Hey Pandas, What’s Your Worst Restaurant Experience As A Customer Or Employee? (Closed)

My husband and I, along with another couple drove about 20 miles out of town to go to this little restaurant we heard about. Once there we all ordered filet mignon as that was the house specialty that we came for. We drank some wine and chatted while waiting for our entrées, and waited and waited. Finally we call the server over to find out what's taking so long, she goes in the kitchen and brings out these charred hockey pucks that vaguely resemble filets that would take a chainsaw to cut. We of course object to them and the waitress takes our plates back to the kitchen and starts screaming at the cook and then we hear pans being thrown around and crashing noises. We're all staring at each other in shock. After another time of waiting we get passable steaks and decide to just eat them rather than listen to WW3 in the kitchen again. Dude must have been drunk or maybe the dishwasher was cooking that night. Whoever was in the kitchen went home with a black eye and several contusions.

Trying to eat in a restaurant with obnoxiously loud music. We had to shout to each other and the waiter to be understood and there were no spots with less volume. No, the volume could not be lowered because 'some people like it'.

Waiting tables while working on my graduate degree in Special Education. Older couple (to me, as a young 20 ish) comes in, start talking to each other. I come over do my waitress thing. Lady orders, turn to man, ask him what he wants, he starts making weird motions with his hands, like someone trying to mimic sign language. I start talking to him in my rudimentary sign skills. Thr lady starts laughing a little and says something like"John, just tell the girl what you want to eat." Then says to me that he doesn't like to talk to people so pretends to be Deaf (??!!!!). I tersly explain why I know some ASL. Lady looks a bit embarrassed, man just looks at the table. People PLEASE don't pretend to have a communication impairment if you don't. How rude.this was over 22 years ago but I remember it like it was yesterday.

Maybe when I tried soft shell crab for the first time and found out I was allergic. I was so sad, because it tasted really good :)

As an employee: Watching a girl who was just served a delicious baguette actively bite all the nails off her left hand, spit them out then put them in the sandwich in a really weird, methodical and utterly creepy way.

As a customer: Witnessing a full-on domestic argument between wife (front of house) and husband (obviously very henpecked chef) in a restaurant in Bruges. Eventually the domestic degenerated into a really one-sided fight with the wife basically pummelling the husband in the chest and stomach while he just stood there motionless and expressionless and took it. Restaurant was still there the next time we went a few years later too!

I worked for a guy who owned a sandwich shop in a resort town in Alaksa. The guy was stingy, mean, and a martinet. Watched every employee like a hawk looking for prey. Everything had to be done precisely as he wanted it. Alaska is kind of fast and free with restaurant regulations so he grew a garden in the summer (out behind the shop) with no fence around it, raised chickens for the eggs (also served omelets for breakfast), and insisted we have ALL scraps and unfinished food for the chickens. Buckets upon buckets of garbage every day. He fired people working for him on the smallest of infractions. My day came because I gave an extra large omelet to a regular customer we all loved. When the customer found out (not from me) he read the guy the riot act in front of a full shop of tourists and went down the hill to the owner's competition. I went to work there, too. As Oscar Wilde once said, "Revenge is a dish best served cold."

I worked as a server for years. (I have dozens of stories, as I know EVERY server does) One of the worst was when I was working at one of the few nicer places in town. (We offered Kobe beef, if that gives you an idea) It was Valentine's day. We closed at 11, and a couple came in at 10:40. No one else wanted to stay, so I took the table. (I looked forward to the extra tip) From the beginning, the man refused to even look at me and the woman did all the ordering. She spoke very condescendingly to me the entire time. They of course did the entire works. Wine, appetizer, entree and dessert. They were there until after midnight. When I collected the book after they left, I found a single dollar bill as my tip.

Being sabotaged by a coworker who would constantly cause health hazards and they refused to fire or do anything about. She did anything you could think of. She dipped her ungloved finger into cheese dip and ate it, then did it again. She refused to do anything if it were just me and her working. She wouldn't cook, didn't clean, and would constantly leave early. The last straw for me was when she came into work with PINK EYE and didn't tell anyone for an entire hour while she scratched her face and served people. This was at a fast food taco place that had hundreds of people a day!

I'm happy to say that the manager got fired shortly after I quit. The kitchen was also disgusting. I will never eat there or anywhere like there. I can't even LOOK at enchiladas now.

So my sister and her friend took me out to eat for my 18th birthday. Unbeknownst to me, my sister had asked the waitress if they did that thing where people came out and sang happy birthday and left the poor birthday person all embarrassed and awkward.id never had that before and she thought it would be hilarious. Waitress said no and my sister said "oh bummer... Oh well." And left it at that. She hadn't been rude. She hadn't insisted on it or anything. She was just curious if they did cause she thought it'd be fun.
Waitress seemed to take this personally for whatever reason.
She took our orders, brought us our food, and as she put my plate down she announced to the restaurant "IF I COULD HAVE EVERYONES ATTENTION PLEASE! So apparently this girl right here wants special treatment for being born. So Id like to say on behalf of everyone here, happy birthday. Everyone acknowledge the birthday girl. She needs it."
I was utterly embarrassed in the absolutely worst way possible. It's one thing to embarrass in good fun. But this was rude and sarcastic and really really hurtful, especially considering I myself hadn't said a word to her. Not to mention this was the first time I'd gotten to do something fun with my sister in a long time. My sister was livid. She talked to the manager and we ended up getting our meal for free so that was something at least.

I spent three weeks in a hospital and needed a minor heart surgery, because the waitress "forgot" to write down that the tea I ordered was supposed to be decaf. Despite the fact I said that three times. And, when asked after she brought it to the table, she confirmed that yes, this is definitely the special decaf tea only this one restaurant in the area has.

I'm deadly sensitive to caffeine.

This was eons ago, but a friend and I were eating, and drinking of course, in a beer garden in Munich. It was relatively early and other than 2 very drunk Norwegian backpackers, or table was empty. I saw someone sitting by himself, and I thought he was US military, so I invited him to join us. So, the 5 of us are close to a couple of full tables, long picnic tables that easily seated 30 people. I had just picked up my beer mug and mentioned that it could be used as a weapon. Not a minute later, a fight broke out, and one guy hit another bald guy with a mug. Split his head wide open like a ripe watermelon. Blood streaming down his face. The 5 of us just looked at each other, and without a word being spoken, we slid to the far end of the table. The fight continued, but not for long. The waitresses took over, called the police, an ambulance, and kicked the others in their group out. We chatted for a while, helped the backpackers, who, after putting on their packs on, fell onto their backs. We all laughed and helped them up, as they were like turtles on their backs. Took them to their hostel, and the young soldier walked us to our hotel in the Red Light district. Never felt safer.

Oh, so many to count. I waited tables for 10 years and saw so much s**t during this time. I think the worst was when I first started working at a particular chain restaurant and was told this group of 6 women had requested me. I realized I had been tricked by a coworker because I knew I had never laid eyes on any of the customers. The women ran me ragged back and forth, and I
couldn’t even give my other tables good service. Their bill was close to $100 but I can’t remember because they all paid separately. They left me a wadded up $1.00 and pennies for my tip. (Btw, because this certain group was terrible to all of us, my manager called their corporate office and had them banned from the restaurant.)

The entire restaurant was filthy, the food was either cool when it should have been hot, warm when it should have been cold, the utensils, crockery and glassware were covered in fingerprints, and the staff spent half the time either gossiping or on their phones.

At some point, all three of our children worked at the same restaurant. Two in the kitchen and one as waitress/barmaid. We go in and asked if we could have one of N's table. Yep. She comes to our table, smiles sweetly and say "Iced tea and diet Pepsi, right?" Before departing, she asks if we're eating "the usual". Correct. The floor manager was at another table and heard her. Comes to see us when she comes back with our drinks and says it's always nice to have recurring customers and have a server that remembers what you like. We all start laughing and tell him, this is our daughter, and G & P are brothers and her brothers too. He didn't know (they have different surnames). Going there was the only time when we could be served by all our children. Later on, G went with this floor manager to open up a new restaurant, brought his wife with him (who was already a server/barmaid), and became the kitchen manager then the floor manager. He went back to being a kitchen manager because too many people were trying to get their food for free for some reasons or another and he'd tell them there was nothing wrong with the food. He got fed-up. P became a Chef where he could do his own recipes and tweak the existing ones to his heart content.

finding hair in food. the worst.

as a waitress: the chef was ill, so the boss, a decorated chef himself, took the shift at noon, when mostly office people with scarce time for dining were guests. after about an half hour the orders piled up and waiting time expanded and expanded - he was a hilarious cook, but muuuuch too slow for rush hour. try explaining to all those guests ...

Hard to pick a "worst", but one that was pretty bad was the time the table next to us had their kid watching some movie on his tablet at FULL volume. I finally requested that they have him turn it down, and they did... somewhat. It became pretty infuriating, and we just finally ended up leaving.

We preordered to make sure there was no garlic, onion or lactose in out pizza and when we got there it was drenched in garlic oil and we couldn’t get a refund so me and my mum just ate it and suffered the consequences

As a customer. My DH and I were trying restaurants in town with a book of coupons we had. Each week we'd try one. Bar, diner, brand restaurant, and finally a Chinese buffet. The waitress - there's only one - took forever to take our drink order, to bring it back to the table, to get our food order (at the bar too), food was cold when put on table when it was supposed to be hot, etc. Finally we couldn't even find her when the time came to pay so we went to the cashier instead and paid with $0.01 tip - so she knew we didn't not forget to tip her. When we went into the buffet place, she came at our table after a very long while. We recognized her and told her we weren't ready to order anything, then my DH went to the bar and asked to speak with the manager. He explained what had happened to us all month and asked to be switched waitress. Best service all month, even if he was just picking up our plates and giving us refills on our drinks. I think my DH gave him like 30% tip, which is unheard of considering it's a buffet and you serve yourself. Let's just say she wasn't there the next time we went.

Not a restaurant, but I think this will fit.

I am in the military. I was the duty officer one night, and did morning rounds (Between 04:00 and 06:00). Breakfast is served from 06:30, and my last stop for rounds was at the mess kitchen. I find the duty chef frying eggs, with oil, stark-naked.

Wrote him up, he got charged and sentence was dismissal.

But what I still wonder about is that he didn't wear an apron, and how many micro burns did he experience from splattering oil?

And where....?