53 Things Bartenders Overheard That They Wish They Could Forget

I wasn't a bartender, but I was a taxi driver at end 1990s, before Uber. There were two businessmen together sharing the ride, and they were casually discussing women around the USA. One of them said that when you see a woman in Philadelphia, you really know she's a woman, but in Seattle, you're not so sure.

I was tending bar when a normal looking business guy came in looking distressed. He was working for a national (USA) company and had been stealing tens of thousands of dollars from his father in law's company where he worked. He was deleting invoices that he was paid for. His credit cards were canceled. His company car was taken and his wife was PISSED. He was waiting for a friend in another state to come pick him up. He drank a lot of Crown Royal. The reason he had been stealing? A bad gambling habit.

I was bartending at a wedding and overheard the groom's mom arguing with his new mother-in-law about who gets to control the family recipes, it was super awkward.

“And that’s how the horse got me through college.”.

In the last 5 years, just so many breakups. I have witnessed more breakups at the bar than people actually getting together.

Couple sat down to order food. Guy is talking to his date who clearly doesn’t speak a word of English. Tells me she just arrived to America and they just got engaged. No idea if it was true but tried my hardest to stay away from that out of fear he’d see how hard I was cringeing.

I was a bouncer. One Friday night, two young women walked past and one said to the other, “Mayonnaise tastes like dirty boy.”

That sentence lodged itself deep in my brain. I still sometimes think about it out of nowhere.

Not a bartender. Or even food service. But I worked at Barnes & Noble for years and at like 9pm one night I was standing at a register by myself, bored, and this woman comes up and she goes “can I ask you a question?” Of course I mistakenly assumed it would be a book question and said yes. She then pulls out a pregnancy test and says “I just took this in the bathroom. Does it look like a line to you? My husband is in the cafe and I want to tell him but our mother in law is staying at our house and he said he didn’t want us to have more babies. So I want to be sure before I tell him. Do you think there’s a line?”

I was in complete shock. I was only 20 at the time and had never even taken a pregnancy test myself before so I didn’t even know anything about them besides what I had seen on tv. I told her vaguely that I wasn’t sure if there was a line or not and she just left after that.

One of the weirdest interactions in all my time in customer service. Learned way too much about that woman very quickly lol. I wonder if she actually was pregnant or just wanted to be? Or if they still married? Didn’t sound like they were very happy lol.

My first table at 10am the lady handed her (ex) husband divorce papers.

Witnessed a famous actress in her home country have a glass of red wine throw in her face by her partner. He stormed off and it was uncomfortable AF for everyone in the entire restaurant. I tried to help her with a towel and offered to escort her to the restroom but she refused, sitting there with red wine all over her for about 15 minutes before she asked for the bill.

Edit: Also offered to call someone or the police. She declined.

I was a Waffle House waitress, so I got everyone after the bars closed, so it counts, I hope. (For non US folk, this is a 24 hour establishment, so we got lots of drunk people and bartenders alike well after 2am)

In 2014, my manager had the golden idea to make red, white, and blue waffles for July 4th. They were not all three colors in one. Nope. Red, white, OR blue. For one day, at one Texas Waffle House, you could legit order a blue waffle. (If you don’t know, this is your waning to not google blue waffle on a whim). So, this lesbian couple comes in, and one parter leaves for the restroom and tells the other lady she just wants a waffle.

I give the seated lady the holiday special speech about the waffles, and she gets this diabolical grin. We both know what’s gonna go down, and it will be hilarious. The order comes out, and me and the one lady are holding in all the giggles. The other lady slams her fists on the table and just freaks out. Yelling at her partner something like “what kind of sick joke is this?!” And just storms out. I look at the seated lady and feel kinda awful, and she goes “well, we got it taken care of. I thought we could laugh about it.” Girl, WHAT?!

Server here but I had a table that was spending a ton on good liquor and yelling about how much they hate Joe Biden. Turns out the dad was a Jan 6ther and was supposed to voluntary surrender to prison after his conviction so they were getting hammered the night before.

How a republican politician was paying for votes. He thought he was so clever.