Complaining about a food order may be risky business for the customer. These Redditors share their shocking stories of payback for unruly customers. Some of these acts are so gross, we're thinking twice about ever eating out again.
1. What A Shot
I worked at Starbucks. We gave anyone who was incredibly rude and disrespectful decaf shots. It was subtle, but we were happy to know that they wouldn’t get the caffeine because they couldn’t taste the difference.
2. Spice Of Life
My dad started going to his neighborhood pub frequently for wing nights and would ask for wings "as hot as you can make em". This went on for quite a while with them just dousing them with as much Frank’s Red hot sauce as they could possibly fit on them, because that's all they used for making hot wings.
Well, I guess eventually the cook got sick of being asked for "as hot as you can make em". He acquired some special ingredients. The next time my dad asked for his order, he got a dozen wings spicy enough to strip paint off the space shuttle. My dad went back to just asking for plain hot or extra hot from then on.
3. Petty Surprise
When I was 15, I worked at Tim Hortons. A guy came in one day and was being an idiot in the drive-thru. He ordered 12 assorted donuts, so I gave him 12 stale, old-fashioned plain donuts as punishment. I often think about my first petty restaurant experience and how mad he would have been when he opened that box.
4. Something To Cry About
In high school, I worked with a buddy at McDonald's. A girl we both knew and disliked intensely came in and ordered a burger with no onions. His revenge was brutal. He took her burger patty, carefully carved it out so it became a burger ring, put that on the bun, and filled the entire center with onions.
It was maybe 10% burger, 90% onion, but it looked totally normal from the outside. He never would have done it to a stranger, but enemies were fair game.
5. You’re Going Down
Bit of a different one. In my younger years, I worked at a popular fast food chain. It was my first time working the closing shift and we were all doing our part to clean and prep the store. That’s when I saw this lady with a mop and bucket come out of the back room, slop it on the griddle and START MOPPING IT!
I was appalled. I went and told the manager, who told me that that was the quickest way to clean the griddle. I was then scolded for worrying about things that didn’t concern me. So, I got payback. The very next day, I quit that job and called the district office. I told them what happened. That location closed down not long after but the franchise still exists.
6. That Was Cheesy
In college, I worked for a well-known pizzeria. One day, one of our wait staff came to collect a pepperoni pizza. Before taking it out, he nabbed a piece of pepperoni off the top. When he got to the table, everyone stared at him in stunned silence. He'd forgotten one crucial thing. There was a very fine string of cheese that stretched from the pizza to his mouth.
7. What A Slip Up
On my final shift of my last day, an entire table of naval officers, who were very pleasant, came into the restaurant where I was working. They pushed several tables together, cramming a lot of people into a tight space.
I came out with 8-10 large sodas on a tray. I didn’t think twice as I had done this plenty of times before—but then I tripped over a chair leg. The whole tray fell, mostly on myself, but one unfortunate fellow got soda all down his back. His entire uniform was soaked, cold, and sticky.
I shriveled up and withered inside. But he was so nice and understanding about it. He even left me a pretty good tip, which I nearly cried about when I picked up the check and saw that. I worked another 8 hours all wet and sticky, squishing around in my shoes, smelling terrible.
8. What A Meathead
When I was 18, I worked at a Subway. I watched an employee cough up a big nasty ball of phlegm and slobber it into a vat of meatballs. He then proceeded to mix it well and carry it to the front to be served. I couldn't believe what happened next. The very next customer that walked in asked for meatballs.
Needless to say, I grabbed the vat and apologized to the customer. I said that those were a bit old and that I would make them some fresh ones. What really got to me about the employee was that he looked me right in the eye when he was doing it and thought that it was hilarious.
Obviously, I made sure that he lost his job over the incident. To this day, I can't handle the thought of eating meatballs at Subway.
9. The Last Straw
I worked at a high-end restaurant for a few years. While working on a Sunday in December, we were getting our backsides handed to us. I was working behind the bar with another girl and we were just drowning along with everyone else.
The bar server was venting to us about her table of Karens and how awful they had been to her when one of them ordered her second Old Fashioned cocktail. While the server was garnishing it, the orange peel garnish fell. So she served the drink to her without one and when the woman saw it, she said, “Oh, no orange peel this time? Nice job”. It was the last straw.
The server had it with that table. She walked over to the service bar with a deranged, scary smile on her face and said that she’d be right back, she was going to get an orange. She then asked for the peeler herself. At that point, I knew she was going to do something with that peel.
She came out and gave us the rest of the orange ,minus one peel that she peeled privately in the walk-in so no one could see, She came back from dropping off the garnish with the most relaxed, happy smile.
I asked her, “Girl, what the heck did you do to it?” She smiled the entire time she told me the story. Apparently, she peeled the orange and put it in her mouth, swished it around and just soaked this woman’s peel in a pool of her saliva. She then dropped it on the floor of the walk-in for good measure.
10. Delightful Order
I worked in an Italian restaurant where the menu was ludicrous. Essentially anything that was on the menu could go as a topping on a pizza—probably 40 to 50 topping choices. Often, I’d be asked for "a pizza with everything on it"! I came up with a usual joke or two to find out exactly what they really wanted.
One day, an absolute jerk came in who ordered "everything" and then proceeded to ask if I was stupid when I questioned him, only he used a much ruder word. My sister has disabilities so I didn't appreciate his tact. I told my boss about it and he smiled and told me to just get him a pizza with everything on it
When I brought it out and gave it to him, he flipped out and demanded to see the manager. It was, obviously, basically inedible. But that wasn't the best part. My manager had my back and gave the guy his bill, which at $2 a topping came to well over $100 for the pizza.
The guy refused to pay. Law enforcement officers were called and it became a shenanigan. I hope he enjoyed his pizza with clams, pineapple, buffalo chicken, broccoli, anchovies, green olives, cream cheese, cauliflower, jalapeños, shrimp...
11. Chewed Up
When I worked in fast food, some of us would take a few bites of our own food—nuggets, sandwiches, salads, etc whenever it was slow. I worked the front counter, taking orders and bagging them too. One day, a lady came in and ordered a chicken sandwich. I saw that our sandwich maker had the sandwich wrapped at her station, so I bagged it and the lady was on her way.
About 40 minutes later, she came back and said, “I usually don’t mind if it’s a slight error but this was too much—” She then pulled out the sandwich with a whole bite taken out of it. I apologize and got her a new sandwich that hadn’t been partially consumed.
It turns out the sandwich maker had been eating a sandwich and left it where we pick up sandwiches for To-Go orders. She got so busy that she hadn’t even noticed that her sandwich was gone. Thankfully, the lady was incredibly sweet about it and understood.
12. That’s Disgusting
Once when working at a 50s-style diner, I accidentally dropped 50 chicken thighs while prepping them. They somehow slid right under the grill, easily the dirtiest place in the whole restaurant. It gets worse, though. My boss saw what had happened and made me pick each one of them up, rinse them with water, re-season them and then stick them back in the fridge.
13. Sprinkle That
At my last restaurant job, my co-worker would make very ugly sundaes for customers who were rude. For particularly nice customers, she would painstakingly recreate the sundaes in the menu pictures and give them extra cream and sprinkles.
14. Something To Cry About
Many years ago I used to work in a pub kitchen where we used to serve a jalapeño burger. One customer always complained that while the burger was delicious, it was never hot enough.
So one day when the owner saw this customer come in, he immediately took a burger out and let it soak in a bowl of jalapeño juice. When the rest of his order was done, he tossed the burger on the grill to reheat it and melted the cheese.
The guy came to the pass and gave us a teary thumbs up.
15. All Fired Up
At our restaurant, we have wings that range from mild to hot and extreme (made with our own recipe using roasted habaneros peppers). We have another level which is called Trainwreck and is only available to the people that know to ask for it.
Last year, someone came in bragging that Trainwreck wasn't hot enough and wanted something hotter. The order got rung in as, "Trainwreck too mild—wants them hot peppers hotter than heck even if they were on fire from a nuke strike. Make them burn his butt on the way in, too"!
The cooks knew that I couldn’t really do spicy food too well (I needed to eat our hot wings with plenty of blue cheese) so when they were ready to serve, one of them brought them out for me. HIS face was red and his eyes were streaming, so I should have known what was up.
It turned out that the cooks had a bottle of hot sauce in the back that clocked in at over 1,000,000 SHU. They mixed it in with our regular Trainwreck sauce along with some raw garlic and Carolina Reapers. Then they blended the whole thing together.
The spiciness of that new sauce amped up the regular heat to the point the guy was crying while eating. Two tables in either direction were gassed out. I even had to give complimentary drinks to them all. They simply laughed at this dude who went through a pint of milk and some water and about 8 oz of ranch dressing.
He ate only four of the 12 wings before he declared that he was "full". I sure was glad that I wasn't him the next day.
16. Can’t Top That
My step-father complained to our local pizza place about them not putting very many onions on his pizza. They apologized and offered a replacement, to which he declined. Fast forward a few weeks. He orders his standard pizza again, and doesn't say a word about the onion issue. But they knew just what to do. Pizza arrives and its entire surface is nothing but chopped onions.
17. Third Time’s A Charm
One time, we had a customer call back because her rotisserie chicken was “burnt”. I explained that it’s just charred because of the way it’s cooked. She didn’t want the chicken, though, so we agreed to get her a new one.
Ten minutes after her husband left with the new order, she called back angrier than before, claiming that this was worse than the first one. We told her to send her husband back again for a new one. The manager and I went in the back (with gloves on) and scraped off all the “burnt” parts of the chicken.
Incredibly, not even another ten minutes after the husband left with the second replacement did she call AGAIN. This time, she complained that her rice didn’t have any craisins on it. So once again, I told her to send it back. Finally, I dumped so many flipping craisins on that rice, I think she got the point and we never heard or saw from them again.
18. Back At You
When I was in high school, I worked at a pizzeria. This couple would always come in and yell at us NOT to put meat (especially pepperoni) on the pizza. I never understood why they would even bring it up if they didn't want it?
Anyway, one day he came in and my manager was having a bad day (he got angry pretty easily) and the couple got in an argument with him on the phone while ordering. This couple would also come in often and laugh at us while muttering to each other.
My manager decided that he was going to get back at them, so he took a giant stack of pepperoni and other meat and hid it under the cheese throughout the pizza. He gladly served it to them and they never came in again.
19. Health Hazard
I worked at Applebee’s for seven years. In my last year of working there, I witnessed one of the cooks doing something atrocious. He would drop down to one pair of tongs for the grill station. He used the same tongs for raw chicken, beef, seafood, and cooked food.
He would swish the tongs in his sanitizing solution, which looked like soup since he never changed it, claiming that it was “good” after that. I called him out on it and he told me that he never told me how to cook, so I should let him be. I told management too, but they swept it under the rug like everything else.
I quit shortly after, but that was the only time I witnessed something flipping disgusting like that.
20. Watching With Awe
I was bussing tables when I heard, “Hey, kid” followed by loud snapping all the way across the restaurant. I walked over and said, “Yes, what can I g—“
“Fork,” he interrupted. Ok cool. I got his fork. I brought it to him and—
“You speak English, boy? There are two of us eating here. Bring two forks”, he said.
“You said ‘fork’ not forks, but here you go”.
“That’s why you Chinese don’t deserve any tips—always giving attitude” he snapped back, loud enough for the surrounding tables to hear.
Flustered, I walked to the back alley for a quick smoke and told one of the cooks about the idiot at Table 16. We both walked back in and I saw the cook hack the nastiest, smoke-laden, gingivitis-riddled, crunchy booger encapsulated loogie—straight into a pot.
As I watched in awe, the cook mixed it up, plated it and rang the bell. “Table 16” the cook said with a smile.
21. Let That Bee A Lesson
As a teen, I worked at a local Italian gelato shop with an outdoor serving window. Naturally, there were a ton of bees attracted to the sugar. Every window had a fly swatter and you would kill bees all day long. We used to keep a pile of deceased bees. It would be a competition to see who would have the biggest pile by the end of the day.
One time, one of the girls at the other window had someone order a milkshake that she apparently hated. She picked up a bunch of bees off the floor pile and mixed it into the shake. Looking back, that was horrifying on so many levels.
22. Extra Sides
I've worked in the restaurant business for 25 years—both nice and divey places. The worst thing I have ever seen go out to a table is a salad with a latex glove in it.
Our salad guys used their glove hand to build salads and to mix them up. Eventually, the gloves would become caked with dressing and cheese and such. Rather than take them off, they would throw another pair on top. At some point, a glove, presumably a fresh one, fell into the salad mix. It was truly horrible and embarrassing. The table ate for free that night.
23. Deli Horror
I worked in a deli for a few years. For horrible customers, I would make them a bad sandwich—I’d over-toast their bread, give them wilted lettuce, the butt-end of the tomato and little tiny onion pieces and also ensure their meat was the smallest portions.
For good customers, I’d always give them the best product, to the point they would wait for me to help them.
24. Deadly Burger
This one customer wanted his cheeseburger with “extra grease”. The best way to do that is to slam the burger straight on the bun as soon as it’s done without draining off the excess grease. So I did just that. His reply stunned me. He still sent it back and said that “it wasn’t greasy enough” and that he wanted a little more grease.
So this time, I did the same thing, except I scooped my spatula in the extra juice around the burger as it was almost done. I slammed it on the top bun, but now the burger got quite soggy. Again, this guy sent it back. I got quite irritated by now because I started falling behind.
Fed up with the whole thing, I slammed the burger on the grill, and as the patty was almost done, I soaked the bun in the grease until it began to fall apart. Then I spooned on as much of the accumulated grease as possible. This monstrosity of a burger was a giant, sloppy, soggy mess of artery-clogging grease.
To top it off, I took the last remaining grease and put it in a cup and sent it out. Miraculously, the guy loved it. He even asked to see me personally and thanked me and thought the extra cup of grease was absolutely ingenious.
25. Sunday Mess
I used to manage a BBQ restaurant and worked the opening shift on Sundays. For whatever reason, I found the church crowd to be the worst customers. They would come into the restaurant and rearrange my lobby almost every Sunday. So when they ordered their food, I’d charge them for every single item instead of the whole meal.
For example, if they ordered a sandwich and wanted an extra pickle, I’d charge them the 15¢ for an extra pickle. The same went for every little petty thing I could find.
26. It’s Windy In Here
I worked in restaurants for over 10 years, and it’s pretty rare that you would see anyone mess with a customer’s food—but it does happen occasionally. The most memorable for me was when a customer once made a waitress cry after complaining about their food and sent it back. The chef passed gas on the remake. It got a lot of laughs.
27. A Tip For You
The worst way I treated a customer was that I once refused to pick up the two dimes and a nickel he tried to tip me for his $14 drink. He then said to me, "Hey, my man. This is for you". My comeback was quick. I replied with a terse, "Keep it. You clearly need that money more than I do".
Public Domain Pictures
28. No Show
I worked at a movie theater for a while. The pizzas would come frozen in a large bag. Many pizzas were stuffed together, so the contents sometimes got shifted around during shipping.
One time, a dude acted like it was the end of the world because he arrived at the theater hungry AND had to wait in line. He ordered a pepperoni pizza. So my co-worker went to the freezer, pulled out a pizza with ONE slice of pepperoni on it, and tossed that sucker into the oven.
The guy eventually got a refund, but it must have felt good to see the guy’s reaction when he first saw his order.
29. Sour Face
I have done some passive aggressive things for annoying guests for sure. For instance, a lady once asked for water with a bunch of lemons on the side, so I brought her five lemon wedges. She demanded that I bring her more. I ended up bringing her a dinner plate full of lemon slices...and then charged her for lemonade.
30. Customers From Hades
A lady and her daughter would come into my restaurant. Every time I've ever served them, they would make you run—"we need more ranch", "I want another margarita", "I need extra ketchup", and so on.
My favorite was the time when I asked if they wanted ranch with their wings. "Nope", they replied. Then literally, as soon as I brought the wings out, they said, "Oh, and we need ranch".
On top of all this, they rarely tip as well. If they do, it's insultingly low. One time, their tab came to $48.50 and they gave me $50. When I brought the change back, the daughter (who was in her mid-20s) smirked and said, "Oh no, that's for you sweetie". I left the change there and walked away without a word. But I got my revenge eventually.
Now whenever they come in, we take our time to serve them. Their margaritas are watered down to half the strength that everyone else gets, that is people who don’t act like brats towards the staff. Their food sits under heat lamps getting stale. The kitchen is aware of this and the reason why it’s done.
They're on board since these witches send food back all the time claiming it's done wrong, even though it was made exactly to order. Of course, they always waited until the food was more than half eaten before complaining. I genuinely cannot stand them. The younger one always just smirks when she orders, like she thinks that you're such a plebe for being a server.
31. Alley Foe
I worked as a server in a bowling alley that had really high ceilings. One time, I was cleaning baskets and plates from another table. I was throwing trash in the garbage rather quickly when I ended up throwing a half-empty cup of ranch dressing into the bin.
It bounced, sending at least 2 oz of ranch dressing into the air and all over the back and hair of a very large guest. As it happened, this guy had been acting like a jerk to all the staff including me all night. After the incident, I quickly looked around to see if anyone else saw it happen. Luckily, no one did.
When his wife returned from the washroom, she noticed the dressing all over him and said, “I think a bird pooped on you”! I went along with the story and explained that we did have a bird in the alley somewhere. They thought it was hilarious and ended up tipping me 100% of the bill for helping them clean up.
32. Fast Food Folly
I worked at a Taco Bell that still had a hood for the oven when it used to be a joint venture with Pizza Hut. One super tall staff member used to rest his gloved hands on the hood between orders, then continue making the food. Once, to prove a point, I wiped the hood down to show him how dirty it was. He said, "Great, now it's clean".
33. Delightful Revenge
I had a customer rudely berate me in front of the whole restaurant because I apparently didn’t prioritize her over the other tables. I had a full section and was giving everyone equal attention, and doing quite well I thought. Everyone got their food and drinks on time and with a smile. This lady was just on a serious power trip. But then she went too far.
She said, “If you can’t handle a job as easy as this one, you must be a real loser”. I offered free chips and salsa as compensation for her perceived delays, which she accepted and said, “Hopefully you’ll bring it before tomorrow”. I brought it out immediately and then proceeded to “trip” and fall, dousing her and her white sweater in salsa. Oops. It was delightful.
34. Enough Shenanigans
I worked at a pizza place in high school. The owners also had a woodworking business on the side and they always gave this one nasty imbecile who worked at the woodworking place 75% of anything he wanted when he came into the pizza store. That's fine. No problem. However, he'd always come in at 9:55 pm when we closed at 10—without fail, right after we were done cleaning everything.
This would happen two to three times during the week. He knew exactly what he was doing because he was just a massive idiot like that. To make matters worse, he would ALWAYS make a big order. Maybe a burger, some roasted chicken, and a pizza. So EVERYTHING got dirty again. To top it off, he'd sit there and eat the burger and some chicken before taking the pizza home.
We had to wait for him to finish. Since we had a strict "nobody closes alone" policy, at least two workers were always stuck waiting on him. We also couldn't "close" early or lock the doors because he saw the owners every day from 7 am to 4 pm at the woodworking business and he'd 100% rat us out.
After a couple months of this, the store manager finally got sick of it. He took the buns, put them down his crotch, and let them sit there for a few minutes until the guy’s burger was done.
35. It’s Hot In Here
When I was a teenager, I worked at Papa John’s. There was this one particularly old customer who was loud and rude to whoever helped him, every single time. One day, he showed his true personality immediately to a new staff member. He said, "There better not be a pepper in my box or you and I will have a problem".
We’re talking about those little peppers that come with pizzas. Naturally, the new worker got visibly upset. So, I grabbed the biggest, juiciest pepper and was going to put it in the box beside the grumpy old guy’s box. I may or may not have accidentally squeezed it a bit.
Some of the juice may or may not have leaked all over the guy's food while I was carrying it over to the next box. I may or may not have noticed. Oops.
36. Complaints Complaints
I worked in a movie theater where people complained about how the concession lines were long and their movie was about to start, etc—all this even before they even placed their order, so now everyone else has to wait longer. Whenever they complained, I wouldn’t butter the middle of their popcorn, I’d just drizzle it on the top.
I would also fill their soda cup all the way up with ice before putting the soda in. Just keeping it speedy!
37. Spiteful Ritual
My first job in high school was at a fast food franchise in a very small town, where you would know many of the people that came through. Whenever a girl came through who this particular female co-worker didn't like, her plan was diabolical. She would do whatever she could to increase the calorie count of the order.
So if the item had mayo, she'd add extra mayo; if the order had fries, she’d add extra fries; she’d make a larger soda/ice cream, add extra cheese and so on—all this in an attempt to make them just a little bit fatter out of spite. It was hilarious to witness this ritual.
38. Hot Diggity
I saw a co-worker throw a hot dog onto a greasy floor, step on it, throw it back on the grill, and then serve it. Apparently, the customer was treating one of our waitresses like total garbage—continually hitting on and demeaning her. My co-worker cleaned the grill and utensils afterwards. I was 14 or 15 years old and didn't really see a problem at the time.
39. It Wasn’t Me
Many years ago, I worked at a pizza chain that offered dine-in and take-out. For some shifts, I waited tables and for others, I’d cook. On this one shift, I was the cook where we had a waiter who wouldn’t serve any pizza until the customers ate all their breadsticks. I don't know why, he was just super insistent on this stupid point.
Anyway, we always made the breadsticks in the oven before the pizza so the customer had time to enjoy the warm breadsticks before their pizza arrived. At the same time, most of the local restaurants had an issue with small roaches. As you can imagine, the issue of letting food sit out did not mix well with this problem.
The waiter finally picked up this particular pie and served it. The first slices for the table were always placed on the plates by the wait staff. One customer took a bite that was a bit—buggy. The waiter tried to blame me for his screw-up.
40. Worst Of The Worst
When I was in high school, I worked at a really nice high-end restaurant. Pretty much everything was made fresh in the restaurant—but that's grosser than it sounds. Like, croutons were made from all the uneaten partial loaves of bread that had been served with the meals that weren't finished.
All the salad dressings were made fresh, yes, and it was the dishwashers’s job to make them. But the dishwashers would combine all the ingredients for the dressing by mixing them up with their unwashed hands. I saw food get rubbed on the floor, get slobbered on, and the worst was when the owner’s daughter's steak got peed on.
I had a hard time eating out for many years after four years at that job.
41. The Audacity
I worked with one guy who had no problem tampering with food. One day, a couple came in who were giant pains in the butts. To top it off, they tipped an insulting 10 cents on the ticket. They had the audacity to return for lunch the very next day. You better believe he spat in their food.
On other occasions, I witnessed him dropping a steak on the disgusting kitchen floor. He then dusted it off with his hand and slammed it back on the plate. That guy left the restaurant industry and became a law enforcement officer.
42. Have Mercy
I worked at a high-end steak house where the steaks were frozen and had to be thawed out at the restaurant. Anyway, it was the last hour or so of the night. The cooks were getting steaks out for the next day to be thawed. One of the steaks fell on the ground but since it was frozen, nothing really bad could happen to it.
So for most of that last hour this filet mignon was being kicked around like a hockey puck. It started to defrost and stick to the floor. It honestly was disgusting, but things still had to get done. We cleaned up the mess and I mopped the floor. But there was a twist. Five minutes before closing, this absolute witch of a woman came in and demanded she be seated.
Wouldn't you know it? She wanted a filet mignon. Of course she got that filet. It got picked up, washed off, and put in the rapid defroster (microwave) and then thrown on the grill until it was "done". Everyone just watched and tried to keep a straight face.
She left after drinking a bunch and took her own sweet time to finish as well—about 2 hours after closing. She didn't leave a tip but paid cash.
43. A Rock And A Hard Place
It was at an event dinner with about 2,000 people in attendance. We had a large wait staff of over 20 people, not including the floor managers. We were broken down into teams of five or six, having to run three courses, including clearing plates. For this job, you were expected to grab anywhere between five and ten plates, with men being expected to carry more.
On top of that, you had to manage beverage top up between the main and dessert. This all had to be done in about an hour and a half, as the event was on a pretty tight schedule. Oh, one more thing. The placement of plates on the table was meant to be synchronized. Our team leader would check that everyone was in the right position before giving the nod for us to put our plates down.
The problem was that the plates were hot, and the longer it took for everyone to get around to their spot, the heavier they felt. So the long and short of it was, I was standing there, holding some hot plates with only a napkin to protect my hand from getting burnt, waiting for the last idiot on our team to get their act together.
The plate started to tip and the gravy pooled up near the rim, then spilled onto the back of one of the guest’s' suits. He rightfully looked up at me, with a "what the heck are you doing"? I was like a rabbit in the headlights. I apologized profusely, and offered him the napkins I was holding in my hands.
He (half jokingly) remarked, "I'd rather be eating my food, not wearing it". By this point, my team, who was oblivious to what was happening, were already on the way back to the kitchen to grab the next lot of plates. I had to run off to catch up with them. In retrospect, I should have done more to sort this dude's suit out, but at the time, I was between a rock and a hard place, as my team just wanted to crack on with service, and holding that up would have caused more problems.
There were floor managers nearby to sort any issues out, so I guess if it was that much of a big deal, he would have taken it up with one of them.
44. Be Nice
I used to work in fast food. If you were a jerk and you didn’t specify a meal and just ordered bits and pieces, you bet I didn’t offer cheaper meal deals. I charged them for each and every individual item.
A rude customer once ordered some nuggets and fries—worth $20, and I gave him just that. Too bad for him because if he was nice, I would have offered a drink and saved him $5 .
45. Thirsty, Anyone?
I watched a customer order a Diet Coke and my friend, a server, brought it out to him immediately. The customer then complained loudly that it was not Diet Coke (it was) and proceeded to make a scene that the server was lying to him.
My friend went to the dish pit, which was used to soak dirty utensils before going in the dishwasher. He scooped up some of the dirtiest water I’d ever seen, emptied the glass without washing it, and refilled it with Diet Coke again. The dude probably drank the germs of about 60+ people.
46. Nasty Business
I watched a line cook use his nasty white rag (that he used to wipe everything down) to wipe off BBQ sauce and veggie bits from a customer’s chicken plate because the customer didn’t want the veggie bits.
47. Well Done, Sir
I worked at a club and was passing through the Bistro when one of the waitresses brought back a steak that a customer had complained about being undercooked. The chef completely lost it and grabbed the steak, shoved it down the front of his pants, pulled it out, and slammed it on the ground.
He picked it up and slammed the other side down and then tossed it back on the hotplate.
48. Shocking To The Core
I worked at McDonald's during the summer of 2004 to early 2005 in Ontario. During one of my overnight shifts at the drive-thru, a car full of people pulled up. The driver asked for a co-worker named Chris. I went and got Chris, then walked away. Suddenly, I heard arguing and went back to the drive thru window to see what was happening.
The arguing calms down and Chris tells the driver that he’d hook him up and to go to the second window. The driver drives ahead. Chris closes the window and says, "Mess this guy's burger up". Chris was mad because apparently this guy had been coming by the drive-thru every weekend for a month, asking for free food and pretending he knew the employees.
So this is how Chris decided to deal with that. He told me to prepare a quarter pounder. I made what I needed and left it at the end of the line. Once the quarter pounder meat was cooked, instead of taking it to the end of the line and putting the meat in the burger, Chris grabbed it while wearing a latex glove.
He went to the sink (where kitchen employees washed their hands and also drained the pickle bags) and peed on it. Everyone in the kitchen who saw this groaned, and some employees warned him that the driver of the car might get sick but he didn't care. Chris then rubbed this patty on the floor, which must have not been cleaned in over seven hours.
To this day, I haven't seen a greasier and dirtier floor than a McDonald's kitchen one when it hasn't been mopped in a long time. If I clawed at the tiles, grease and fat would build under my nails. So after rubbing it a few times on the floor, Chris sees the mop bucket at the end of the line.
On this particular day, since there was a rush from around 11 am until 11 pm (when the store closed), the mop bucket water had never been changed. What was once soapy and clear water was dark, smelly, and swimming with chunks of fries that fell on the floor.
Chris dunked the patty in the water three times. Right when that happened, Chris's friend Darrell grabbed a handful of fries and said, "I'm gonna pass gas on his fries". He did just that and threw them into a large fries container. Chris threw in some other untampered food as well and gave the bag to the driver.
There weren't any customers behind him so he continued chatting. The driver takes out this quarter pounder, and takes a bite out of it. Chris keeps a calm face, tells the guy goodbye, and when he leaves all the employees just let out a collective gag while Chris just laughs.
49. This Sandwich Is Fishy
When I was in college, I was a Shift Manager for a very popular fast food chain. We had a customer who would always come in and demand fresh french fries and a fresh fish sandwich with extra tartar sauce. Every time he got his sandwich, he would complain that the tartar sauce was bad and that we had to replace it with a new, unopened one, which we also had to prove to him wasn't expired.
One day, one of the high school kids was working in the kitchen. While he was used to some of the shenanigans this customer pulled, apparently that day nothing at all was right for him—his fries were cold, even though we just pulled it from the fryer especially for him; his fish was cold and the tartar sauce was bad, and so on.
After the third time remaking his sandwich and wasting two tubes of tartar sauce, the employee had had enough. He took one of the tubes of tartar sauce and a cup to the back storage room, where it was out of sight of any cameras. He proceeded to spit in the cup and add tartar sauce to the mix.
When he brought the new "special" sandwich to the customer, the customer was elated and ate every bit of the sandwich, even licking the sauce off the wrapper. After that, he insisted that that employee make his sandwich because "he was the only competent cook who could properly make a fish sandwich".
So, the co-worker kept making the "special" sandwich. Needless to say, my co-worker didn't tell anyone about it until he had been doing it for over two weeks. He was fired over the incident. When the customer returned for his "perfect" fish sandwich and was told the kid was fired, he never came back to the store.
50. Teed Off
Over 10 years ago, I worked in a restaurant at a golf course. One of my female co-workers had some crude things said to her by one of the old golfers. It was something along the lines of "with a body like that you shouldn't be in the kitchen, you should be on the course serving us drinks"!
Just after he made that comment, he ordered a ham sandwich. My co-worker licked the heck out of that ham before putting it on the sandwich. She then wrapped it in Saran Wrap, punched it, and went out and handed it to him herself.
Sources: Reddit
