Sweet, Sweet Grilled Cheese
“Two women ordered a Bloomin’ Onion. After it was delivered my coworker went over to see how everything was. The lady asked for a cup of the sauce at the bottom of the plate.
‘Ma’am, that is actually fryer grease, not sauce.’
She looked at him and said, ‘I don’t care what it is, just get me a cup of it.’
He went to the back, ladled out a soup cup of fryer grease, and brought it out. The woman seasoned the grease with salt and pepper and went to town. That was probably the most disgusting thing I ever saw working as a server.”
Hold The Everything
“My mate works at McDonald’s. I got a call from him a while ago at like 11 pm. He’d just finished serving a customer, and he said he had to tell someone.
This customer had asked for a Bacon Double Cheeseburger but without the bacon, the cheese, the relish, the burger, or the bread. My friend said ‘… so you don’t want anything?’ The guy replied, ‘No, I want a Bacon Double Cheeseburger, but I don’t want the bacon, the cheese, the relish, the burger, or the bread.’
Apparently, the guy was completely serious. My friend gave him an empty burger box, the guy paid the full price for the burger, took the box and left the restaurant.”
“Is Your Giraffe Milk Fair Trade?”
“Barista here.
A lady regularly asks for a cup of regular coffee with a large spoonful of butter stirred in.
We do breakfast sandwiches on bagels and croissants, and a businessman with a group of his colleagues had ham/egg/cheese, but he wanted it on a chocolate croissant.
I think my favorite incident, though, was a lady that wanted a latte with half nonfat and half soy, a triple shot with one regular shot, one decaf shot, and one half-caff shot, heated to a specific temperature, double-cupped, one Splenda and one Equal stirred into the shots. The works, basically. The guy behind her thought it was as ridiculous as I did, and he loudly asked for a ‘mocha magic-fairy drink’ with one-third goat’s milk, one third cashew milk, and one third giraffe milk, cooled with a chip of ice from a Norwegian glacier and topped with nutmeg and gold flake. Then he said, ‘wait, is your giraffe milk fair trade? Ok never mind then, I’ll just have a cup of coffee.’ He still comes in; I love that guy.”
Happy To Be Sad
“I worked at McDonald’s and this one guy kept asking for a sad meal. Not so happy. Light on the happy. He preferred it to be extra sad. I drew a sad face on his box and omitted the toy. In the toys place, I jotted down a few sad words that are a cacophony to hear…phlegm, cornucopia, moist, larvae, fester, leech, potluck, and porridge. He seemed very pleased.”
“Um…More Oil?”
“Although I’ve never worked at a Subway, I’ll never forget the most nauseating creation that I’ve ever seen assembled there.
While waiting in line for my own meal, I happened to find myself standing behind a young man of about nineteen. He was overweight, though not remarkably so, with an unkempt beard and thick glasses. Judging by the slightly awkward way in which he voiced his order, a passerby might have assumed that he was uncertain of what he wanted between his bread slices. After ordering meatballs (with American ‘cheese’) as his primary ingredient, he went on to detail a rather bizarre combination of garnish:
‘Um… pickles… jalapenos… um… pickles… more pickles… um… banana peppers… um… pickles…’
This continued for several seconds before he finally seemed to be satisfied… but then, the ‘sandwich artist’ assisting him asked if any oil or vinegar was desired.
‘Um… no, just… just oil.’
So, the oil went on, and the young man licked his lips. The sandwich artist asked if he would like anything else.
‘Um… more oil?’
So, the oil went on again, and the young man licked his lips again. The recreation of the event was so perfect, I actually wondered if I was experiencing deja vu. The sandwich artist asked if the young man was satisfied with his order, or if he would like anything else. (She – the sandwich artist – looked a little bit concerned at this point.)
‘Um… more oil?’
Once again, the same tone of voice. This time, though, the sandwich artist offered to keep pouring until the young man asked her to stop. He nodded his understanding, and the oil began flowing once again… and it kept flowing, for several seconds, until the entirety of the young man’s sandwich was drenched. A minute or so later, it had been wrapped and paid for, but by the time the credit card reader had worked its magic, there was a pool of viscous fluid collecting in the young man’s bag.
I wish I could say that the story ends there, but it doesn’t. You see, I knew this young man, and we wound up eating lunch together. I got to watch as he licked his fingers, slurped down his sandwich, and then sucked the remaining oil out of his sandwich bag.”
The Sweetest Of All
“The strangest request! When I worked for Starbucks, I helped open the first drive-thru store in the area so it was a learning process for some customers.
A lady orders in the drive-thru lane an iced venti vanilla latte with 22 sweet n lows.
Me: ’22 sweet n lows, like two two??’
Customer: sigh ‘Yes 22 sweet n lows.’
Me: ‘OK, please pull up.’
Now at the drive-thru, we put the extra milk and sugar in the drinks for the customers when in a cafe they would add it on their own. So, the person working the bar looks at me like for real this lady wants 22 packs of sweet n low in her latte? That’s what she said so that’s what we made her.
The lady pulls up and pays for her drink. I hand it over and tell her to have a nice day. She stops and says, ‘Oh, can I get those sweet n lows now?’ I just looked at her and said that they were already in her drink, boy was she mad!!
She wanted us to hand her 22 packs of sweet n low in the drive-thru so that she could take them home.”
The Legend Of The Beefy Freeze
“I worked at Taco Bell for 4 years. Once I turned 18, I had the privilege of being scheduled closing shifts. One night, a wild group comes through the drive-thru. They order a bunch of $1 burritos and 3 Strawberry Frutista Freezes. One of the guys yells into the speaker that he wants a scoop of beef in his Frutista Freeze. I’m over this shift and this job and say ‘Whatever, sounds good, your total is $X, please pull ahead.’
The closing manager is helping me out with drinks during the post bar close rush and decides to personally hand out the order to this car. The driver is taking the food/drinks and handing it to the passengers, someone from the back seat yells ‘I hope you didn’t forget my beefy freeze!’ My manager replies, ‘We didn’t, but good luck figuring out which one is which.'”
All Of Denny’s Food
“A HUGE guy strolled into the Denny’s I worked at, he could barely squeeze into the booth. He sits across his regular-sized good looking friend and some hot piece the good-looking guy has just picked up while they were out that night. The big dude orders a sampler, a meat lovers skillet, hash browns covered and smothered (cheese, opinions, gravy) a slice of peanut butter pie and a hot fudge brownie. I was in awe, that is a crazy amount of food. He scarfs it down and then proceeds to throw up all over the table and booth. The girl gets sick and runs to the bathroom, the buddy is concerned and horrified as a wave of half-eaten food spills into his lap.
As the restaurant is going bananas, the big dude takes his arm and scrapes the gallons of vomit off the table like a squeegee. He blabbers incoherently until we can make out he’s ordering another sampler. I got him one more because I like to watch the world burn. The friend left a big tip and tipped the busboy. I don’t think the girl came back.”
She Wanted Chicken That Was Soft As Butter
“I waited tables at a Red Lobster a while back… every Sunday afternoon a dozen or so members of the Red Hat Society would come squat at our biggest table for about 4 hours. These women were absolutely horrible. From what I understand the RHS is about being uninhibited as you get older, and not worrying about what people think of you. I think the ones in that area interpreted it as ‘I’m old, you have to deal with my crap, I’m going to make your life suck, tough cookies.’
Anyway, one of them had ill-fitting false teeth and couldn’t chew literally anything. Every Sunday she’d come in and order the chicken finger meal, but she wanted it fried just enough to cook the breading, then microwaved to cook the chicken, then thrown in the steamer to make the entire meal soggy to the point of falling apart.
Every Sunday she’d send it back over and over because ‘it’s too tough, it’s like chewing rubber. Just make it so it’s edible and we’ll be fine.’
We were finally able to convince our manager that it was literally impossible to get it soft enough for this hag to chew, and one week he refused to remake it a third time. I’ve never seen such a snarling, vicious human being in my life. She screamed at every employee she could find for twenty minutes before finally being told that the police were going to remove her from the building if she wouldn’t leave on her own.”
Half And Half
“I work at McDonald’s and I had a woman order a McChicken but with the bun and the chicken separate. She then ordered her fries…half-cut. As in, take a knife, cut them in half. My friend just gave her a look like, ‘what in the heck are you talking about’ and went to cook up the order while I rang the lady up.
It was lucky she only wanted a small, but still. I ended up leaving one fry uncut just to mess with her, but she didn’t come complaining.
I actually did find her trying to cut the chicken in half with a plastic knife she brought from home and eat it without the bun.
That’s the first weird thing I’ve seen at McDonald’s since working there, honestly.”
Latte, Hold The Latte
“One of my friends in high school was Mormon, and her family was really, really weird. She wasn’t that into it but her mom and stepdad were over the top with their religion.
I went to the mall with them one time and her mom asks if we want Starbucks. Heck yeah, I’m always down for frou-frou drinks, and especially when I’m not paying for it. So she and I order our Frappes or whatever and her mom steps up to give her order. Now, apparently Mormons aren’t supposed to drink coffee/caffeine, so her mom asks for a latte, no sugar, extra foam, no coffee. It stumped the barista and after a couple minutes of hesitation, she clarified that her mom just wanted a cup of steamed milk. They didn’t have anything in their system at the time for just a cup of milk, so she ended up paying like $4 for a cup of steamed milk.”
That Napkin Holds No Nutritional Value
“Worked at DQ for a few summers, had one lady come in and order caramel on a napkin. She then proceeded to eat the napkin on her way out. Interesting job that was.”
Oh Olive Garden
“Ahhh, Olive Garden.
I worked there for a year. We had 3 old women come in. Each ordered a water…
One water from the tap with round ice.
One water purified with ice crushed like Sonic.
One water from the soda machine, no ice.
After being explained about having only one type of ice and only water from the fountain or bottled, they returned their waters 3 times before the poor waiter called them three old witches and left.
This same guy had one old lady come in twice every week, order one chicken gnocchi and water, and whisper to him ‘I hid your tip in the soup so the bus boy wouldn’t take it.’ Sure enough, 18 or so cents, in the soup.
It was fun there.”
At Least It Was A Small Soda
“My first job was working at Subway. Deaf people used to come to our store on a surprisingly regular basis. One day a particularly heavy set deaf lady came in and ordered a sandwich.
She looked at me and said. ‘Footlong. White bread.’
I politely asked what kind of sandwich she would like.
‘Mayo.’
So I put some mayo on the sandwich and looked at her.
‘More.’ She said.
I put more on.
‘More.’ She said again.
So, I added a bunch more. There was about a quarter inch mayo layer at this point. I looked at her again.
‘Salt and pepper.’ She demanded.
I salt and peppered away.
‘More.’ She demanded once more.
I covered that ‘sandwich’ in salt and pepper and asked her if she wanted anything else.
‘Soda.’ She said.
And that was it. Big, deaf lady ordered a mayo sandwich with salt and pepper and a small fountain drink. Freaking disgusting.”
All Of The Onions
“I was working at Papa Johns as a driver but I took orders and made pizzas too.
A guy calls asking what the max amount of onions I can put on a pizza is. He’s unsatisfied when I tell him 3x is the max, asks for a hookup and promises a big tip to the driver. Since I’ll be making and delivering it, I promised I’ll ‘mess it all up with onions.’ There were so many onions on that pizza is was absurd and gross.
Dude was ecstatic when he opened the box and tipped me $15.”
Ever Heard Of Tums?
“I worked at a national pizza chain for a while as a manager. We used to get this guy who would order all the time. He was lactose intolerant so couldn’t have cheese, and had severe heartburn when he ate red sauce. He would order an XL Supreme with no sauce and no cheese. I told the guy if I did that, the toppings would just fly all over the box but he didn’t care. We ended up just baking the dough separate from the toppings and put the toppings in a small wing box on the side for him. Guy said no other pizza place would do that for him and he turned out to be a great repeat customer who always tipped well.”
Blended Drinks Are Hard To Understand
“I work at McDonald’s. A customer asked for a ‘hot frappuccino’ and got visibly angry when told them that hot frappes don’t exist. One time during the dead of winter a woman ordered a smoothie and asked for it to be ‘not too cold.’ Another time a guy tried to order a smoothie with no ice. I don’t know what it is about blended drinks that are so difficult for people to understand.”
One For Me, One For The Dog
“I worked at Chick-Fil-A in high school. One day, I was working in the drive-thru window when a guy came through with his dog. As I was handing him his order, he asked if he could get a dog treat for his dog (we kept a jar of dog treats by the window). We hand the guy a dog treat, he promptly puts in his mouth, bites it in half, gives half to the dog, and starts chewing on the other half. He then promptly drives away without a word.”
Wasting Paper
“I worked last night and there was this strange guy. He was just not normal – you know what kind of person I mean. Came up to me and said, ‘Hey. I need 15 Cheeseburgers and 8 Sweet and Sour sauces.’ As I was putting them into the bag he told me, ‘Put each Cheeseburger into a single bag and do the same with the sauce.’ I asked the manager if it was okay to do that. Told me to do it. Guy walked out with 23 McDonalds bags. Still confused he wasn’t wasted.”
Sunny Side Up
“I worked at a diner and some certain breed of folks would call in and explain in detail that they wanted their pizza well done, but not too crispy…so you mean regular? Not too mushy and not too firm, so you mean you want it exactly as it comes normally?
One girl, when I asked how she wanted her eggs cooked, actually said ‘I want, like… the two bubble things, you know? To be like not like really squishy.’ I was stunned and said, ‘You mean the yolks?’ She was an adult.”
Pizza Weirdos
“I worked at Hungry Howie’s Pizza for a long long time and have gotten so many weird ones.
One guy ordered extra extra extra sauce every time, to the point where we couldn’t get it out of the pan without spilling scalding hot sauce everywhere.
One guy always asked for his pizza to be run through the oven THREE TIMES to where it came out looking like a smoldering chunk of coal. He would also fly into a fit of rage when asked, ‘Are you sure?’ ‘YES!’ he would scream.
One lady always ordered a sausage pizza with a cinnamon-flavored crust. Gross.
We also had a lady that would order a chef salad and then ask us to place it under the heat lamps to warm it up until she got there.”
She Regularly Bought Uncooked Chicken
“I worked at McDonald’s years ago. A woman said she wanted 3 bags of uncooked chicken nuggets. I started to tell her no, but my manager took over on the drive-thru microphone and told her we could do that, and told her to pull up to the window. I chatted with her and my manager about it. Apparently, she had an extremely picky son, and McD’s chicken nuggets were basically the only thing he’d willingly eat. This was apparently a regular thing, and my manager knew her by name. Still surprised we did that, with all the potential liability.”
Seasoned With Pepsi
“Worked at a sub shop that also sold chicken fingers and fries. Once had a guy who always came in and ordered chicken fingers and fries on his cheesesteak. The worst part though, he always asked us to put a little bit of Pepsi on the grill and grill his steak in that little puddle.
I’m pretty sure he was always super high, but he loved it.”
Cramming In All Of The Calories
“I worked at Culvers during undergrad. All the burgers come plain, but guests have the choice of condiments. This guy walked in with his girlfriend. He said, ‘I want a triple with everything.’ A single patty is three ounces of beef. ‘I want a piece of each kind of cheese between each patty.’ We had American, Swiss, and cheddar. ‘I want everything on it, but make sure you give me like, this much mayo.’ He held his fingers about half an inch apart. Then he orders a large cheese curd – which alone is like 1,000 calories – and a drink. Then he ordered the same thing for his girlfriend. She asked for no mayo.”
Load It Up
“I worked at a pizza place and someone once ordered every topping. We asked if he meant supreme, but no, he wanted literally every single topping we had.
This includes chicken, pepperoni, ham, steak, salami, beef meatballs, bacon, sausage, crumble sausage, anchovies, tomatoes, green and black olives, red and white onions, bell, jalapeño, and banana peppers, mushrooms, feta cheese, cheddar cheese, and freaking pineapple. Toppings alone were about 4 inches thick and it cost about $30 for one large pizza. The guy ended up scraping it all off anyway.”