There are plenty of awful, entitled customers out there, but don’t think that waiters can’t be just as rude. These poor patrons share the times they’ve been mistreated by waitstaff. No tips today!
Yep, That’s Pretty Dang Rude Alright
“Wasn’t said to me, but was said about me: I was in Kansas City at this too-hip little restaurant that consisted of little more than a bar, a stage for the jazz band, and a few tables. I was in from out of town visiting friends from college and was sitting at the bar with them for about an hour waiting for a table to open up. When one finally did, the waitress came over to get us more drinks and talk about the menu (which was all prix fixe) on which all of the items were based around meat.
I’m a fairly strict vegetarian, so I’d had my reservations about going to the restaurant in the first place. I told the waitress very politely that I was vegetarian and if they couldn’t make me anything I was perfectly happy to just nurse my Manhattan for the rest of the night.
About fifteen minutes later, one of the chefs came out and sat down at the table. The first words out of her mouth were, ‘so one of the waitresses came in to tell me that some dorky-looking loser wanted us to make him a stupid vegetarian meal.’
‘And what did you say to her?’ I replied. ‘Well, first I told her to not call my best friend a loser.’”
“Your Mother Didn’t Raise You Right.”
–Excuse Me?
“About 15 years ago I took my parents to a pretty nice restaurant for Mother’s Day brunch. They were a little late getting brunch started that day, leaving a crowd of about 40-50 in a line with nothing to do but stare at an empty dining room while the staff flitted around joking with each other instead of seating anyone.
After roughly 30 minutes we were seated. When I saw our server approach, 20 minutes later, I turned my coffee cup right side up to accept a nice blast of java and noticed that the cup was dirty. Dirty isn’t really the right word, there was something stuck to the inside rim of the cup that looked like a slug-shaped wad of brown chewing gum.
Our server went around the table pouring coffee saving me for last, at which point I said ‘Can I get another cup please, this one is dirty’ with my nicest ‘please don’t spit on my food’ smile. She took a look at the cup, slug and all, then back to me, then back to the cup. She grabbed the cup, looked me right in the eye like a boss, and said ‘Your mother didn’t raise you right.’ She then turned and left.
I was so flabbergasted by her remark that an appropriate retort didn’t become apparent to me until she was about 50 feet away when I screamed at the top of my lungs ‘I GUESS YOU DIDN’T REALLY WANT A TIP ANYWAY, DID YOU?’ Just like in the movies, the now full restaurant goes completely silent with every eyeball in the place on me. We stayed, for whatever reason, and the server attempted to apologize several times…. to the point I had to ask her to stop annoying me with it and just do her job.
Not a single tip was given that day.”
Dine And Dash? They Hadn’t Even Dined!
“I went to a late-night bar with a friend and we each ordered promptly when the waiter arrived to ask for drinks. We waited patiently for about 45 minutes. We had noticed other patrons’ food that had arrived much later than we were arriving that their tables. We then asked our server as she walked by our table if our food would be ready soon. She replied, yep! An hour and a half later we had still not got our food and we noticed patrons that had arrived after we had gotten their food, had settled upon their checks, and were leaving. We decided that was enough, waited another few minutes, and decided to get up and walk out.
As we Were walking out two waitresses blocked the aisle (between the bar and an exterior wall, the only possible way out. Not that we were dashing, we were just casually walking to the exit). She said, ‘you can’t dine and dash or we will call the police.’ my reply was obvious, ‘you can’t dine and dash without dining. We’ve been waiting almost an hour and 45 minutes.’ and ‘call the police if you want, there’s nothing wrong with leaving a restaurant if you never get your food!’ with that the waitresses replied ‘no you haven’t been waiting that long’ I asked her how people already had ordered, eat, paid, and paid that arrived after us? I then pointed out 2 tables that had been applied. She just told me, ‘that’s how it goes sometimes’ then she told me, ‘your food will be ready in a few minutes.’ We then decided to just stay and eat since it was causing a big scene. We then ate quickly and paid (with no tip, being that our waitress was rude, yelled at us, and threatened to call the police on us). My friend and I vowed to never come back.
Fast forward two and a half years later. I was with some different friends, a couple, and my girlfriend. One of my friends loved this place and I told her I refused to go there and give them any of my money and told her my story. After much pleading I caved (I loved this bar and used to patronize it two to three times a week for dinner and drinks), this is a really popular 4 am bar and I would go but not order anything. Just sit and wait for them to eat. Upon sitting at the booth with the other couple, amazingly the same waitress walked over and squatted down to our eye level (we were seated in a booth). In front of the other couple and my girlfriend she says with a snide tone, ‘Give me one good reason why I should serve you?’ Everyone was shocked, even me…we got up and left. Five years later I just started going back and there are different servers that are polite and new ownership. Whew, that was long!”
So Rude, He Had To Quit
“Not to me, but happened while I was bartending at a place in Kansas City. There was this totally incompetent, woman that had gotten a position behind the bar since she was friends with the owner. One night, an obviously handicapped guy comes in, dunno if it was mental or physical or both, but you could just look at this guy and tell he had some issues. Nice enough guy, though, needed help with the menu and was a messy eater, but he used a boatload of napkins, so the only mess he left was wadded-up paper. I’ve definitely served children who made more of a mess than him.
Anyways, we have a ‘J’ shaped bar, with squared-off corners, he’s sitting at one corner of the ‘J’ hook, and she’s standing behind the bar at the other corner of the hook, talking to a patron in a very loud voice about how, ‘The reason she works in bars is so she doesn’t have to deal with people like that,’ and wouldn’t shut up about how ‘watching him eat was making her sick.’ Of course, she wasn’t dealing with him, I was because this prick wouldn’t serve somebody in his condition, apparently. Apparently, he couldn’t hear her, because he didn’t react, and it was kinda busy in there, so it might have been too loud, and this was before any of his handicaps come into the equation.
When he leaves, he drops off a tip of a dollar, for an $8 meal, which in my opinion, is pretty dang decent of him, considering most handicapped people are broke as heck. She picks up the crumpled-up dollar by the edges and starts trying to give it away to other customers acting like it’s too dirty for her to handle.
Kicker? I was about to bite her stupid head off and fire her on the spot, even though I didn’t have the authority to. Instead, I got cut from my shift ASAP, and head home. I wait to cool off, and the next day I explained what happened to my supervisor and the guy who does the schedule over the phone, and told him that I don’t want to work with her for the one night of the week she is there. When I come in to check the schedule, all my bar shifts are cut, this of course came down from the owner, and not my supervisor. My supervisor, who had become a good friend of mine, seemed like he was about to cry when I asked him what was up.
DOUBLE-kicker? This is a predominantly gay bar. Of all people, I would expect gay people, people who are often mistreated for something that they have no control over, to have a little freaking sympathy for someone in a somewhat similar predicament.
I gave them the dignity of a two-week notice, though I really shouldn’t have.”
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
“Not something he said, but something he did.
I had just left the hospital and some friends picked me up to get a bite to eat. I had a third-degree ACL tear in my knee so I was limping around wearing this hip-to-ankle leg brace – you couldn’t miss it. We grab a table and I’m on the outside (not beside the wall, but next to the walkway) with my bad leg tucked safely under the table and my good leg ‘protecting’ me on the outer edge. Our waiter is this curt, unfriendly dude who was basically glaring the whole time. Eventually, when he brings our food (slamming plates down roughly) he manages to kick my bad knee under the table while reaching to put food down on the far side. This on its own I wouldn’t hold against him. But it absolutely hurt, and I yelled ‘Ow!’ pretty much in his ear (as he was leaning in front of me). The dude doesn’t even react. My friend picks up on it: ‘Uh, you just kicked her.’ The waiter just walks away.
So my friends decide that he will get a $1 tip on each person’s bill. (I am not an advocate of tipping badly but having had a fairly lousy day ends with being kicked on my already injured leg, I was okay with it given the circumstances). My one awesome friend writes a note on her receipt explaining WHY he was getting a bad tip. Then we get up and (slowly) make our way outside. At this point the waiter tracks (chases?) us down to defend his honor, or something.
‘I didn’t kick a girl with an ACL injury!’ He seems outraged.
‘Uh yes, you did. That would be me,’ I reply exhausted and kind of shocked that it was even a question. My friends step in to relate the story of how I even yelled and he was totally oblivious. He’s like: ‘Well then I’m sorry.’ He sure as heck didn’t sound sorry. What did he want us to do, go back in, and give a better tip? He turns angrily back into the restaurant.
The clincher: as he went in, another couple was leaving and they overheard everything. Looking at my leg the woman says: ‘He kicked you?! I passed by him inside earlier and he elbowed me and didn’t say a word!’ What a prick.”
Wanna Fight About It?
“(FYI I’m 5′ 9′)
The steak was undercooked. I enjoy a good rare steak as much as anyone, but the inside wasn’t cool and red, it was cold and purple. I sent it back twice and when it came out the third time still undercooked, I told her to forget it, I was done. Everyone else was done eating and I was filled up on bread at that point. She keeps harassing me, telling me what a fine steak it is and to just tell them how I wanted it cooked. When I told her I wasn’t interested, she got rude. She told me she was cutting me off (after two drinks). I finally tell her, ‘just leave me alone, I’m done talking to you.’ She comes back five minutes later and says something like, ‘You’re stuck with me, this is my table’. A few minutes more and that’s when she says ‘Do you want me to get the chef out here, he’s 6′ 3’.
I said ‘Why, is he going to kick my butt and force the steak down my throat?’
At that point, she tried to walk away, but I was beyond ticked off, so I stood up and said, ‘Yeah, get his ugly face out here and I’ll shove this raw steak up his fat hole.’ She left, didn’t come back. The chef didn’t come out either. The manager came over, apologized profusely, and offered to get me a new steak, and card for a free meal, etc… but I had no intention of ever going back there to eat.
Without a doubt the worst experience I’ve ever had at a restaurant. I always treat wait staff very nicely and I tip well. I’ve done their job and I know how much it sucks sometimes, so I can easily forgive a waitress that is in a bad mood or not very friendly. Her reaction though, to a valid complaint, was way over the line.”
I Think The Customer Is Right On This One…
“My wife and I went to a fairly nice restaurant with friends but we only brought cash, so we were calculating a very generous estimate of the total as we were ordering to ensure we would be able to cover it.
When we got the bill, it was significantly higher than we had estimated. Still within our cash budget, but just barely. Turns out they recently increased the price on almost everything on the menu but failed to have new menus printed. That would have been nice to know before we placed our orders rather than when the bill was on the table.
So we gave the waitress all the cash we brought with us, which unfortunately left her an embarrassingly minor tip (~$10 on a $190’ish bill).
As we were getting ready to leave, the waitress came up and basically called me every possible insult within the reasonable vicinity of ‘cheap’, ‘fake’, and ‘loser’ due to the tip. Seriously, she was ranting at me for a good five minutes in front of our friends and other patrons. And (fortunately for us) the manager.
I felt bad about the tip before she had said anything, but once she did I kindly pointed out that her tip would also have been the entirety of the $40 in price increases that she had failed to mention.
The manager then walked up and fired her on the spot. His apology to us was that the next meal for us and the rest of our group would be on him, with no limit. Needless to say, none of us have gone back there since then.”
Wherever This Place Is… Don’t Go
“Went with a group to a steak house. It was one of those meetings where they have a set menu. We all eat and proceed with the meeting. The food comes out, and the steak I had ordered medium was clearly extra well done. If I was at a cheap casual dining place, I probably would have just eaten it, but this was a $25 steak at a nice steak house.
I politely got the waiter’s attention, and the conversation went like this:
Me: ‘Excuse me, this steak is overcooked. I ordered medium, and this is very well done. Is there any chance I can get this remade?’
Waiter: ‘No.’ (walks off)
We didn’t see him again for the rest of the meeting, and no one came to check on us or fill our drinks the rest of the time. An hour later, after the meeting is over, we still don’t have our checks. We are ready to pay and leave. I get up to see if I can find the waiter and let him know that everyone is ready to go.
I found him standing behind the bar drinking. The final conversation and what convinced me to never return to their establishment ever again went like this:
Me: ‘Excuse me, we are ready to pay.’
Waiter: ‘Well, you can wait like everyone else here.’
Me: ‘I’m sorry?’
Waiter: ‘Yeah, wait for your impatient self back at your table and I’ll bring you the checks when I’m ready.’
Me: (Flabbergasted) ‘I think I need to speak with your manager.’
Waiter: ‘I am the manager.’
I went back and relayed the conversation to the group. We eventually had to walk to the front and get the hostess to find someone to print our checks so we could pay. Everyone we spoke to refused to get us a manager. It had to be the single worst experience I have ever had eating out anywhere.
I wrote to corporate the next day. Actually took the time to write an actual letter, affix a stamp, and mail it to them. Never heard a peep back from them. I don’t know what happened afterward because I refuse to return, but they are still in business somehow.”
Rude Customer Meets A Rude Server
“I worked as a server at a bar and this guy sitting in my section was a total d-bag to me all night, even though I was sweet to him. After taking care of him for about an hour, I was incredibly frustrated, but still giving excellent service. Then he said something along the lines of ‘If you want a tip, you’re gonna have to do better than that sweetheart!’
Get bent, sir. If you think I’m gonna kiss your cheap self just to get a $2 tip on your $80 tab, you’re insane. I took everyone else’s orders before his, and I brought his drinks out one at a time. Everyone else at his table got theirs first. This whole time, I’m still being super sweet to him – ‘Oh, so sorry that took a while, sir, we had to restart the computers,’ etc, so that he can’t complain to my manager about any sort of attitude. This was around 12:30 and the cutoff for ordering drinks is at 1:50 am (depending on the size of the crowd), so I waited until 1:51 and informed him he had 9 minutes to finish his drink and leave.
Between the time he made the tip comment and 1:50 I managed to get away with serving him only 3 drinks. When 2:00 am rolled around, he wasn’t done with his drink, so I walked up to him and took it (policy). He gave me the meanest look I have ever seen and he called me a tramp. I had our bouncer throw him out.”
Just A Horrible Evening
“My then-boyfriend (now husband) was looking for a place to take his parents for their 50th birthdays. We’d been to this place before and loved it. Several other relatives were coming, too, so we made a reservation for 12.
The trouble started early when we were seated at a table—actually several short tables thrown together—too cramped for our numbers. The tables were pushed so close to the wall—no more than a foot or so away—that the larger men in the family all were forced to sit on the other side of the table, and even the smaller people felt cramped. If the place had only had this tightly packed front room in which to seat us, the poor seating would have been understandable, but the restaurant also had a back room large enough to accommodate us, as well as an outdoor area suitable for a party of our size.
What was merely an uncomfortable situation became obnoxious when, after about 15 minutes, the owner approached us and asked if we could all shift down a little so he could take one of the short tables and give it to someone else. Since we were already squished—and had begun eating the bread, enjoying our drinks, and using the place settings—my boyfriend’s father said a polite but firm ‘no.’ The owner started arguing with us, even sitting himself down at the table (in a chair briefly vacated for a bathroom trip) to persuade us to move. He was getting pretty exercised. Eventually, he stalked away, muttering, ‘I just thought you could help me out.’
After that, my boyfriend’s aunt left the table to talk to the owner, basically telling him that we were there for a special occasion and would appreciate it if he didn’t speak rudely to the birthday boy. He wasn’t impressed. He told her that if she didn’t like it, we could all leave.
We probably should have taken his advice.
Our poor server tried mightily to salvage the evening, but his boss could be heard muttering things about us under his breath whenever he passed our table. On several occasions, he started in with members of our party about how we could sit more compactly if we would shift how we were sitting mid-meal.
Towards the end of the disaster that was dinner, the owner came over one last time and tried to make peace. He soothingly admitted to my boyfriend’s mother that we had all gotten off to a bad start and that he may have been at fault—but could not end it like that. Within 30 seconds of his apology, he followed up with something to the effect of, ‘but if you had just squeezed a bit tighter like I asked you to, we all would have been much happier.…’
When it came time for dessert, my boyfriend asked the server if it would be possible for his parents’ desserts to have candles put in them, and if the rest of us could order dessert, too. The server was midway through taking our dessert orders when the owner pulled him away, shaking his head vigorously. The owner came back to tell us that there were simply too many people waiting for tables and he couldn’t serve us dessert.
Furious, we paid and walked out the door. Performing for the group of people waiting to be seated, the owner called after us in a saccharine voice, ‘Have a wonderful evening,’ to which my boyfriend’s father replied, ‘We’ll never have one here again.’ The owner said, ‘Never come back to my restaurant!’ and slammed the door behind us.”
