From new foods to enjoying time with loved ones, going out to eat is a fun experience...well, most of the time. These people share their awful experiences.
Smell Ya Later Kind Sir
During college, I caught the Chinese food restaurant’s employees sneezing in the food. They saw me see it from far away and walked into the back. Told everyone I knew Source
Double The Trouble
The Chinese buffet in my college town was shut down because someone found maggots in the Mongolian beef. About a month later another buffet opened right across the street, same name, same employees, same four dollar lunch buffet. Its super popular, but there is no way in hell I’m ever going to try it Source
No Glass Please
Went to a local mexican place and got a burrito. Took a bite in and found glass Source
Who Let The Dogs Out
We went to the Old Country Buffet a long time ago, and my dad got a hot dog that turned out to be moldy.
We haven’t gone back Source
Taking Short Cuts
The little brownie mix package _was baked into the goddamn brownie _Source
A Hidden Gem
Went to a Pizza Hut in my town for a school trip when I was 13. A friend thought he was being funny and put a slice of pizza under one of those rubberized table cloths they used at the time. About a month later his grandma took us for his birthday. The pizza was still there. I don’t go to that Pizza Hut anymore Source
A Forgotten Dilemma
We were completely ignored. It was a small, family-owned Mexican restaurant that was extremely popular. We had been there many times. We were the only people sitting in one waitress’ section. We watched her as she stood there talking to the bus boys and cooks in plain view of our table. We had to walk up to her to ask her to take our order and go up again to ask for another margarita. We then had to go up and ask for the check. It was the only time I didn’t leave a tip.
I have no idea what we did to her. The other waitress in a different section was actually doing her job and she had a full section. The only thing I can think of is it was the end of her shift and she didn’t care Source
Don’t Bother
A family owned restaurant didn’t honor a 3 week in advance reservation for Valentine’s day, but instead overbooked and didn’t seat us until an hour later, then proceeded to give us silverware and ask us for drinks 20 minutes after that. We just said not to bother and left Source
A Valentine’s Day Nightmare
My Fiancé and I went to a popular local owned seafood restaurant.
Because we knew it would get packed, we arrived pretty early. I ordered a rum and coke and my SO ordered a sprite because he was driving. The waitress brought me a rum and coke but brought SO a 7 and 7. We explained the mistake to the waitress and I told her not to worry about it, I would drink the 7 and 7 and to please bring a sprite.
When she brought our meals, she brought me the wrong meal. She apologized and I assumed went to re-order my meal. (I ordered crab legs) Twenty minutes go by and my SO is finished eating and we are just waiting. The waitress never returned to our table. She didn’t come by to refill his sprite or tell me my food was on its way, nothing.
I finally said, this is crazy and flagged her down and asked her to please cancel my order and get us our check. I explained that we would pay for all the drinks and the food that SO ate but I wasn’t paying for the food I ordered and never received. About 5 minutes later she comes back to our table crying her eyes out. I mean really sobbing. Her manager told her that she had to pay for our meal. My SO told her, no we will pay for what we ate/drank, please go get your manager.
The manager comes to our table WITH MY FOOD. At this point, I’m not eating. I just want to get out of there. I decline the food and ask again for our bill. The manager storms off with the plate of food. He comes back (we are on the second floor of the restaurant) and just stands on the other side of the room. The waitress is waiting on customers but still sniffling. My SO walks up to the manager and asked for again for our bill. Tells him that we don’t want the waitress to pay for our food and drinks that we don’t have any problem paying our bill.
The manager then starts loudly yelling at him, mind you this is in an area with many other diners. Telling him that we planned this and did this on purpose to get a free meal out of them. My SO is a big dude and doesn’t take shit off anyone, but I was proud of him. He just turned around and we left.
I’m sure that poor waitress ended up paying for our food and drinks but they wouldn’t give us the bill. I ended up eating peanut butter and jelly for dinner that night Source
Whoops
We got home and realised neither of us had paid the bill Source
Luck Of The Draw
I ordered food in the drive thru of Wendy’s once, it was a relatively large order as it came to $25 or so. When I got to the window to pay I was greeted by a worker that ignored the debit card I had in my hand and handed me my drinks which caused me to put my debit card down in order to grab them. Then another employee gets to the window and hands me both bags of food before closing the window. Then another employee comes to the window to hand me the dipping sauces for the chicken nuggets and I go to hand him my debit card and he waved me away, I sat there bewildered for a second wondering if I actually paid or not when he waved at me to leave again because I was holding up the line. When I got home I was curious and checked my bank account and there was no charge from Wendy’s. I avoided that place for a few weeks before I returned and nobody mentioned a thing, though I do blame the confusion on the fact that 3 different people served me from the drive thru window and probably assumed I paid the first person that helped me Source
A Bone Garden
Found a bunch of eaten chicken wing bones in my appetizer basket. They just dropped a new piece of paper over them and filled it up with onion rings. Pointed it out to the manager, declined to get my app for free and walked out Source
Long Lost Love
It was our favorite bar. We used to live down the road from it. We had our first date there and knew every employee. Even the cooks in the back.
We moved about 25 minutes away. We got engaged and needed to save money. We went for the first time in months. The menu changed drastically, the management changed, almost none of the servers recognized us, as most staff had left. We tried to give it a go, but the food was awful, they’d even changed cooks.
We realized what we had was gone Source
It’s Only Fair
When I was 3 my parents and I were at a Pizza Hut and when the waiter brought out drinks, he spilled them all over me (all three of us got pop so I was sticky). This in itself wasn’t too bad, but when my parents got the check, the realized that they got charged for two sets of drinks, including the ones that were spilled on me! When my dad asked the waiter about this he said it was only fair, this is the only time I’ve ever seen my dad not tip Source
Wine(ing) About A Tip
Went to a tavern restaurant with my girlfriend her grandma and her mom. We were good business for that server that day. The grandma and mom had wine, and ordered three appetizers and soup before their main meal.
Well the first glass of wine the mom gets, she takes one sip, and puts the glass down. The server drops off the soup, and bumps the wine glass a bit, and the spine breaks and the wine glass is broken completely.
The server tried to charge for that glass of wine. We were livid Source
It’s Just An Herb!
There was a small fly (a fruit fly I think) in my fried egg. It was all fried and crispy. I wasn’t even that bothered, I’m not a confrontational person. I didn’t even want a whole new meal, I just wanted a new egg. The waitress came back from the kitchen and said that the chef was insisting it was a bit of “herb” that he uses in his cooking. You could see the legs and wings. They were so insistent that I could see it wasn’t worth arguing. They were a new business as well so you would have thought they would want to establish a customer base Source