Many of us have worked in a restaurant, coffee shop, or other kind of food service environment at one point or another.
These workplaces tend to give us some of the funniest stories. A hilarious r/AskReddit thread asked, “Waiters or waitresses of Reddit, what’s the most ridiculous request you’ve gotten from a customer at your restaurant?” .
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The answers should bring you right back to your days working as a server .
You’d better have oysters…
> Oysters!
I explained we are a burger joint, no oysters. He takes off his coat, talks to his date, then stares at me for a second.
> Oysters!
I explain again, no oysters.
> Two dozen! Oysters!
After a third and fourth time where he barks an order at me, then acts all busy so he ‘can’t hear’ my response, I stop and stare at him. He asks again, I just stare, he asks again, I just stare. He finally makes eye contact with me. “Sir, we are a burger joint, no oysters.” He is finally forced to acknowledge me.
> So go get some!
We were in a casino, we were the only restaurant open at 2AM, he knew this but expected me to run around to some closed restaurant and grab raw shellfish them just happen to be hosting during closed hours.
You have to make things very clear sometimes.
Table of two. They both ordered the same thing.
Lady A wanted to add a salad. Sure, it will cost extra though. She said that was fine. Lady B then decided that she also wanted a salad.
At the end lady B wanted to know why she was being charged for a salad. Only lady A was told that salads cost extra.
– u/nsa_k
Should’ve ordered it sloppy.
I haven’t waited tables in about 10 years now but I’ll never forget the guy who asked for his steak “dry.” When I pressed him for what he wanted explicitly he explained that he wanted “no juice” to come out when he was eating it. I told him it would take about 30 minutes to cook his steak that done, he said that was fine and off I went. Our steaks were pretty miserable portions in the first place, and the cut he ordered was the smallest one on the menu, so when I returned with his tiny little 6 oz flat iron that had been absolutely desiccated on the grill he looked understandably disappointed. He took a few bites of it and decided “it wasn’t very good,” which was underselling how bad it looked and almost certainly how bad it tasted.
Ranch, please.
A Mom and young son (maybe 8?) came in to the restaurant I waited tables at for lunch. The Mom asked her son what he wanted to eat, and he replied with “ranch.”
I politely asked if he meant, like, a salad with ranch? Or French fries with a side of ranch?
The Mom looked at me, rolled her eyes in embarrassment, and clarified—he wanted a soup bowl full of ranch dressing…
I walked into the kitchen and discussed with my manager, because I had no idea how to enter that into our POS system. My manager and I came to the conclusion that we should charge her for an entire bottle of ranch, so she paid $10.99 for a soup bowl full of ranch dressing.
Sounds delicious.
Not a server, but I used to be a line cook. I once had a server come back to my saute station and tell me she was about to ring in a chicken dish and the guy specifically wanted it just overcooked to oblivion. I cooked it like I normally would, then I microwaved it for three full minutes, then I held it in tongs and burned the [expletive] out of it directly on the burner flame. I was totally ok with getting reprimanded for overdoing by a mile. She came back to me a while later and told me that the guy insisted that she thank me because it was the best piece of chicken he’d ever eaten.
Can you do all my shopping while you’re at it?
I used to work in a sub shop that had delivery. A woman called asking if the driver could pick her up a pack of cigarettes and baby forumla when he was bringing her her food… this woman kept claiming she knew the owner (who was not present at the restaurant) and that he told her beforehand that it could be done. It was busy and I didn’t have time to fight with her so I asked the delivery driver if he could do that for her and he did. Not really a big deal I guess, just a little ridiculous to ask a delivery driver.
Ahead by a century.
When I waited tables, it was before the whole “Kale is a SUPERFOOD” thing, and I worked at an IHOP where they would put a sprig of kale on every plate as garnish. I didn’t even really know it was edible. I thought it was, you know, just a green thing to make the plates look fancy or whatever. A man came in one day and ordered something that came with a side, and he asked if he could have kale. I was like… the garnish? Yes, the garnish. He just wanted a bunch of kale. I was really confused but put a bunch on the plate for him and it made him happy, so… there we go. He was years ahead of his time.
Simple misunderstanding.
Friend of mine went to Cheese Cake Factory and ordered a “coffee with bailey’s in it” for dessert. Took ages. Server comes back and confirms. More time goes by – the cook comes out and confirms.
Finally the waitress comes back with a cup of coffee with two bay leaves in it. I can only imagine how confused they were putting that one together.
Not how allergies work.
I used to work at an Italian restaurant similar to Olive Garden. I had a lady once order a penne with chicken and broccoli… a tasty dish to be sure, but the lady requested that we make it with spaghetti pasta instead of penne because she “is allergic to penne”.
Not sure how exactly you’re allergic to a specific shape of pasta… we’d gladly do the substitute even if she wasn’t allergic.
Allergic to specific oceans.
I had a customer ask what region the lobster was from in our lobster bisque, because he was allergic to shellfish but only from a certain ocean. All I could think as we had to call the head chef at home to ask about lobster source regions was that maybe the guy could…not eat the bisque.
Only the finest of ketchups.
“Can you make some organic ketchup?”
Ms, I’m pretty sure all our ketchup is organically soure–
“You ‘guess’?! What [expletive] good is that to me?!”
Uh.. I beg your–
“How hard is it to purée tomatos into a [expletive] ketchup?! Where is your head chef?!”
I ended up, at the chef’s behest, bringing her a small dipping dish of ketchup from a bottle. I got a “See!! How hard was that?!” For a tip too lol
Thinking on the fly.
When serving a vegetarian meal, the woman was clearly upset and I asked if the meal was correct. She said yes, but “why do vegetarian meals always have to be pasta??” I offered to get her something else, like a PB&J, grilled cheese, etc. She wanted tofu.
I informed her that we don’t carry tofu, and she requested that I take the edamame from the hors d’oeuvres and make our own tofu. She was appalled when I said we wouldn’t be able to make her homemade tofu on the fly while serving 300 people, but I was kind of impressed with her thinking of the idea.
How sweet it is.
I worked at a place that had a lot of flavored syrups for teas and lemonades. She wanted a glass of the “mango stuff.” We tried to explain that it wasn’t like juice…it’s straight up mango flavored syrup. She wouldn’t be moved. Drank a whole glass and took one to go.
Lady drank a bottle and a [expletive] half of mango syrup.
Many hands make light the work.
A girl ordered tacos that had onions on them. After a short misunderstanding about the components of pico de gallo the girl stated that she simply didn’t want onions on her tacos. I offered to get her a new order, to which she responded “just take it to the back and take them off”. Easy enough, I walked to the back and removed the onions. When I brought them back she thanked me and tipped me $5.
Now why she couldn’t do this herself? or what benefit there was to losing $5 I will never know, but she was polite about it so there’s that.
One sweet milk, please.
I work in a hipster breakfast restaurant. Two (maybe late teens?) girls ordering coffee:
Girl 1 (confidently): “Can I have an iced vanilla latte, with no coffee?”
Me: “….. you want a glass of milk with vanilla syrup?”
1: “Oh, is that what a latte is? Nevermind I’ll just have water”
Girl 2: “You really sounded like you knew what you were doing!”
Delicious, delicious garlic.
I once had a guest who said that they had a severe allergy to garlic (to the point that they could go into anaphylactic shock if they ingested it.) I work in a steakhouse, so there is garlic in just about everything! The guest asked if I could have a conversation with the chef to be sure that nothing that she ordered would contain garlic or have come in contact with anything else that had touched garlic. I told her that I highly recommended that she did not eat anything because there was no way to guarantee any of that, but she insisted. I talked to the chef, she ate and everything was fine (as far as I know.) I suspect that she may have exaggerated her condition.
Mmm, hot lettuce…
Back when I used to work in a restaurant I had a couple.. but this is one that still sticks out in my mind.
One lady wanted her salad microwaved so the cheese would melt. I confirmed a couple of times, she wanted the entire salad, dressing, veggies, everything microwaved for melted cheese. It was a disgusting droopy mess, but she happily ate it.
He went off-menu.
I once had a guy offer to buy my underwear. I’ve had people ask for bowls of cherries. I’ve had someone ask for all sides to be on separate plates. I know there’s a lot more but these are just the things coming to mind.
The rarest of rare.
Had a former NFL lineman come in and order a, “steak, very rare.” “How rare would you like it?” I asked him. “Tell the cow about fire,” was his response. So yeah, he ordered a 16 oz. piece of raw meat. We briefly described what flames were to the plate after we set it on the table, and he thought that was hilarious.
One burger, hold the burger.
Dude ordered a burger with just ketchup, mustard and pickles. As in “I’ll have the 1/4 pound burger with just ketchup, mustard and pickles.”
Came back and gave it to him. He told me he literally wanted a bun with ketchup, mustard and pickles WITHOUT THE BURGER. [Expletive] psychopath ordered bread with condiments but he paid like $10
