ITT:restaurant horror stories

ITT:restaurant horror stories

whether it be from a employee or a customer doesn't matter, just share your stories

At my first kitchen job we had a weekend morning regular, we'll call him Frankie. Frankie coached middle school soccer and would stop in for the "Frankie omelette" before going out to the field complex for the day.

The "frankie omlette" was a 12-15 egg omelette with literally everything in the kitchen. The worst mix i remember
>lett, tom, pick, onion, turkey, jalapeno, ham, sausage, salami, spinach, smoked salmon, pepper rings, mortadella, grilled chx, souvlaki meat, pineapple, feta, cheddar, american, swiss, cream cheese, jerk tri-color pepp, taco beef, and sliced kielbasa

My manager weighed one once at it was between 4-5lbs, had to make a special plate out of 2 togo boxes and a taped up cardboard box to serve him.

This was every weekend for a year, if frankie hasn't died yet im sure he'll be there tomorrow.

There's a high-end restaurant in my city that I have been to a few times, yet I have never gotten the chance to actually enjoy it. Every time I've been to this place there has been someone there with a screeching rug rat. I could not enjoy my evening, and I will not go back unless this place enacts a policy banning young children. If you can afford to eat at a place like that you can also afford a babysitter for the evening, if you don't want to do that then go to Denny's or something. Fuck off and stop ruining everyone else's evening. God dammit I hate parents.

>that many fucking ingredants
>every fucking weekend
That restaurant must have been pretty successful

>back on the line after break
>friend is pouring soup from the warmer through a strainer and into a bowl
>defeated look on his face
>ask him what's up
>he's just shaking his head
>look at order chit
>"small french onion soup; no onion"

I had to sit down I was laughing so hard

I'm guessing frankie was quite obese?

Imagine the horrendous farts this guy passed in the locker room.

Do you know how much you charged the guy for that trainwreck?

Its a pretty successful place, has been for awhile. The kind of non-pretentious place where you can get a damn good patty melt or maybe chefs doing a weekly special with shark. Everything was house made too.
He was by no means a small guy but he was also like 6'6-7. $25-35 iirc but he would mix it up a lot based on what we had.

A few times he would get a side of sausage gravy and homefries with it or in it so prices varied based on frankies whim.

What's the point

I once went to taco bell and ordered two tacos.
Crunchy.
They forgot to put the meat on one.

Somewhat along the same lines, i worked at a semi upscale gastropub/gourmet burger place. I forget what night but we did a build your own burger and we had to be explicit that we were not responsible for some of the abominations that went out.

People doing double american cheese, sweet relish, avocado, roast red pepp, and 3 different kinds of aioli. Had to start skewering bugers before sending em out because no one knew aioli means mayo and would load up.

he strained to remove the onion pieces from the onion soup,

What did they think aioli meant? Why didn't they just ask their server?

"I'd like an onion soup but please remove the onions"

I guess it was a texture thing if we weren't being fucked with; either way it's a weird request

Before you all read this, understand I’m minoring in Food Service and work in a food department where we are strict about food safety. With that in mind, please continue.
My coworker and I became pretty close friends. She and I decided to hang out outside of work and go to get dinner. She kept telling me about this place downtown that sold “amazing hot dogs”. And as a hot dog lover, I agreed to go with her. We went inside and yeah. It smelled like garbage. We sat down on the sticky seats and had our order taken by some skater dude. She and I ordered plain old hot dogs with raw onions and an order of fries.

The skater dude was also the cook. He took our dirty menus and started to cook. Not washing his hands. He started touching the hot dogs. Started cooking them. Then he started grabbing raw hamburger and started grilling. After grabbing the raw meat, he grabbed some buns THE ENTIRE TIME NOT WASHING HIS HANDS. I was about to die. I was thinking about writing my goodbyes to my girlfriend. While these were cooking he started cleaning dirty dishes then WENT BACK TO COOKING. NO GLOVES. NO NOTHING. He served our food. I didn’t want to eat it but… I had to be nice. So I ate the filthdog. It tasted… mediocre. Like an average Oscar Meyer. Disappointing. I went to salt up some fries. Not to my surprise, the salt shaker had a layer of dirty sticky residue. Eugh. I wanted to go home. And thank god I didn’t die.

We get those all the time.

Turkey burger, no turkey, just buns and veggies

Pepperoni pizza ****SHRIMP ALLERGY****

Macaroni and short rib sandwich, chicken instead of ribs, macaroni on the side, vegetables instead of fries. The lady who got that one was pretty upset it didn't look like the picture, she was mad at how lousy our kitchen was.

Someone asked us once to remove the caffeine from a fountain soda...

I understand your feelings.

Are you retarded?

Boosts your immune system

Im guessing they just thought it was some kind of sauce. Unless they knew and absofuckinglutely love drowning shit in it.

>be me
>work at food truck
>woman comes up to order
>woman looks like a generic cali bimbo on a budget
>she says what she wants. Can barely order right.
>i ring it up, it comes to like 25 something
>i say "ok that will be 25 something"
>she hands me a 20
>stares at me
>i stare back waiting for her to give me more money
>nothing happens
>i say " it was 25 something miss do you have any more cash"
>she asks for food now
>i tell her i have to get it ready but it will be 25 and some change to pay for the order to complete the sale
>she just stares at me and then after a bit she asks about getting the food again...
>her bf walks up. Hes kinda like a wanna be lifting bro obviously has a thing for dumb blondes
>he asks her about food (prolly whats taking so long, i usually take like a min to take an order and get money)
>i tell him its like 25 and some change and the woman only gave me a 20.
>she just stares at me silently.
>he looks at her, prolly knows shes fucking retarded
>she just leaves and walks back to their truck without saying a word to me after her bf gets there
>he sighs and gives me more money.
>i thank him and quickly get their food and they leave.
>guy looks so sad that he has to put up with her.

Anytime I go to The Counter, I checkoff pretty much... every single box.

I was absolutely not expecting the guy to not also be retarded.

>breading chicken for katsu since the station supply was running low

>busy af, having to juggle with doing dishes

>suddenly get no less than ten orders of katsu

>niggas run over to to me and take what I've got finished

>They need more

>they're taking the katsu from me as quick as I'm making them

>the orders keep fucking pouring in

>Run out of the bags I was breading

>go to cooler where more are kept

>empty

>we're completely out of one of our most popular items

>it's 7PM

>We close at 10

I was picking panko out of my knuckle skin for days after

>"small french onion soup; no onion"
Any time I get that I tell the server to fuck off

Is it really that bad of an order? Lots of people like the flavor of onion but not the texture.

>Pepperoni pizza ****SHRIMP ALLERGY****
aroo? so, just eat pepperoni pizza? or did they not want to eat pepperoni pizza bc they thought it was somehow connected to their shellfish allergies?

>Is it really that bad of an order?

Aside from being asinine not really. All it takes is a sieve. Leaving your line in a rush to get a sieve is a bigger pain.

>Is it really that bad of an order?

Given that onions are the main fucking ingredient I would say so.

You don't have a sieve nearby as part of your mise?

>You don't have a sieve nearby as part of your mise?
Tragically no. Because people who order onion soup with no onions get their onions.

Sounds like a cool guy to me.

topkek

It was probably more like so there wasn't any cross contamination.

I would absolutely drown my burger in aioli, that shits the bomb.

>working as a line cook in a shitty chain restaurant
>supervisor drops precooked chicken breast on floor
>dunks it in sanitizer bucket and serves it

>>he sighs and gives me more money.

lol

>dunks it into a sanitizer bucket
What the fuck
What food chain was it?

I'm just kidding, someone stopped him. But he was seriously going to serve it. I won't name the chain, but nearly everything was heated up in a microwave. And there was a roach infestation in the kitchen that the owners refused to address.

I'd happily eat there again desu

Confirmed for olive garden

I worked as a pizza chef for a while. Thank God I never had to do it, but we apparently were supposed to make special dough ON THE SPOT for gluten free pizzas. I have no clue how it was even done, because it was a brick oven and the only way pizzas didn't stick to the oven and turn into charcoal was because of the small amount of flour on the pizza paddle, which is obviously not okay when gluten-free.

We also had a dude come in and order a grilled cheese on the basis that 'all restaurants have bread and cheese', on Sunday. We would close down Monday and Tuesday to get the kitchen in order, so we didn't actually have the capacity to handmake a beautiful grilled cheese. (Or, more accurately, the cook didn't want to.)

Probably Olive Garden, that place is on another level. Never work in a chain, kids, they survive by cutting costs and the food suffers.

Not Olive Garden but I'm sure every chain runs the kitchen in a similar way.

>Worked at a McD's part time in college.
>First job there, toasting buns.
>Back in the day when they toasted them.
>Had a bucket to put buns in that I dropped on the floor.
>Dropped dozens of buns.
>Never once put a dropped bun in the bucket.
>Managers, shift managers, or owners never noticed or cared.
>Kinda thought it would be an issue...
>Became a game on my first shift.

>go to Chinese buffet with coworkers (not my idea)

>there's like 8 of us, 4 to a booth

>sit across from one of the on-call guys who works like crazy but is kind of soft-spoken, we don't even talk because I barely know the guy

>at the end of the meal we're lined-up to pay and leave and he's a few people ahead of me

>while he's paying I see the cashier and manager pointing at me while talking to him

>get up to the cashier and tell them I had one lunch buffet and a soda, she and the manager look at each other, speak in Chinese, she shrugs and takes my money

>ask co-worker wtf that was about

>"they said I had to pay for you too because we were together, so I did"

I was a 30 year-old man with facial hair; I still don't know wtf that was about

>carbonara, no yolk
>carbonara, COOK THE YOLK
>well done steak
>chili cream pasta, NO CHILIES
>aglio olio, CREAM BASE

i was at a western cafe in an asian country.

>dunks it in sanitizer bucket and serves it
>supervisor

He wanted to get fired

what the fuck

>balsamic
>sweet chili
>smokey cajun
>dijon horseradish
>salted maple
>wasabi

Pick 3

Was this Panera? The one I'm at is in a mall and people do this shit all the time, everyone is so goddamn picky and 90% of people don't know the difference between Gorgonzola and feta cheese. people don't even know what a fucking panini is, I got asked by a customer to make her grilled cheese not as a panini, and she got all pissy with me when it wasn't heated, like wtf did you expect

Lol wut

Are you?

I started to hate niggers soon after becoming a cashier at McDonald's.

Did you guys have an extra large pan or did you just throw an oven tray on the fire?

He liked his eggs a little runny so we'd do everything on the flat top. Once his filler was cooked we'd pour the eggs on, toss the hot shit in, roll it up and let the heat cook from both sides. Two guys with two spatulas each transfered it to the container.

Is it really bad for a grown adult to act like a child because his French Onion soup has goddamn onions in it?

Seriously, every restaurant needs a security team to drag these people outside, and kick the shit out of them.

Applebees or Chili's

Olive Garden actually does a lot of prep and don't typically use microwaves.

Nigga, Applebee's would microwave beer

>Used to do a bit of everything at a small Inn, work with a few Ecuadorians.
>Every other week we made salad dressing, huge fucking batches of it, let it sit in 30 or 40 10 gallon buckets for a week then bottle it the next week.
>Ecuadorian missing half the teeth in his mouth spills a 10 gallon bucket on the floor, gets a filthy dust pan and broom
>Proceeds to sweep half a gallon of salad dressing into the dust pan
>The death stare I gave him as he attempted to pour the contents of the dust pan back into the bucket could have melted steel beams.
>Didn't bother to report him because he does all the nasty jobs they cant pay legal employees to do.

ha same

Nah it was a semi-private golf course in Canada, I suspect half the members love to mod the shit out of their orders just because they can

The line there is tiny so all cookware/utensils but the immediate essentials are in the prep area, down a 20m hallway (or somewhere along that hallway).

Rough layout, necessitates some cardio during rushes and banquets

>people who order onion soup with no onions get their onions
kek if only

When I was 17, I was working at a fast food place. I was the only white person there. The manager was a complete idiot. I'd often yell at her to go away because by trying to help, she was slowing me down and messing up my well-honed burger construction system.

One day, we're closing up, and this woman empties the fryers into garbage bags on the floor ... imagine a trash bag full of of 15 gallons of hot oil ... anyway, she is trying to get me to take this shit out to the trash. I tell her I'm not picking it up until someone gets a big ass tray or something to slide underneath it first (to lift the tray instead of the bag). I got fired after about 5 minutes of defying her will to simply pick up the bags by the handle. The next day, one of the guys I worked with told me that 2 other people quit that night because this idiot manager insisted they clean up the enormity of the mess it made when 15 gallons of oil spilled all over the floor and under the machinery while she went home.

I don't know whatever happened after that. I imagine they had to have professional cleaners come in.

That was the last time I ever worked in a chain restaurant that prioritized manager promotions to only the people who were too stupid to find better jobs for 3 years straight. Like it's a medal for persistent retardation.

fuuuuuck that

>8727923
>prioritized manager promotions to only the people who were too stupid to find better jobs for 3 years straight. Like it's a medal for persistent retardation.
kek shitty but true for so many places

A co workers wife orders this at every Xmas party it's fucked. And she's like 400 lbs

>This salty faggot

if you can't stand humans maybe you should eat at a robot restaurant instead?

>20m
>some cardio

>small amount of flour on the pizza paddle, which is obviously not okay when gluten-free.
Your place didn't have cornmeal? It's not uncommon for pizza places to use cornmeal instead of flour on the bottom of the pie.

>serving floor buns

t.liberated whore

>work at a sushi restaurant
>spic coworker is making pic
>the cheapest and most simple piece of sushi you can make
>drops the sushi on the floor
>we charge three dollars for it
>bends down
>three fucking dollars
>reaches for it while it rests in the nasty grimy floor tiles
>$3
>grabs it and places it back in her hand
>3 USD (United Staes Dollaroo)
>makes it into a fucking order
>serves it

Spics are the worst. A cooked piece of food? I would still refuse to serve it but a cold raw piece of seafood that is upcharged x6 what it costs? Get the flying fuck out of here back to Mexico.

>people who were too stupid to find better jobs for 3 years straight. Like it's a medal for persistent retardation
Say fucking word. Always the one sweaty fuckbasket that sucks at everything but is in charge just because they've been around forever and haven't screwed up badly enough to fuck off entirely. Every job I've ever had in a kitchen. There's always one.

Hey at least I know I am getting what I pay for.
Fucking uncooked fish what the fuck.
It having fallen on the floor is not the issue here.

>pic
>raw

The shrimp used in shrimp nigiri in the U.S. is almost always parcooked tiger shrimp. I don't know how anyone could think it's raw just by the texture alone. You'd have to go to a high-end place to find actual raw shrimp sushi here.

high-end dropped on the ground raw fish

>Frankie coached middle school soccer
Can't molest children on an empty stomach. The BO and omelette breath gives the power trip an extra dimension. You participated in this, user.

Oh God, this happened roughly once a month at a restaurant I worked at. According to the server it was some old lady that hated the taste and texture of onions, but loved the broth.

I have a lot of stories. There is one I like to share more than most because it hurts me more than anything. I had a lady bold enough to spend money on business cards listing all her allergies. The server brought it back to me and the executive chef. She was basically allergic to everything under the sun. And she basically was demanding high quality ingredients on the shit tier shit she was ordering. I think we ended up making her loaded potato bites made with goat cheese and an unseasoned well done sirloin...

I walk into the Waffle House close to my place, with no cash, just a debit card with more than enough money to eat at the awful waffle.

I ask my waitress "Do you all accept debit/credit cards?". She replied yes.

20 minutes later I go to the counter to pay my bill and when I hand them my card, they refuse to take it and point me to an ATM.

This was not just any ATM, this was what appeared to be a gameboy hooked up to a 56k modem. Evidently it was some high tech shit because they charged me 8 dollars for using the thing (more than my meal cost).

I about shit a brick and raised hell with everyone working there. They refused to comp me my meal and I briefly thought of exacting my revenge by taking a deuce or wiz right there on the floor.
Luckily, I didn't because I would go to jail or be forced to do it with my pants on and that would fuck up my clothes.

Instead, I paid my bill and walked over to my table. I whistled for the waitress that served me and that told me they "accepted debit/credit cards". I said "Here's your tip" and stuck my finger down my throat and ralphed every bit of eggs, bacon and toast I had eaten there, as well as a shitload of velveeta shells and cheese mixed with a shitload of Natural lite and Jim Beam from the night before. It smelled like the bottom of a trash can in a bar.

I walked out grinning like a maniac as people screamed at me. Not one fuck was given that morning.

>I said "Here's your tip" and stuck my finger down my throat and ralphed every bit of eggs, bacon and toast I had eaten there, as well as a shitload of velveeta shells and cheese mixed with a shitload of Natural lite and Jim Beam from the night before. It smelled like the bottom of a trash can in a bar.
>I walked out grinning like a maniac as people screamed at me. Not one fuck was given that morning.
This poster did nothing wrong, waitress deserved it

>make a quesadilla
>20 minutes later he complains it's cold
>make another one
>20 minutes later complains it's cold
>make another one
>have a cold
>put a big loogie in his next quesadilla.

Jesus Christ, It's going to get cold after 20 minutes, you fucking asshole.
Fuck, I hate customers sometimes.
That's the only time I've ever spit in someone's food. He deserved it.

>middle of the day
>fucking half a dozen hobos always crowding in front of Popeyes for change, food, even water from clientele
>More adventurous ones (who just happen to smell the most) often come inside to beg for shit from people eating food, to the point that their infested bodies are touching people and their food as their grubby hands can't keep to themselvrs
This is a small town suburb too, why the fuck are they always here? Worst thing is that the store and police can't do shit because every time they do a bunch of faggot hipster fucks come over from San Francisco to "peacefully" protest that we're mistreating the poor and unfortunate. I am surprised Popeyes hasn't been shut down yet due to this rampant disease that always plagues them.

>lying on the Internet this hard
Bitch please you couldn't land a girl even if you were loaded in something other than lard

>worked as prep chef in an elderly home
>we're making desserts; yogurt with cut fruit with a tip of whipped cream
>make pallet loads of it and shove them on a trailer for serving the wrinkled old rejects
>some intern drops a glass on accident
>shatters all over the place
>allfornothing.exe
>head chef shrugs and says keep serving
>someonesgettingglass.tar.gz
>we serve the whole fucking lot
>roughly 15 minutes later the director walks into the kitchen
>shows a piece of glass in his yogurt
Head chef was fired on the spot, after all hell unleashed and rain of pans going through the kitchen had finally subsided.

Are you a parent who thinks that the entire world revolves around your crib lizard? Guess what, it doesn't. Some of us are out trying to have a nice adult evening, and we are paying a lot of money for this, so have some decency and hire a babysitter for the night.

All upscale restaurants should ban children under 10.

>woman orders a hamburger with everything
>warn her that there's like a dozen different sauces and condiments and it's not recommended
>just hand over the burger
>she rejects it because it's basically a wrapper full of vegetables and sauce with two buns and a patty floating in it

Have any of you cookfags ever worked in the kitchen at a remote work camp/oil rig? Are those people any better than the customers in a restaurant? I'm thinking it could go either way, tradesmen are usually pretty reasonable, but at the same time when you are working in one of those places the only thing you really have to look forward to is meal time so they could be a bit picky.

>hamburger with everything
>dozen different sauces and condiments and it's not recommended
Obviously you use smaller quantities so it doesn't turn into a soupy mess you fucking mong

>Eating at Black Bear Diner for lunch between classes, which has become my favorite place since they erected it across the campus
>Halfway through my fish some fucking ass starts yelling at some middle age dude and his wife (I assume it is) two tables away
>Apparently the old guy isn't tipping because he didn't like how his food turned out, and the other guy is trying to publicly shame him for not keeping in line with tipping culture
>Old guy isn't budging, telling the asshat that whether or not he tips is his decision to make
>Ass continues to preach louder, getting up and starting to go down the dining hall pointing at everybody and then to the staff
>Meanwhile I'm asking a waitress if I can get more sauce for my fries
>The fucker overhears me, apparently he doesn't like it when he's being ignored, he runs up to me and fucking spits on a perfectly good plate of fish and chips
>"This is what the cooks should do to you ungrateful little fucks when you don't show them the respect they deserve!"
>At this point I'm stabbing his legs with a fork and trying to smash a bottle of Papa Bear all over him
Never get between a fat man and his food, because he's gonna be eating something no matter what. Also I got banned for harming another customer, shit sucks since there's no other black bear in this city.

There's a McDonald's in my area that is complete garbage. Every time I eat there everything tastes like rubber and makes me sick. Well, the manager of that McDonald's got hired in my department in a Target Pizza Hut place. And I now know why I get sick from his food. He lets pizza sit out for 3 HOURS And he doesn't even clean dishes correctly! I hate knowing he works in my department and gets away with all that while my guests complain to me about the food quality going down. I know it's his fault...

>NEXT TIME
>*spit*
>ON KITCHEN NIGHTMARES
>"f(BEEP)k you man, you have to tip! I'll call the police!"
>GORDON TAKES ON HIS TOUGHEST CHALLENGE YET

>fast food chain in a department store
Better fire his ass fast, those places are supposed to have higher standards than the standard outfit

>work in tiny local cafe place
>have Indian coworker
>absolutely no barista experience, didn't even know what a cappuccino was before she started working here
>tries to help but somehow only manages to get in the way and further complicate things
>constantly leaves steam pitchers, blenders, etc on every available surface instead of putting them in the dump sink or out of the way once she's done using them like a sane person would
>consistently manages to bungle drink recipes yet argues with me when I know this shit forwards and backwards
>second guesses me all the time and tries to "help" when I'm already like three fourths through an order
>much shorter than me and 0 concept of personal space so literally always underfoot

She's really nice so I feel bad complaining but goddamn, she is just painfully inefficient and there's no polite way of bringing it up with her

feel you user