta dishes. like all the meat.
Then she moved to the seafood table, and this is the nasty part, she scooped out the plates full of various seafood type items, did not even go to the table, would just suck the butter or broth off the meat, then pour the stuff back into the heating dish and go to the next hot plate.
And the staff, when they tried to remove her, were threatened with a lawsuit. When the cops came t remove her? They had to call in a freaking TECHNICIAN. She pulled the key to scooter, dropped it into the eternal abyss of her bosom, so they had to actually get forklift type thing to move her scooter and all…and the rest of us were given free drink refills for the WEEK and 50 dollar gift cards. Thank you Golden Corral”.
Major Health Code Violation
“A woman walks up to the buffet, rummages through the different bowls with her bare hands, tasting different toppings, licking her fingers then rummaging through the next serving container. She reached down the front of her pants, scratched her crotch, and went back to her bare handed digging through the bowls and other serving containers. She tasted one dressing, spat it back into the serving container.
My wife complained to the weekend manager about what we had seen, and he said it was OK, and that he wasn’t going to waste all that food. My wife told him that he was required by the health codes to waste the food. The manager said, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ My wife told him she would call the health department inspector for that area. The manager then said, ‘Why should I be afraid of that b—h? None of those a–holes are in the office, they won’t come out, and those dumbf–ks wouldn’t know what was going on anyway.’ So my wife calls, says, ‘Hey Bill, this is Connie, from the West Office, I’m going to be doing an emergency inspection on {RESTAURANT NAME}, if that’s OK with you.’ The manager told my wife that she couldn’t inspect the restaurant, that she wasn’t a health inspector, and that we needed to leave before he called the police. Connie showed him her badge, announced that the buffet was closed as a health hazard, and had me go to the car and get her clipboard and inspection kit.
The manager called the police, who backed my wife when they arrived. Connie found enough to totally shut the restaurant down”.
Evolutionary Mistakes
These folks are the worst! Their mission in life is to wipe out an expensive item and they don’t give a crap about anyone else. At your every-day Chinese Buffet, that item is often crab legs.
They are not content to sit at their table. They have a need to lurk around the buffet station just like a vulture waiting for some poor animal to die.
Sometime there are three or four them circling their prey. The pecking order is extremely important to them. If one vulture gets a little too close, I swear the others hiss at him!
So the crab legs come out and the poor worker practically runs for his life before the vultures descend. I saw one lady pile up three huge plates of nothing but crab legs. The third plate was balanced on top of the other two. The look of triumph on her face was scary.
One day I mentioned this phenomenon to a buffet manager and he said he was long since numb to it. He didn’t even think of these creatures as human. They were just an evolutionary mistake that nature would eventually rectify!”.
Mr. Stinkfingers
“I was producing a live comedy show at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. I was only in town for a few days and was working with a crew that I worked with several times a year. A coworker and video editor friend of mine had heard good stories about the buffet at the MGM Grand, which is pretty close to Mandalay Bay. So, on one of our meal breaks we decided to go and check out what all of the fuss was about.
When we arrived, there was a line of people waiting to get in, so we had to stand there for a few minutes before being admitted. While we were chatting, I hadn’t paid much attention to the group of 3–4 young, Korean tourists in front of us. At one point, my friend nudges me and nods toward the group, as if to say, ‘Check that out.’
They guy standing directly in front of me was in his early 20’s, casually dressed in t-shirt and ball cap… and blue jeans… with his right arm stuffed straight down the back of them. His hand was right down the middle of his ass-crack and so deep that his belt was literally about half way up his forearm. Just casually standing there, almost elbow deep in his own underwear, like it was the most normal thing to do when standing in line at a buffet restaurant.
I’m not known for being shy in social situations, so I tapped Mr. Stinkfingers on the shoulder, motioned to his ongoing spelunking activities and asked, ‘So, are you digging for gold back there or something?’
He quickly jerked his hand out and apologized profusely, but I added: ‘I hope you’re planning on washing your hands before you start handling the utensils at the buffet stations, because everyone else after you has to use the same ones.’ He apologized again and said he would.
He did not. My friend and I kept our eyes on him and rushed around to get to the buffet stations that he’d not yet soiled with his most certainly fecal-flecked phalanges. Turns out the MGM Buffet was great, though we never did get to the taco station”.
The One Strand Pasta Bandit
“The worst of the worst was at a Shakey’s restaurant I used to frequent in Kyoto. They had pizza slices, pasta, and some fried chicken for variety. One man, youngish, around 25, would take all the spaghetti on multiple plates, balance them very carefully on his arms, and return to his table. He would leave one strand, though.
One.
Did this at least three times on my visits to that establishment. Now, being in Japan, it’s very hard for the manager to tell the patron he was being rude. In the West, no problem. Tell that scumbag of a customer and put them in their place, but in Japan, one must always be polite! So no one said anything…until me, the angry foreigner.
One day I went with my girlfriend (now my wife) and she wanted to get the pasta. The guy elbowed her out of the way and proceeded to take everything, but leave one strand. Now, keep in mind that my wife is around 5’1″. This guy was around 5’11” and not skinny. After witnessing this, I went over to his table where he sat alone, surrounded by plates of pasta. I also took the empty pan with the one strand in it.
At his table, he looked at me and asked ‘What?’
Not saying a word, I proceeded to take all his plates of yet-to-be-touched pasta and dump them in the pan. I did leave one strand, though.
He left the restaurant and never came back again”.
You Don’t Know Where The Ladle’s Been
“Normally I wouldn’t name the franchise, but they tend to treat their employees like s–t, so I’m saying this happened at a Harvester.
If you’ve never been to Harvester before, they have a salad bar where you can get pasta, cheese, bread, lettuce, sauces, and other such things before your meal arrives. The sauces come in large plastic jugs with individual ladles.
The most outrageous violation of restaurant buffet etiquette came when an elderly woman went up to the counter. She ladled one sauce onto her salad bowl, then using the same ladle, dunked it into a different sauce. This was bad enough. She then proceeded to lift the ladle to her face, sniff it, then lick some of the sauce off. And then she put it back into the sauce.
Staff did nothing”.
Pay Attention To Your Kids
“I hate buffets. I hate buffets. Apart from people tending to immediately find their inner Hedonismbot and make trip after trip to load plates with more nasty warming-tray food than they’re probably ever rated to carry, I’ve personally seen things that made my skin crawl.
At a Chinese buffet, I saw a man who was holding a toddler on his hip and talking to someone as he stood near the dessert station. The little girl, bored, craned her head back toward the dry cookies and neon-yellow pudding. Her gaze fell on the ice cream machine. Aha! A curl of chocolate soft-serve dangled tantalizingly from the spout. It was just close enough to reach. She pulled her finger from her nose and stuck it up the nozzle, getting a big glob. Back to her mouth. Mm, delicious! Her finger trailed back up toward her nose, then she checked to see if any more ice cream had appeared. It had! Her finger popped back out of her nose, back up the nozzle for another dip. Back to her mouth.
I haven’t eaten soft-serve ice cream since. Every time I look at the machine, I see tiny snot-slicked fingers rooting for chocolate.
That was probably the most egregious incident. To be fair, it was a kid and her dad wasn’t paying any attention”.
