When people go to restaurants, they go for a positive experience. There is nothing better than sitting back, relaxing, and taking a night off from cooking to treat yourself. However, a great dining experience can quickly turn sour if you get stuck with bad restaurant staff! From crummy customer service to wretched wait staff, these customers share the restaurant experiences that made them livid. Content has been edited for clarity.
Crummy Customer Service
“I lived in Europe, and I had a work trip with some colleagues to Washington DC. The day we arrived, two of us went out for an early dinner, probably around five in the afternoon. The hotel clerk raved about a barbecue restaurant near the hotel, so we went there for dinner. When we pulled into the parking lot, the smell of food was extremely enticing. We were salivating by the time we walked into the restaurant!
There were perhaps five of the thirty tables full of customers eating, two dirty tables, and several staff members near the kitchen chatting. We made eye contact, smiled, and waited at the front at the empty hostess station for several minutes. As soon as I walked around the station to approach the staff, a 20-something-year-old girl peeled herself off of the wall, rolled her eyes at her companions, and came to help us. The waitress silently grabbed two menus and walked away. My companion and I shrugged and followed her. She sat us at the door by the kitchen at one of the dirty tables and walked away. She didn’t ask about our drink order. We thought perhaps she walked away to get a tray to remove the dishes. Nope, she just walked off.
After listening to the staff chatter and laugh, my companion got up and moved the dishes to the other dirty table. Then the girl came back.
‘Do you know what you want?’ the girl asked with an attitude.
‘Um, yes,’ I replied, ‘Can we please have a clean table?’
The girl rolled her eyes again and walked away. She came back with a spray bottle and a cloth and proceeded to spray the table and overspray us in the process, and left once more. She still didn’t ask about our drink order.
My colleagues and I had just flown for hours and had gone backward in time nine hours. We were jetlagged, exhausted, and starving. Frankly, we were too apathetic to leave. And we heard wonderful stories about the restaurant’s food.
The girl came back, and she finally asked what we wanted to drink.
My colleague and I replied, ‘Just water, please.’
As the waitress turned to walk away, I interrupted, ‘Wait! We know what food we want, too.’
The waitress sighed and took our food orders.
Granted, the food was excellent, but the service was terrible.
I asked the waitress to speak to a manager at the end of our meal, and she replied, ‘He isn’t here.’
Okay, sure he wasn’t. My colleagues and I were envious of the other tables with nicer, friendlier staff.
When we returned to the hotel, I explained to the desk clerk, ‘The food at the restaurant was excellent, but the service was terrible!’
The desk clerk replied, ‘Oh yeah, you should have probably called in your order to go. Their service can be poor sometimes.’
My colleagues and I had to try our best to not let our restaurant experience set the tone for the rest of our trip.”
Ritzy Restaurant Regrets
“Every year, my wife and I vacation to the same area in Florida on the Gulf Coast. The area is fairly ritzy, and Teslas, Range Rovers, and Lexus are the vehicles of choice.
When we vacation, we rent a condo on the beach and relax for two weeks. Every night of our stay, we choose to eat at a different restaurant. Most of the time, the restaurants we visited were magnificent. The restaurants we enjoyed most, we would visit again the following year. One certain restaurant became a favorite, and we saved it for the last night of our stay.
At this restaurant, my wife and I always had great meals and excellent service. However, one night our opinion of the restaurant changed. On this particular night, my mother and aunt came down to Florida with us and accompanied my wife and me to the restaurant.
To start, my wife and I didn’t drink, nor did my mother or aunt.
When we told our waiter, ‘We’ll take four glasses of water,’ the entire table watched his expression change.
All the waiter saw was four women at the table with no drinks, so he figured his money was going to go out of the window. This was a bad assumption on the waiter’s part, as my father taught me to always tip well.
We could hear the waiter at the other tables telling guests the specials and complimenting them on their choices, but he hadn’t even taken our tables orders yet.
We considered leaving the restaurant, but we wanted my mother to experience the amazing food they had to offer. The waiter continued to be rude and ignored our table for the remainder of the night.
Tables with people who had ordered mixed drinks or who were male diners received vastly more attention, while we practically had to stand on our chairs and whistle for service. Once our meals came, they were great as usual, but I couldn’t get over how poor the waiter treated us. He passed judgment on our table for something as petty as our drink order! It was unbelievable.
Because we visited the restaurant year after year, I knew they were capable of better service. I emailed the restaurant the next day, and I almost immediately received a call back from the owner.
The owner asked, ‘What condominium are you staying in? I would like to bring you something to make up for your poor experience.’
Then, the owner stopped by and gave us a gift card to the restaurant with a generous amount of money on it.
The owner told us, ‘I would love for you to come back and try the restaurant again. I know we can make it right for you.’
My wife and I went back to the restaurant when we visited the next year. We had another exceptional experience.”
“The Memory Makes My Blood Boil”
“About a decade ago, I had a terrible experience at a restaurant. I was a regular at the establishment, so I was appalled about being treated so poorly. The craziest part? I had even worked at the restaurant for a couple of nights before my negative experience, so I knew the night chef and day shift manager.
I knew a majority of the staff members, except for one waitress who began working at the restaurant years later. I dined at the restaurant for over a year while the waitress was working, and we didn’t have any issues.
One night, I went to the restaurant for an early breakfast around two in the morning. The restaurant was open twenty-four hours, and I hadn’t eaten all day. When I finished my food, I was ready to order my usual hot chocolate.
The waitress was taking her fifteen-minute break behind the supply counter, so I told her, ‘Hey, no rush. But whenever you are done with your break, do you mind grabbing me a hot chocolate?’
The waitress screamed back, ‘You aren’t allowed behind the counter! Leave!’
Her facial expression was extremely aggressive, as was her tone.
When the waitress was done with her break, she brought the hot chocolate to my table as if she had more important things to be doing.
I even told her, ‘Thank you,’ but I didn’t get a response back.
The waitress must have had some kind of attitude and aggression problem. At this point, her face was bright red. I was honestly offended. Instead of being polite, I was treated like someone who had just committed a crime.
I decided to protect my dignity, so I told the waitress, ‘If you speak to me poorly again, I am going to make a complaint.’
The waitress rolled her eyes and walked away. At this point, I wasn’t going to tip her.
As I was waiting to receive my check, I asked the waitress as she walked by, ‘How long will it take for you to bring the check?’
The waitress angrily replied, ‘Do you expect me to be able to read your mind or something?’
After this, our discussion turned into a brief shouting match.
The waitress ran downstairs shouting at the chefs, ‘My life is in danger up here! Someone help!’
Then, the waitress returned with the chef. She shouted several rude things at me and began walking threateningly toward me. Every time I tried to get a word in, she continued to scream hysterically as if I assaulted her.
The next day, I went back and told the manager from the day shift what happened. He offered me an apology, which I declined.
‘It’s not your fault for her actions,’ I explained, ‘You weren’t even there when it happened.’
The manager assured me the waitress wouldn’t treat me poorly again, and I held him to his word. However, I never went back because the waitress would try to defame me in front of other customers and act like a victim.
After years of frustration, I took my digital camera with me to have a drink there and hope to record her on video if she messed with me again. Turned out she left a year earlier.
The memory of it makes my blood boil to this day.”
The New York Experience
“One time, a friend and I were in Midtown Manhattan, and we decided to have lunch in a hotel’s restaurant.
We were seated, and the waiter came over and explained, ‘I am very busy at the moment, so don’t take too long looking over the menus.’
The place was half empty, and the waiter’s attitude should have been the first clue to leave. My friend was okay with the waiter’s statement, but I didn’t like it at all.
When I looked at our table, I noticed I had no place setting, while my friend and the other tables in the restaurant did.
When the waiter came back to our table, I asked, ‘May I please have a setting?’
He responded, ‘You don’t need one, you don’t have food yet.’
Then, the waiter proceeded to drop our glasses of water on the table.
My glass cracked, but the waiter told me, ‘Just turn the glass around and use the other side instead.’
At this point, I was ready to leave, but my friend said we should call the manager over instead. So, we did.
The manager came to our table, took our order, and changed my glass. Still, we didn’t receive an apology. He brought us our food, but I still didn’t have a fork to use.
When I got up and took silverware from another table, the waiter came over and took it back, saying, ‘Nope. You can’t use those. I’ll bring you a different one.’
He never brought over different silverware afterward. A woman at another table had to come over and give me silverware.
She shook her head and said, ‘Wow, it seems like you’re getting the real New York experience today.’
I wanted to leave. Really. But my friend wanted to stay. While we were eating, our waiter put the bill on the table and expected us to pay right then.
Now, my friend was finally annoyed.
She gave the waiter her card and said, ‘You know, you’re being rude.’
I didn’t want to pay, but since we ate, my friend insisted we pay.
As we were leaving, she placed a single coin on the table as the tip to show our displeasure for our dining experience. Then, we walked out.
The waiter then came after us and threw the coin at my friend’s head.
Ah, good times.”
“We Left A Single Coin On The Table”
“This incident happened in the early nineties. At the time, my boyfriend was West Indian, and we had just purchased a home in Toronto.
One of our favorite things to do was check out different restaurants in the area. We enjoyed going out for a nice meal a couple of times each week. One Saturday night, we decided to try an Italian restaurant located on Queen Street East. We had heard good things about the restaurant, so we decided to try it out.
We made reservations, and upon arrival, we had to wait fifteen minutes before being seated. Neither of us took offense, as it was a busy night, and being a few minutes late wasn’t a big deal.
The hostess finally sat us at a table right beside the kitchen, which we weren’t crazy about. But again, it was very busy, so we were okay with the location of our table. However, minutes passed and nobody came by to take our orders. We watched as a table of people came in after we did have their orders taken, yet nobody was going to take ours.
My boyfriend stood up, tapped the server lightly on the shoulder, and asked, ‘Can we place our food and drink order? We have been waiting here for a while. If you’re busy, no rush.’
Since the server was practically cornered, he took our orders. We waited and waited, then finally our food arrived. At this point, we had already been at the restaurant for an hour. We would have left, but we were hungry and it was getting late. If we decided to leave the restaurant, we would have likely had trouble finding somewhere else to go.
The final glory was when we were eating, a waiter walked out of the kitchen and dropped an entire plate of food on my boyfriend’s head with no apology or no offer of compensation.
Finally, a lightbulb went off in my head. The restaurant was discriminatory against my boyfriend. I was welcomed there, but he was not. I was furious, but I didn’t say a word to my boyfriend, as he probably had it figured out before I did.
When we paid the bill, we left a single coin on the table.
I wrote on the check, ‘We just moved to this neighborhood, and we are shocked by the discrimination. We will be sure to tell our neighbors of our experience here, and we will never be returning.’
This was nearly thirty years ago, and the restaurant went out of business a couple of years later. I never could understand why a restaurant could discriminate against someone and treat them so poorly.”
The Maddening Manager
“One time, I booked a table at a nice restaurant in Sheffield where my family lived. The restaurant had excellent reviews, and my partner and I were both looking forward to trying the food.
When we arrived, we were treated in an average manner for the restaurant being upscale. My partner and I took our seats and scanned the menu. The waiter came by and brought our drinks, then he took our food orders.
The appetizers we ordered arrived fairly quickly, and they were very tasty. After the waiter cleared our plates, I excused myself to visit the restroom. To get to the restrooms, you had to walk past the kitchen. As I walked by the kitchen, I could see everyone working inside.
I went to the restroom, and on my return, I stopped by the door to the kitchen and paused. The manager and chefs were in the middle of a conversation, and the manager looked up abruptly and said something I didn’t quite catch.
I apologized and asked, ‘Sorry, what did you say? I didn’t hear you.’
The manager then, with a theatrical flourish, waved his arms as if inviting me into the kitchen and said, ‘Would you like to take a shortcut back to your seat?’
‘Why would I?’ I inquired.
‘Well, you seemed to be making a beeline through here. Are you lost?’ the manager asked.
A chef began smirking at me as if I were stupid.
‘No,’ I replied, ‘I was just trying to politely catch your eye to report the state of the restrooms to you. But seeing as you want to publicly embarrass me, I’ll tell you what the problem is! The toilets are all backed up, the floor is soaked and dangerously slippery, and there is a light out. Also, there’s no hot water, the hand dryer doesn’t work, and there aren’t any hand towels to dry my hands. Now, if I could borrow a cloth, I’d be grateful.’
The chef hustled away, and the now red-faced manager tried to apologize, but I wasn’t having it. I walked back to the table, dried my hands on the tablecloth, and grabbed my partner.
I told the manager, ‘I am not paying to be insulted. You need to sort out the restrooms and your attitude.’
Then, we walked out and never went back.”
“We Stared At Eachother In Disbelief”
“My wife was allergic to dairy, so it was difficult enough going out to eat sometimes. One time, we were at a fancy Italian restaurant in Salt Lake City, and we didn’t have much money to spend. We decided to split a plate instead of getting separate meals.
When our waitress came over, we explained our situation, and I told her about my wife’s allergies. Our waitress looked at us with a disgusted expression, snatched up one of the menus she placed down, rolled her eyes, and walked away.
My wife and I just stared at each other in disbelief.
‘Did this just happen?’ my wife asked.
We had never experienced such rude behavior at a restaurant before.
After we picked up our jaws off the floor, we stood up and walked out.
We were about fifteen feet out the door when we heard someone yell, ‘Wait!’
The manager on duty stopped and asked us what happened, so we told her the story.
‘I’m so sorry,’ the manager replied, ‘Let me get you some food as a gift. Her behavior was completely unacceptable.’
We told her, ‘No thank you,’ two or three times before we gave in, as the manager wouldn’t budge.
We went inside and sat patiently for about ten minutes until the food came out. The manager once again apologized and sent us away with a full meal. It was stellar service, and I was grateful for the manager’s empathy.”
“Even The Cashier Couldn’t Believe The Waitress’ Behavior”
“I am a vegetarian, and I specifically ordered a meal with no meat at a restaurant.
When the dish arrived, there was meat on the plate.
I calmly told the waitress, ‘I am a vegetarian, I can’t eat this, and I don’t want this dish. Can the kitchen make me a new plate?’
The waitress angrily replied, ‘If you don’t like it, you should go somewhere else! We can’t make this dish without meat!’
I had eaten at this restaurant several times before, and they were always able to make my food with no issues. I was livid, so I asked the waitress to speak to the manager.
The waitress rolled her eyes and said, ‘The manager isn’t here right now.’
I took the waitress’ name down and I told the cashier what had happened. Even the cashier couldn’t believe the waitress’ behavior! The cashier comped my meal, and she gave me the name and number of the manager.
I called the manager and didn’t get a response, so I contacted corporate instead. A few weeks later, corporate sent me a letter with an apology.
The leader read, ‘We are sorry about your negative experience while dining with us. The waitress no longer works with us.’
There was also three hundred bucks worth of gift cards enclosed with the letter. I didn’t enjoy the way the waitress treated me, but corporate certainly made the situation better.”
Strange Server Behavior
“A while back, I went to an Uno restaurant. I was having issues with people being rude to me at the time, so I was already semi-worried about the experience I was going to have.
The server at Uno’s decided he wanted to stand too far away from my table, and he acted awkward the entire time. He’d stay at a far distance from the table and would slide things toward me oddly, rather than just setting things on the table. He talked over me, treated me terribly, and acted in a passive-aggressive manner. His behavior was extremely bizarre.
No one deserved to be treated the way this sever treated me. It was demeaning and strange. The server’s behavior was impersonal, and he acted as if he was scared to come near me.
When I would mention anything to the server, he responded in a nasty tone. He did the job as a server well and gave me the correct items, but his behavior was messed up. I have had bad service before, but this was just bad. The server’s behavior made it seem like there was something wrong with me.
I called the manner right away after I left the restaurant, and I was hesitant to ever return.”
“We Figured It Wasn’t Worth Sticking Around”
“My wife, some friends, and I once went to a restaurant that was popular for its fondue. Unfortunately, we didn’t see it on the menu anymore. As the waitress was taking our drink orders, we asked about the fondue.
The waitress replied, ‘Oh, they took it off the menu. I’m so glad we don’t serve it anymore. It was such a mess, and the people who ordered it were always so rude. They never left big enough tips to cover the mess.’
Then, the waitress took our drink orders and left.
Well, we had all very much wanted to fondue, and it was the whole reason we came to the restaurant. We would have considered ordering something else, but after being insulted by the waitress for simply wanting something the restaurant offered, we figured it wasn’t worth sticking around.
We got up and walked out before the waitress ever returned to the table.”
