We have to hand it to those who work in the food service industry, they deal with a multitude of rude people every day. These customers, however, might be the absolute rudest people food industry employees ever encounter.
They Fired Themselves
“I worked in Domino’s, I had a guy throw a hand full of pennies at me while laughing, the 30 odd cents was my tip, he was mad when I turned around and walked away without picking any of them up. His exact words were, ‘Oh, my money not good enough for you? Fine, I’ll never order Domino’s again!’
I’ve never had a customer fire themselves like that before, it was great.”
He Asked For WHAT?
“Barista here. Had a guy that regularly came in and ordered a complicated drink. He always finished the order by asking for a ‘finger swirl’ in the drink. If you gave him a confused look he would say ‘well how else am I gonna taste you?’. He was the worst.”
This Is Just Plain Rude
“Worked in a popular restaurant for awhile. We usually have quite a long wait (30-40min waits) during dinner service and people are told by the hosts about this. There was this lady that got fed up with the wait after 10mins. She stormed into the restaurant, stood next to a table of 4 people and literally asked them ‘are you guys done? we’ve been waiting for a long time now and would like to have the table if you guys are just chatting…’. Was completely mindblown how people are able to not give a darn and pull something like this in public.”
A Youth Nightmare
“Work in a place that is frequented by local families and youth sports teams. On Sunday this one large group of people always come in and they are the worst. The parents drink and ignore their preteens who run around playing games in the entire restaurant, disrupting everyone else. They have tried to walk at a party of 45 during the end of year sports party season when we are booked solid, and get mad that there isn’t enough space for them. And they modify everything like crazy and leave 0 in a tip. It’s at least once a month the entire group comes in. And weekly for some individual families.”
Welcome To Chick-Fil-Cow
“I worked at a quick-service restaurant where the mascot is a cow and the meat we sell is chicken. Not going to lie, I actually enjoyed my job. Managers were awesome, except the one I was terrified of, and the woman who managed it all in place of the actual owner/operator man is the sweetest woman I’ve ever met. That said, even the customers weren’t so bad. Most of them were your run o’ the mill college town folks…minimal screaming and whining here (not counting the students of course). HOWEVER. I’d been working for about half a year here, had gotten used to the filling of orders, and where everything was, and it was a busy afternoon. I should also mention that it was a football day. For my town and basically anywhere else with a college football stadium, the customers were here in full force, the line is out the door. Naturally, I’m completely freaking out on the inside (first jobs tend to make you do that), but handling it pretty well–I didn’t knock anyone over that day. So this lady comes in, and already I can smell trouble. She has the Louis Vitton-Prada-Coach-Versaille designer gear all over.
I thought: Why the HECK are you coming in here if you’re so bloody rich?
But I said: “Welcome to Chick-fil-Cow, how may I serve you today?”
Her order is to-go. Fine. Meal meal meal meal–a meal with wacky changes that have to be keyed in by hand–what? You want FIVE shakes? Right now? To GO? AND you want five cherries in all of them? Cue panic attack Shakes take for-bloody-ever. Luckily, Jay, the awesome MegaManager makes four of them for me, and I just have to deal with the one (I HATE making shakes). I go back up to the register, put it in the cardboard drink holder, and get ready for the next customer. No dice. The woman WILL NOT LEAVE THE FRONT COUNTER. THEN, she looks at the strawberry shake and TAKES THE BLOODY LID OFF.
When you make a shake with that fancy dome lid, it tends to end up a little fuller than the lip of the cup. So naturally, the whipped cream, shake mix, and cherries start to fall out. The woman pushes it away like it’s diseased (please note that she didn’t even put the lid back on, so it’s still oozing everywhere).
“I don’t like how this one looks. Make it again.”
What. The. HECK.
Her order was incredibly crazy, to begin with, she made us put in 4 extra cherries–which we are not supposed to do, by the way–and then her and her stupidity ruin its ‘looks’–and she wants me to help her more? Ugh. Have I mentioned that the line is still out the door?
I run over to the shake machine, get a weird look from Jay–til she sees the woman I’m helping. Jay pats my shoulder and makes the shake again for me. Finally, the woman leaves, and I can take care of the other, less awful customers. I hate morons. I especially hate arrogant, rich, entitled morons who think the world revolves around them. She pretty much fits the bill.
Just Friendly’s
“I worked at Friendly’s in high school as a server and this brings back so many painful memories. Worked my tail off all night once for a whole soccer team and parents who came in with no notice. Then at the end of the night, they wanted everything split up. The kids were sitting at different tables so trying to get the right kids food to the right parent was near impossible. Not to mentions some kids split meals or got specialty drinks and ice cream or appetizers. Some parents were trying to tell me what their kid ordered, others were just saying ‘whatever the blonde kid with the headband ordered’ etc. it was impossible to work how got what and who was supposed to be charged with it. Not to mention half of them had coupons that they were all switching around with each other some of which were expired, but they wanted using anyway because they were “spending so much money.”
A huge portion of the bill had to be comped because no one would claim a bunch of items and I didn’t think to tell them beforehand they couldn’t split the bill 17 ways. After reprinting checks about 10 times because god forbid someone pays an extra $2 on a milkshake they said their kid didn’t order even though you could look over at the table and see half the kids had milkshakes I was in the back crying. My manager was yelling at me over what a fiasco this was and mad because the kids had been drawing on the tables and throwing crayons at other customers over the partition. I finally come back out to hopefully get everyone’s change or swipe cards or whatever and one of the dads had the audacity to tell me to ‘not look so stressed out it’s just friendlys’ EF YOU whoever that guy was. They then left me about a $15 tip in total for the 3ish hours I waited on them with a bill that was EASILY over $400. A lot of them tipped on the coupon price instead of the ACTUAL cost and a lot of them just left whatever change was leftover.”
They Couldn’t Wait 10 Minutes
“After a wedding reception ended at our facility we were cleaning and I began the cleaning process on our espresso machine. The party was over almost a half hour already. The process takes 12 minutes. People were still there as the party slowly let out and the father of the bride asks me for an espresso. I told him I could get it to him (as we have a strict policy of always trying to satisfy a guests needs) but the machine was cleaning and it would be done in about 10 minutes. He begins ranting about how much he paid for the wedding and stormed to our banquets manager and told them I refused to make it for him. Manager is a dbag and starts ripping me in front of the guy. I show both of them that the machine is just finishing the cleaning process and it was impossible to make it beforehand. I got suspended for 2 weeks.”
The List Goes On
“People who would place large orders, or even take home a cake and eat half of it, then flip their minds and demand a refund when they’d find out it was all vegan, even though that fact was well advertised.
A guy who demanded I take money from our tip jar to help him pay for his order and argued with me when I said no.
A huge group of clearly rich kids who came in, stole a bunch of drinks, and left the dining room trashed
A homeless guy who came in, actively dripping of blood from his hands, and started screaming at me and threatening me because I wouldn’t give him a bakery case item without him paying. He was dripping blood all over the counter and spitting everywhere until I threatened to call the cops.”
A Drive Thru Disaster
“A lady from the real estate agency next door ordered a chicken box, and then proceeded to drive an hour to her next showing. In the middle of summer, where it probably says right in front of her AC unit in the passenger seat. Surprise, surprise; food gets cold when left in the cold. Who knew. Upon the shocking discovery that food doesn’t stay warm, she called us to scream at my boss that we tried to kill her. Because he’s a spineless pushover in the summer, he agreed to give her a new free meal when she came back.
She came to get her free food, and things didn’t improve. One of our chefs came to collect her cold food. While still in front of the window, he opened the box and fished out the uneaten biscuit. He threw the rest away but walked away with the bread. I presume he meant to eat it, but he went about it all wrong. She started screaming about how we were ‘recycling’ food, that she was good friends with the health inspector, that she was going to see us in court. The histrionics brought my boss out of his office, and after chewing out the idiot chef, he tried to smooth things over. I don’t remember much, We were all busy, and since he’d taken over the Drive-Thru, I hopped onto another task.
She wouldn’t move forward, and the line was piling up. My boss was starting to get annoyed. They had stopped talking to each other. Her hot, fresh meal is up, and he goes to hand-deliver it and tells her to get out of line. I’m not entirely sure, as I was halfway across the store trying to make drinks. All I remember is a surprised gasp from our food runner, and looking up to see a box of steaming hot chicken came sailing through the window and scatter across the front of the house. My boss had barely stepped back in time. We could only stare as the crazy lady roared out of the parking lot, and he snapped at the first person stupid enough to still be making eye contact to clean it up.”
No Way SubWay
“This was at a Subway. This guy never ended up paying for anything ever, because he’d managed to figure out the right combination of corporate complaint calls to ‘get people fired’. Made it impossible to bar him, he’d drop multiple complaints at once posing as different people and he’d make stuff up.
He’d ask for stupid stuff, in the most pretentious way possible, ‘I’ll have 12 olives, no more no less.’ kind of thing. All very slowly at peak time during the day with a queue wrapped all the way around the shop and out the door. Then demand at the end of the process that you remake the sandwich. He’d pay, scan his points card then eat ~%50 then demand his money back for equally bull reasons. ‘That lettuce is too green’ etc
Must have pulled that stunt 20 times during the period I worked there. I took petty revenge on him by using his accumulated Subway card points to discount customers in the queue. Wasn’t there if/when he found out all his points were gone.
The man needed to be shoved in the sub toaster and toasting for 40 seconds on high.”
Did Not See That Ending Coming
“I had a guy that was a germaphobe and had terrible OCD. He came through before and my coworker didn’t want to deal with him. So I went to the drive-through window after washing my hands. I cashed out the order that was on screen and he reluctantly handed over his card. I gave him the coffee that I cashed him out for. He started yelling at me saying that it was wrong. Apparently the person that took the order forgot to type it in, unfortunate but it happens. He started yelling at the coworker that didn’t want to take his order at the window. So instead of just saying that it was the wrong order, getting refunded, and being on his way, he stayed in the driveway for 20 minutes telling my coworker that she was stupid and unprofessional and was unfit to be a supervisor. He kept demanding that we get the phone number of our franchise owner, but apparently the number was wrong and he kept yelling at us. But when we came back to the window after 20 minutes of this, he left. My supervisor went into the back to cry, I felt so bad for her, she’s the sweet person.
Fast-forward less than a month later, he called the store to apologize and the manager made sure that my coworker never dealt with him again but he could come in as long as he didn’t make a scene. He told the manager that his therapist told him he should apologize. He spent a combined total of 3 hours on the phone with the manager, where he apologized and also blamed us for making him late to his appointment that day. And at the end of the phone call, he asked if we were hiring.”
He Completely Lost It
“My buddy was 16 and got his first job at McDonald’s in the food court at the mall. His third day of work was Black Friday and he was put on a cash register. There were 3 registers open, line well over 50 deep at each register stretched across the mall. Some total turd face gets to the front and starts talking about the wait. My buddy closes the register, hops over the counter, and tells everyone in line to buzz off. The Karen in the middle of the line was proclaiming ‘you can’t do that’ People are terrible.”
A Bagged Muffin To The Face
“I worked at a bakery for 2 years, and I had to deal with honestly the most HEINOUS and rude customers ever. I’ve worked in the food service industry my whole life AND lived in Toronto up until 3 years ago, and I have never dealt with such entitlement. Anyways, one day one of our staff members quit by text message 5 minutes before her shift, and 30 minutes before we were set to open at 8 am on a Saturday. We were hard-pressed finding someone to cover, so I was alone until a front of houseperson was able to come in, about an hour later. I had one of the kitchen staff helping me, and all they could do was grab things and bag them as they weren’t trained on cash or coffee. So here I am running around trying to help customers, make coffees, ring people through, and clearly stressed. This prick of a man was clearly annoyed that he had to wait, huffing and puffing, and eventually loudly exclaimed ‘ef this, I’m not waiting for this’ and proceeded to throw his bagged muffin at my head and storm out. I legit almost chased him down, I was livid.”
Ending On A Yelp Review
“Had a man and his wife come in during a really busy lunch rush. He was rude off the bat, interrupting me, not wanting to listen to me speak, whatever, it happens all the time. He was very adamant that he wanted both chips and salsa and a plate of roasted wings as appetizers. He kept emphasizing that he wanted them together before they ordered their lunch. Even though chips and salsa only take a minute and wings take about 12, I rang them in together because of how he ordered them. (In hindsight, I should have made completely sure, but.) Not THREE minutes later, the man is waving at my coworker across the restaurant, yelling at her about how they’ve been there for thirty minutes and his appetizer is taking too long and he wants it before his wings. I was at a party table so she ran back and grabbed the chips and the wings which were somehow up as well and brought them out.
He took one bite of a wing and tossed the plate like a Frisbee across the table towards her and started complaining about them being cold. I rush over to see what’s going on and he starts yelling at me, saying his food is awful and this is the worst service he’s ever gotten in his life. I don’t do well with grown men yelling at me so I went to the kitchen and my manager went out and thankfully had my back as much as he could, and made the guy pay for the wings and the chips and then leave. After he left, I started to clean the table where I found the single penny he tipped me with – that my coworker promptly threw in the trash – and got a call from my general manager asking why a man had called me ‘professionally challenged’ on Yelp.”
Playing It Off
“A customer ordered one of our daily specials and didn’t like it, so instead of complaining to me about the food and letting me offer something else, she complained to my manager about ME. This was in May of last year. In August of last year, turns out she was one of my college professors for the semester, teaching A MANAGEMENT course. She recognized me the first day but I played it off like I didn’t know her.
She did not complain about me to my manager in front of me. I left to go work an event in a different building, and she left a sticky note for me after talking to my boss. I don’t know what the sticky note said since I didn’t bother to read it.”
Why Is It The Server’s Fault?
“I’ll never understand why people make their dislike for a restaurant’s food into a bizarre personal grudge against the server.
I worked at a place that had good food except for this one dish: steak frites. It was a small hanger steak, cut into strips, served with fries. That’s it. The steak was always tough, under-seasoned, and wasn’t a lot of food for the money.
One day a guy asked me for some recommendations, so I made a couple. He apparently wasn’t impressed by my suggestions, so he asked about the steak frites and said, explicitly, that I wouldn’t recommend it.
So that’s what he ordered.
After taking a couple of bites, he pushed the plate away then asked me to call over the manager. He then complained to the manager – not directly about the food, but about me for giving him an awful recommendation.”
No Thanks
“This one guy who basically hated his order so much that he waved me over and told me to put my hand out and proceeded to spit out entirely what was in his mouth into my hand, then tell me to refund him and then make him something else.”
A Trash Show
“Back in college I was working my first job as a front of house staff for an on campus locally owned burger place. My main job was to call the order numbers out to customers and pass their food off. Easy enough.
Well one night we get absolutely slammed with to go orders at close. I’m the only person out at the front and there were two cooks behind me working on the food. A man ordered two burgers. Cool! Well, we’re so busy I’m obviously not aware of what number goes with what customers off the top of my head, and I call out a number. A customer takes it and heads out.
Turns out the wrong customer grabbed that man’s order. He proceeded to YELL profanities at me, calling me an effin’ idiot, demanding his food be free AND that he gets free fries. All in front of other customers. I started crying. It held up everyone else’s food in the process. The manager has to tell him to step off and remakes his food. It was just one giant trash show.”