There are some servers who are so bad at their job, they give everyone else in their profession a bad name. These unfortunate diners got stuck with some of the worst servers imaginable. The rudeness of these waiters will take your breath away.
He Declared That The Drink Was “Fine”
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“Some friends and I stopped at a brewpub/restaurant one night after band practice. It was about an hour before closing time and the place was almost deserted. We sat at a table in the bar, and a waitress took our drink order.
One of my friends ordered a G&T. When the waitress brought it, he took a sip and discovered the tonic was completely flat. Ugh. He told the waitress, and she took the drink back to the bar.
She returned a minute later, put his drink back on the table and said, ‘The bartender says it’s fine.’
‘What?’
‘It’s fine the way it is.’
‘He’s not going to replace it?’
‘No.’
So we left.
The place was out of business a few days later. I’m pretty sure all the staff knew they were out of a job and had a bad attitude.”
Just Because She Looks Young, That’s No Reason To Treat Her Like A Child
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“I’m a small woman and I look younger than I am.
Years and years ago, I went to lunch with a bunch of business colleagues. We were all dressed in dress clothes (if I recall correctly, I was actually wearing a suit) and my hair, nails, and makeup were all on point.
When we sat down, I ordered coffee. The waitress looked at me and said, ‘Oh, you drink coffee?? How adorable!’ Like I was a 10-year-old.
I just looked at her and said, ‘Yeah, I drink coffee. Do you?’
When she returned to the table with our coffee and menus, she put a children’s menu in front of me with a smirk and a, ‘Here you go, dear.’
She continued to treat me like a child throughout the entire meal.
When it came time to pay, I left her a ten cent tip and a note, ‘Little kids don’t tip well. Next time, treat me like an adult.'”
She Acted Like She Had Better Things To Do Than Wait On Their Table
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“My friends and I went to a restaurant with six people. This restaurant is kind of an ‘art scene’ restaurant, but defiantly portrays itself, and prices itself, as a gourmet restaurant. The place was not extremely busy, probably 60-70% to max capacity on a Friday night. Our waitress came by to take our drink orders and we ordered. 20 minutes later, we get our drinks. That’s not a huge deal, but somewhat confusing considering they weren’t that busy, but we let it slide. She took our orders once she delivered the drinks and it was all typical stuff: an appetizer and entrees for everyone. The appetizer, which was the price of a full meal, was supposed to be gourmet crackers and cheese, but was literally just club crackers and frozen, yes frozen, cheese. On top of that, she didn’t even bring out the entire appetizer and we had to ask for it. Then, after 30 minutes, we get ONE plate out of SIX and she just sat it in front of one of our guests. After 10 minutes of the food just getting cold in front of him, we insisted he just go ahead and eat. It took 45 minutes until we got the rest of the food and one of the orders was extremely incorrect. One of the orders didn’t even have all the listed ingredients in it. It was a cheesesteak without cheese. She asked to have her order fixed the right way and the waitress gave her this snarky look and said, ‘Maybe you should go to drive-thru next time.’ Everyone was shocked and offended by her remark. We had waited on our food for a little under two hours and she was getting mad at US. So I did what I thought was the most appropriate; I wrote, ‘DRIVE-THRU’ in place of her tip.”
His Wife Could Have Really Gotten Hurt, But The Manager Just Acted Like It Was Nothing
“I went to a wing joint that was a bar/restaurant with plenty of TVs for sports to watch a Stanley Cup playoff game. I’m there with 5-10 people all eating appetizers or entrees and drinking. My wife was drinking when she felt something funny go down, and she still had a piece in her mouth. She took it out, and it was a piece of glass. We talk to the manager and tell him that there was glass in her glass (impossible to see by the way), and he offers to replace her beer. I then try and explain that she swallowed glass and after some talking and comments from him like, ‘You’ll be fine,’ (to which my wife replied, ‘Have you ever swallowed glass?’) we managed to get him to comp our meals and drinks (just what we ordered, not my friends, mind you). He acted like we should be grateful for him for getting a free meal after my wife swallowed glass. My wife was furious at the manager who was completely unresponsive to any complaints, and this totally ruined what turned out to be a great hockey game.
Within a couple of days of all of this happening, my wife started having some slight stomach pains that weren’t going away. I wasn’t sure if it was related to the glass so we went to doctors to be sure. After they weren’t sure what it was, she told the doc about the glass incident and they did a few more tests. They concluded that she passed the glass and on its way out, it probably made a minor cut in her intestines. Awesome. The good news was that it would just take some time to heal, and nothing extra was needed. I can’t stand the fact that my wife had to go through some very uncomfortable tests because this restaurant had pieces of glass in their cup and the manager was extremely unapologetic.
After all of this, I went back to the restaurant and tried to explain to the manager how much crap he put us through and he still tried to pass it off as inconsequential. I proceeded to tell him to screw off and that I nor anyone I knew would ever come to his restaurant again.
This wasn’t the first time I had been given grief from the manager either, but the other offenses were minor compared to this. And the worst part is that all of the wait staff there are great, and they realize that they have one of the worst managers ever. The wait staff has apologized to me for their crappy manager in the past.“
Why Some Servers Think Arguing With Customers Is A Good Idea, We’ll Never Understand
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“I was out on a double date with the woman who would become my wife and another couple. My order alone was not simple, but the other girl’s order was pretty complex. The waiter was just listening and going, ‘Uh huh,’ after every few words.
I said, ‘Don’t you think you might want to write this down?’
He replied, ‘Nah, I’ve got it.’ Well, surprisingly enough, he didn’t have it. He brought me a dish completely unrelated to what I ordered.
‘This isn’t what I ordered.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘No, it isn’t. Perhaps you would know what I ordered if you’d written it down.’
By the time my order was corrected, my pre-wife and friends had already finished their meals. Then he brought the bill, which included being charged for the original, incorrect order.
‘Go get your manager.’
‘Why?’
‘Because this is ridiculous. You’re charging me for my order and the incorrect order.’
The manager came over and apologies profusely. He tells the waiter to create another ticket without the incorrect order and offers me some gift certificates ($30 worth, not bad) for the inconvenience. The waiter brought me the new ticket and I noticed there’s an 18% automatic gratuity tacked on. I looked at the previous, incorrect ticket…and there was no automatic gratuity. In other words, this jerk waiter tagged on a tip, hoping I wouldn’t notice because he sure as heck wasn’t getting one from me. I pointed it out to the manager and the look on his face said everything. He took the ticket from me and said, ‘Dinner’s on me, sir, enjoy your evening.’ I’m pretty sure somebody got fired.”
It’s Unbelievable How Long She Made Their Meal Last, All Because She Was Chatting Up The Bartender
“My now-wife and I went to a large chain burger place to get lunch before she had to go to work. She works 2nd shift and has to be in around 3 so we’ve done this a lot and we always give ourselves plenty of time to sit down and eat before she has to leave. We also understand if we’re running late, it’s our fault and not the server’s…99% of the time.
On this day, the place is dead. There are maybe two other tables with 2-4 people when we sit down and I notice at least 2 servers working. I’ve never worked in food service before, but that sounds like a really good server to customer ratio. We’re seated as soon as we walk in the door at a table right across from the bar. The waitress comes up after a bit and takes our drink orders and we tell her we’re ready to order food, too, because we always get the same thing. She says she has to grab our drinks before she takes our order, but says she’ll be back soon. Okay, whatever, the bar is right in front of me it won’t take long. Wrong. Our waitress proceeds to go to the bar and chat with the bartender for about 10 minutes. I’m not sure if she didn’t realize we could see her or just didn’t care. I just chalk it up to it being a slow day and maybe she just forgot about our drinks. It happens.
She finally comes back with our drinks and just turns around to walk away. I stop her and say we’re ready to order. I don’t remind her that we already told her that because I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was just having a bad day. So we order and, anticipating that it will be some time before she comes back, ask for refills of our drinks.
Our food comes out, but it’s not our waitress who brought it, it’s the hostess who first sat us. That’s kind of abnormal for this restaurant. Every time we’ve ever been, our server has brought our food save for the rare occasions when it’s ridiculously busy. Which it wasn’t. We tell the hostess we’re waiting for refills on our drinks and she says she’ll grab our waitress. She finally comes back and says, ‘Well, you never asked for refills but I guess I could get them now.’ This is where I stop giving her the benefit of the doubt. She clearly just didn’t care. Frustrating but, again, whatever. When she comes back with the drinks, we’re almost done with our food and ask for the check. I mention that we’re kind of in a hurry (basically a lie, but I worried that we would be if she kept up her pace) so if she could bring it right away that would be great. I’ve tried to be polite, saying please and thank you and smiling and everything even though the scowl on our waitress’s face gives the impression that she could kill a puppy and not even bat an eye. She doesn’t say sure or okay or anything, she just kind of rolls her eyes and walks away. We finish our meal and still no check. Then we finish our drinks and still no check. I glance up to the bar (where the register is) and I see our waitress standing there, holding our check in her hand, talking to the bartender. We watch her for about 15 more minutes (it’s been about 30 since we first asked for the check) and then my wife and I start to say things like, ‘I wonder if something’s wrong, our check is taking forever,’ and ‘I really hope you’re not late for work because we can’t seem to get the check.’
I guess she hears us because she comes over, literally tosses it on the table and says ‘I forgot.’ I have my debit card in my hand waiting to pay and I try to hand it out to her and, of course, she just walks away.
So I get up with the check and the card and catch up with her and say, ‘We’re in a hurry, can you please take care of this for us now?’ She snatches it out of my hand and storms off, in the opposite direction of the register. She gets back to the register a few minutes later and I watch her swipe the card and print out the receipt. Cue another 20 minutes of watching her chat up the bartender right in front of me. At this point, I’m over it. My wife and I get up and I walk up to the bar to confront the waitress. I tell her we’ve been waiting to leave and been watching her ignore us, blah blah blah. She just rolls her eyes and says she forgot and reaches out her hand to give me the card and the receipt. I have to lean across the bar to take it because she couldn’t be bothered to take one step closer.
So right in front of her, I sign the check, put a big 0 in the tip space, and drop it on the bar. She picks it up and, in a huff complains, ‘You didn’t leave a tip!’
I look her straight in the eye and say, ‘I forgot,’ before I walk out. By the way, I handed the hostess a few bucks (about 20% of the bill) on the way to the door. She deserves something at least.”
Their Party Made Her Grief Just That Much Harder To Bear
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“We took my wife’s father out for his birthday dinner one night. He chose the Olive Garden, so my parents and the in-laws met us there and we were seated at a big round table in the back of the restaurant. Our waitress came bouncing up and introduced herself, asked a few questions, and figured out that it was Bill’s birthday. His 60th birthday. I noticed that she seemed to pause when she heard this, but she took drink orders and off she went.
Dinner progressed, but at some point, she came back and dropped a bomb: her own father had just died two weeks prior, at age 60. We were all a little flabbergasted, but we offered our condolences and she turned it around a bit by reminding us all how precious we should be to each other, blah blah.
Not 5 minutes later she came back and proceeded to fill us in on HOW he died: battling aggressive cancer for a year, he died a long, slow, painful death. Very sad. Again, birthday dinner and all, we managed to console her a little and ordered desserts.
Desserts come out, and she brings an extra-happy surprise: a printout of an email that her father sent her. You see, during his time in hospice, he sent her multiple emails daily telling her that he loved her, writing poetry and inspirationals. She saved them, leaving them all unread to go through after he passed. She proceeded to read this poem to us, which was very sweet I’m sure, but I could barely hear it over the blood pounding in my ears out of sheer embarrassment. I was staring at my plate by this point; I can honestly say it was the most embarrassed I have been since middle school.
As she had brought out the desserts, a bus/run guy had come through to clear a booth from the now empty section of the restaurant. About two lines into the poem, he stood up, looks over at her and said, ‘You’re kidding.’ I glanced over at him and he gave me the most sincere, ‘Oh Jesus, I am SO sorry,’ look.
She finished the poem, we paid up, left a decent enough tip (probably around 20% because the service–grief aside–was good), and went home.
The next day, my wife gets a call from a manager. He asks if we had had any issues with our waitress the night before, and my wife very kindly explained that the woman was obviously still grieving and just happened to get a table that rang her like a gong. He explained that it was her first shift back since taking time off to grieve and that we were her first table of the night.
The manager refunded the meal to us and sent us a $50 gift card.”
The Waiter Kept Complaining To The Host About Them
“My father and mother went to a popular Chinese restaurant in DC one Friday night in the ’80s. This was a fancier-style place; my dad was in his Naval Officer’s uniform and my mom was in a nice dress. When they went in, the host showed a bit of disdain for my parents and sat other people for almost 20 minutes before finally getting them a table. When they got the table, it was a cramped table in the corner next to the kitchen. The waiter that took care of them also was pretty rude and dismissive throughout the night.
At the end of the night, they got their leftovers to go, and my dad paid the bill. My dad gave him a decent tip, even with the crappy service – 15%. My parents, however, were staying at the table and finishing their drinks. Meanwhile, he saw the waiter talking with the host, and gesturing angrily at the bill. The host came over and asked if there was something wrong with the service. My dad told him that the service was not good, but felt that he tipped decently regardless. The host explained ‘sweetly’ that it was customary to tip 20% at the minimum in their restaurant. My dad offered to change the tip on the bill and reached for the credit card slip. The host jerked the slip back, and said that would not be necessary, and left.
My dad saw the host go back and argue with the waiter. He then gestured towards them, and my dad guessed that they were going to try and take the leftovers back. My dad palmed the fork from the table and waited to see what happened. The waiter walked by and leaned towards the table, and my dad growled, ‘Try it, and you’ll walk away with a limp and four holes in your hand.’ The waiter made a quick about-turn from the table, and my parents left a few minutes later.”
The Bar-Back Really Thought He Could Take Him
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“Once, when I lived in Orlando, FL, my friends and I had gone to a bar to celebrate having completed bartending academy (poetic, if you ask me), and over the course of 6 hours had rung up about a $350 tab. There were four of us, and my three friends all handled the bill one way– they just put it all on a card then added a (roughly) 20% tip after they signed. I, on the other hand, used a card as well but had been tipping the bartender on a PER DRINK basis all night, and about 20 minutes before we left had slid her a $10 tip and a ‘Thanks for taking care of us tonight.’ So, given that I had tipped in cash WELL in excess of my share of that $350, when I got my card and bill back for the actual price of the drinks, I just drew a happy face in the ‘tip’ section, and wrote, ‘Thank you again.’
So, my friends and I are quite wasted and stagger out to the parking lot (don’t worry all your MADD mothers and brothers, we had a designated driver). As we’re chilling out and having a smoke, I hear this huge engine on what can only be described as a true-to-life monster truck roaring through the parking lot, and it slammed to a stop in front of us. Out of it steps a, I kid you not, 5’4″ inch guy in backwards hat, who had been bar-backing. Apparently, he was the one that picked up the bill when I left, and he had run out and got in the truck to CHASE US DOWN, but had seen us still in the parking lot. So, he starts running his clap-trap about me being cheap, all the while poking me in my chest.
At this point, I feel compelled to mention that I’m 6’1, and 300lbs of West Virginia cattle…and I was pretty toasted. So my patience and efforts to explain where the confusion had happened ran out about the third time his pencil-thin little finger popped me in the sternum. In the middle of one of his sentences, I put my hand on his face and said something along the lines of, ‘If baby wants to talk, he needs to talk like an adult.’ I then slapped him.
So, yeah, he took a swing at me. He caught my shoulder, and I cracked him back in the jaw. He hit the ground, and my friends pulled me over and stuffed me in the car, and we headed home.
So, in conclusion, tip your bartenders well, and make sure you hand the bill TO THEM after you sign it, otherwise son-of-Bigfoot might poke you in the sternum.”
He Barely Paid Them Any Attention, Then Expected A Stellar Tip
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“About 8-9 years ago in Phoenix/Scottsdale, I was out to dinner with my wife at a nice restaurant. It was after the lunchtime business crowd, around 2:30, so the place was pretty empty.
We had a nice relaxing lunch and the service was bordering on below average, with a real smart-mouthed waiter who had an attitude. He was very slow in getting our order, delivering our food, and trying to find him to pay the bill was very difficult. We spent 15-20 minutes more in there than we should have because of how slow he was. Still, it was a nice day in the spring and we were just enjoying being there.
When we finally did track him down to get the bill, his attitude stopped, he became all friendly, almost too friendly. It came across as completely insincere, think Eddie Haskel from Leave It To Beaver. He took pleasure in announcing, ‘Your bill comes to $65.’ That behavior irked me, because I don’t want other people to hear what we were paying. The place wasn’t that full, but still…
So I look at the check, and it was, as he said, $65. So I pulled out $100 to lay in the leather wallet containing the bill.
‘And you are paying with a $100 dollar bill, sir…would you like your change?’ he announced to the restaurant.
At that point, I leaned over to him and said something along the lines of, ‘Of course I would like my change. Do you really think that your service was anywhere near the range of a 50%+ tip? We had to ask someone else to track you down at least once to get some service. And you want to know if I want my change?’
Then he became very indignant and huffed off to grab our change. When he came back, I felt like leaving no tip, but that’s not how I roll. but I didn’t leave a good tip either, only about $4.”
“The Look On Her Face As We Walked Out The Door Was Priceless”
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“Me and about 5 or 6 of my friends went to Denny’s after a concert one night and we all ordered food. The service was fair (not good, not bad) and the food was good. At the end of our meal, we all paid and were getting ready to leave. Before we did, we all put our tips on the table. It was a good tip, something like 30% – 40%. So we all were getting up from the table and the waitress came over and said, in a pretty smug way, ‘I know a tip is not mandatory, but you guys could leave something.’
We all kinda took a look at each other and then I said, ‘Yeah, you’re right. A tip isn’t mandatory.’ And then went back to the table and picked up the money.
The look on her face was priceless as we walked out the door.”
Her Attitude Was Completely Unnecessary, So She Deserved What She Got
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“I was at a restaurant in Reno with some friends of mine. We had just hitchhiked into town. We were all moderately ‘weird’ looking, had huge packs on, piercings and tattoos, brown/black clothing, and probably didn’t look like the cleanest people in the world. We ordered a huge, huge meal to celebrate getting into town and meeting up with a certain friend of ours. The waitress was an older lady who was fairly friendly, topped off our coffee consistently, and got our food to us promptly. We finished off our meal, left the money on the table, plus a pretty healthy tip, and headed outside for a smoke. As we were sitting there right outside the restaurant the waitress came outside and said, ‘Come on guys, you gotta pay the bill now…’ Completely condescending. She assumed we didn’t even pay. My boyfriend promptly walked inside, pointed to the table, picked up the money we left and brought it to her. He asked again how much the bill was and counted it out so she could see him put the tip back in his pocket.”
