Part of running a restaurant is dealing with occasional customer complaints. “The chicken was undercooked, there was too much oil, and the mashed potatoes tasted too buttery.”
As the owner, that means responding with complimentary meals or issuing refunds, or risking a bad review that instantly ruins the business’ reputation. But some complaints are from customers who seem to want to take advantage.
This was what a restaurant owner dealt with when their friend’s wife complained about a plate of pasta she had almost finished. Safe to say, their friendship took a massive hit after that incident.
Dealing with customer complaints is an occupational hazard for anyone running a restaurant
This owner, for one, had to deal with a woman whose complaints got out of hand
It resulted in the woman getting banned, which didn’t sit well with her husband
The author, however, wonders whether the reaction was warranted
There is a growing number of people trying to take advantage of merchants
If the woman was indeed trying to game the system to get a free meal, she isn’t the first to do so. In fact, it's an alarming trend across 38 countries, according to the 2025 Global eCommerce Payments & Fraud report.
Findings reveal that 57% of merchants report an increase in customers taking advantage of refunds and disputes. This is a slight increase from 47% in 2024.
Other restaurant owners have also spoken up about their own experiences with entitled customers and bogus complaints. Natasha Kwan, owner of Diego’s Cantina in St. Louis, Missouri, recently had to deal with a customer complaint about supposed hair on their chicken tacos.
“We gathered the information from her, along with her phone number, to check our systems. Well, we didn’t have any third-party deliveries at that time of day, nor do we sell grilled chicken tacos. That alone was a red flag,” Kwan said.
Restaurants will be more than willing to offer complimentary meals for complaints, but there’s a caveat
At some point, restaurants will mix orders up or get them wrong. Sometimes, consumers simply won’t like what they ordered. But as a paying customer, the last thing you want is to be unpleasant about it.
Jill Tyler, who co-owns Rye Bunny in Washington, D.C., and is a Michelin Star recipient, acknowledges that “we live in a subjective world” and that not everyone will enjoy every item they serve.
“We’re going to comp the thing you didn’t like and get you something new on the table,” Tyler said. “We’d always rather have a chance to respond and fix things while folks are in the building because once people leave, it’s so much harder to fix.”
Tyler emphasized that feedback should always come from a “calm, kind place,” and that they, as restaurant owners, will gladly go out of their way “even more” to correct the mistake.
The woman, however, appeared to have malicious intentions, which the author spotted. If anything, she should be making the effort to fix the mess she made.
Many readers sided with the author
Others shared similar experiences
