Some people order the most bizarre things when they go out to eat. These waiters share the strangest, most disgusting and overall absurd things their customers have ordered.
The Woman Knows What She Wants
“I worked at a pizza parlor, and the most ridiculous request was one that could have been so simple. A lady calls and orders a ‘small pepperoni pizza with no pepperoni’ I clarify and ask her ‘So just a small cheese?’ To which the woman, clearly annoyed by my lack of understanding , says ‘NO. A small pepperoni with no pepperoni.’ I again clarify and ask ‘You want a pizza with sauce and cheese only?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Ok so a cheese pizza.’ ‘NO I WANT A SMALL PEPPERONI WITH NO PEPPERONI.’ We made her a cheese pizza. Still not sure what she thought she was ordering.”
“It Smelled Like A Tire Fire”
“Not a waiter but a cook. Had a lady order her tofu scramble burnt. So I cooked it hard. She sent it back because it wasn’t burnt enough. So I cooked it harder. She sent it back again and the waiter said she really wants it burnt. So I got a wok super hot, put too much oil in and proceeded to burn it like crazy. My chef came by and lost it. I explained it to him and he watched me burn, just ruin the thing. It was black and smelled like a tire fire. She ate all of it and said we were the only place to get it right. She came back every weekend for it and we had to train new cooks how to burn the life out of her food for her; I still can’t comprehend why she would eat that.”
You Want How Many?
“The strangest request! When I worked for Starbucks, I helped open the first drive-thru store in the area so it was a learning process for some customers. A lady orders in the drive-thru lane an iced venti vanilla latte with 22 sweet n lows. Me: 22 sweet n lows, like two two?? Customer: sigh, yes 22 sweet n lows. Me: OK, please pull up. Now at the drive thru we put the extra milk and sugar in the drinks for the customers when in a cafe they would add it on their own. So, the person working the bar looks at me like for real this lady wants 22 packs of sweet n low in her latte? That’s what she said so that’s what we made her. They lady pulls up and pays for her drink. I hand it over and tell her to have a nice day. She stops and says ‘oh, can I get those sweet n lows now?’ I just looked at her and said that they were already in her drink, boy was she pissed!! She wanted us to hand her 22 packs of sweet n low in the drive-thru so that she could take them home.”
“They Took It As A Personal Challenge”
“I had a lady tell me it was impossible to make the dish too spicy. When I told the cooks they took it as a personal challenge. I don’t remember what they put in it, but I do know that someone ran to a grocery store for another ingredient. It was literally the spiciest thing I have ever smelled. Just being an arms length away from it for 30 seconds while I delivered it had me coughing and tears steaming down my face. Guests at nearby tables complained about the smell; just so much capsaicin in the air that people 15 feet away were uncomfortable. But..she ate everything. She ate every single bite and then scraped up the remaining sauce and ate that too.”
“She Wanted Us To Remove…”
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“Had a lady come in to the restaurant I work at and order a glass of wine ‘with just half of the alcohol.’ After explaining to her that we could not remove the alcohol from the wine she asked us if she could have it mixed with juice. We obliged and she drank her concoction. Afterward, she states that the wine was just too strong for her and she decides to switch to scotch…neat…We were all so confused as to what had just happened.”
“She Called Us All Bigots For…”
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“This woman saw that we had ahi tuna (also known as yellow fin tuna) and rice. She demanded we make sushi. I told her that’s not on our menu. She said she heard the table over got a request they asked for that’s not on the menu. That request at the next table was to use unmarinated chicken. Just regular seasoned chicken, no problem. She ranted that we were discriminating her (strange hearing that coming out of a white person’s mouth). I get fed up, told my manager and chef. They both are about to bleed out their ears on how dumb this is. Chef cut the tuna and just pressed the rice together. It just looks like flat slices of tuna just topped with rice and nothing else with it. It brought to the table and she says, ‘You didn’t even try! Where’s the seaweed, cucumber, avocado, and Wasabi? Are you trying to get me to walk out?’ My manager just stares for a second and says ‘Yes. BECAUSE SUSHI IS NOT ON OUR MENU! This is a steakhouse and we serve American style dishes.’ This lady had the gall to say, ‘You all are bigots, you ruined my dinner and I’m reporting your whole staff.’ Fast forward a week or 2, the GM mentions that a woman called and mentioned we were being bigots and discriminating her and treated her unfairly. We let out a huge laugh, GM looks confused and we explain what happened. The GM starts laughing says what a crazy lady blah blah blah. This woman comes in later that night demanding I be fired for how I treated her. My manager tells her to leave or we’re calling the police. She storms out to the entrance and starts screaming that this is a racist restaurant, how we promote white power (remember that this crazy woman is white) and how we don’t care about our guest and we’re turning back time. A huge crowd is just staring at her with what is this woman talking about faces. She was really trying to start a rally and take this place back for the people. What? Shortly after the police arrive and the next day we all get free, dope, steak dinners because we handled it so well.”
Just Creepy
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“It wasn’t so much the order that was disturbing, but the post order request. He asked me to chew up the food and put it back onto his plate. No medical reason. No missing teeth. Not old. Just creepy. He got very upset when I declined.”
Crazy For Caffeine
“Barista here. We had a Narcotics Anonymous convention in town once. I had someone order a 16oz cup with as much espresso as would fit. It was something like 18 shots, cost about 25 bucks, and he downed it at the counter and went ‘woo!’ Another NA guy wanted a 16oz cup with half vanilla syrup and half espresso. A lady regularly asks for a cup of regular coffee with a large spoonful of butter stirred in. We do breakfast sandwiches on bagels and croissants, and a businessman with a group of his colleagues had ham/egg/cheese, but he wanted it on a chocolate croissant. I think my favorite incident, though, was a lady that wanted a latte with half nonfat and half soy, a triple shot with one regular shot, one decaf shot, and one half-caff shot, heated to a specific temperature, double-cupped, one Splenda an one Equal stirred into the shots. The works, basically. The guy behind her thought it was as ridiculous as I did, and he loudly asked for a ‘mocha ridiculous drink’ with one third goat’s milk, one third cashew milk, and one third giraffe milk, cooled with a chip of ice from a Norwegian glacier and topped with nutmeg and gold flake. Then he said, ‘wait, is your giraffe milk fair trade? Ok never mind then, I’ll just have a cup of coffee.’ He still comes in; I love that guy.”
“Is She Familiar With The Concept Of Salad?”
“I worked for a while in a vegetarian/vegan-friendly buffet restaurant. Now, the great majority of people were actually really nice, not particularly haughty about their diet or anything, but I had two customers that were, let’s say, different. The first one came up to me with a plate already filled with various salads (that she, being a buffet, had personally selected). She showed me the plate and asked me: ‘Do your salads have any raw ingredients in it?’ And before I could answer: ‘Because I’m pregnant, see, so I can’t eat anything raw.’ While still showing me her plate of definitely-raw, various-veggies-and-fruits salads. I was so dumbstruck that all I could say was ‘Let me ask the kitchen to make sure.’ And I actually did, because ‘is salad raw’ is one of these questions that make you question even the most basic things, such as what a salad is, or what hats are. I asked the chef if our salads had raw ingredients in them, he looked at me and said: ‘Is she familiar with the concept of salad?’ We ended up switching her plate for another one because yes, our salads had raw ingredients in them. However, all in all, she was really nice about it and didn’t mind waiting a bit more for us to fix her plate. The second one was, however, a bit more rude. She came up to me and told me that she could only eat raw, vegan stuff. I thus directed her to the salad buffet (because, hey, now I was pretty sure they were made of raw ingredients), and that’s when she scowled at me and said: ‘Uh, yeah, but I’m getting a bit tired of salads, you know?’ You tremendous twat – you bestow upon other people the task of finding you food that fits your incredibly narrow criteria and then you complain that it’s a tad unoriginal? She later complained that we didn’t have any raw cake (the cake was already vegan, mind you, but yeah, we had baked it). This is the only time I really thought ‘You are an insult to natural selection.'”
Burger Overload
“A customer ordered a ‘triple Grandpa burger.’ This is a common mistake customers often made with us. A Grandpa burger is a triple patty burger, so they often say ‘triple Grandpa burger’ when really they just mean the one 3-patty burger. But after this one guy I always clarified that was what they wanted because this guy actually wanted a 9-patty burger. I asked him twice to make sure I wasn’t hearing wrong but no, that’s exactly what he wanted. Not only that, he wanted cheese on every single patty. So that’s nine 5 oz. beef patties AND nine slices of cheese. Plus, y’know, condiments and the like. This wasn’t even a big guy. Looked fit as a fiddle, handsome, about 25 years old. And he was alone so it couldn’t have been a dare. I guess he was just really hungry. So I had the cook make it and we stood behind the counter and watched as he ate Every. Single. Bite. I wasn’t even sure how I was supposed to react when he was done, but he seemed quite pleased, thanked us, and left. Never saw that guy again.”
Shameless Diner
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The weirdest thing I’ve ever seen was this thin blonde woman who would come in twice daily, each time with a different man. She would always get a burger extra cheese and quesadilla. She would then proceed to take off the buns and use the quesadilla pieces as a bun (admittedly a pretty cool idea), but it didn’t stop there. She would dump a whole cup of olive oil on this monstrosity and hammer the whole thing down like it was her last meal. Needless to say, the guys were really taken aback by this grotesque mastication of cheese and oil. She would finish her meal, excuse herself to the restroom and just leave the restaurant, leaving the guy with the bill. And she did this twice a day! For like a few weeks! What?!”
Dedicated To His Pizza
“I worked at a national pizza chain for a while as a manager. We used to get this guy who would order all the time. He was lactose intolerant so couldn’t have cheese, and had severe heart burn when he ate red sauce. He would order an XL Supreme with no sauce and no cheese. I told the guy if I did that, the toppings would just fly all over the box but he didn’t care. We ended up just baking the dough separate from the toppings and put the toppings in a small wing box on the side for him. Guy said no other pizza place would do that for him and he turned out to be a great repeat customer who always tipped well.”
You’re Allergic To A Shape?
“When I worked at Olive Garden, I once had a lady order a pasta dish that is generally made with rigatoni. However, she requested the rigatoni be substituted with angel hair pasta instead because she was allergic to it…And let me clarify, it was not a gluten free/wheat substitution, it was regular pasta. Naturally I gave her a very confused look as I waited for something else to follow, but nope, she stuck with that story. I’m now concerned that there is some monster of a doctor out there pronouncing people allergic to cylinders… God knows what other shapes people are now living in fear of.”
“It Felt Like A Warm Diaper”
“I worked at Subway in high school. A guy came in and told me to put a lot of Chipotle sauce on his sub. He said, ‘Put it on until you think there’s too much, and then double it.’ His sub became a bread bowl filled with several cups of Chipotle sauce. He paid for it, I gently handed it to him, and he walked away. In the deli paper and plastic bag, it felt like a warm, very full diaper.”
These Women Used Their Coffee Mugs To…
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“Currently working at a Thai bistro that offers a ton of options for vegans, vegetarians, diabetics, or anyone with food allergies. I could go on about strange or complicated orders, however, this one will always make me chuckle. While working at Cheddar’s, a casual American style restaurant, two very rude and very overweight women sat in my section. They order two ice waters with ‘a ton’ of lemons. I’ve seen or heard of other people who order this quite a bit who just make lemonade at the table so it wasn’t too unusual but still deserved an odd look. But once they ordered their food they also ordered two cups of ‘boiling water.’ I’m a little confused but bring them two mugs of really hot water from the coffee brewer and drop them off. When their food comes out I notice these ladies made instant mashed potatoes in a coffee mug!!! Who does that?!”
Garlic Breath
“I used to work at Whole Foods as a juicer and this one guy would come in everyday and order 12 ounces of garlic juice to go (which is like 20 dollars by the way). After a couple weeks of seeing him order the same thing I asked him to drink it in front of me because I didn’t believe it was humanly possible to ingest that much garlic. He downed it all in front of me and said that ‘along with much garlic comes much loneliness.’ I laughed and he said, ‘no seriously I work from home.'”
Spaghetti Swindler
“Customer asked for a spaghetti with a side of more noodles and extra sauce because they were going to share. So, I said ‘you’d like one spaghetti and then an additional order of spaghetti?’ They told me I wasn’t getting it and they just wanted extra noodles and some sauce on the side. I told them we would have to charge for extra noodles, and they ended up not wanting it. They somehow thought free spaghetti was a reasonable request.”
The Grossest Thing I Ever Made
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“I work at a sandwich shop and we’ve had people order really disgusting things. One guy ordered an Elvis sandwich (which is peanut butter, honey, banana, and bacon) and asked for coleslaw, pineapple, sauerkraut, and a whole bunch of other veggies, mustards/mayos. It was the grossest thing I’ve ever made. Found out after his friends paid him 20 bucks to eat the whole thing. He came back the next day and ordered it again because he liked it. I also had a guy order an strawberry shake, and demanded that I thoroughly clean all the shake supplies and utensils before making it because he was lactose intolerant, and he didn’t want the Oreo shake stuff getting in his. I tried to explain to him that Oreo is vegan and that ice cream has lactose in it, but he wouldn’t hear anything of it.”
Picky Eater
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“First job as a server was at a Cracker Barrel. Lady orders a burger, ‘I want the lettuce, tomato, cheese, and pickles all on separate plates and if I see any pink…ANY pink, it’s going back.’ I tell her I can give her one big plate as there wouldn’t be enough room for that but she insists. Bring her the burger as per request. As I am setting the plates down the lettuce leaf bumps into the bun. She instantly demands me to take everything back, even the things that didn’t touch, and replace it all including the burger since it was apparently pink. My manager sees me doing this and instead of following her ridiculous request he simply picks up the burger with his bare hands, nukes it for a few minutes in the microwave (it looked so warped), rubs the lettuce and tomato and pickles all over it and tells me to send everything back as before. She seemed as satisfied as she was going to allow herself to be.”
She Thought A Filet Mignon Was A…
“Had a lady order our filet mignon, when it was brought out to her she said with disgust that she had ordered the filet, not a steak. She proceeded to argue that a filet mignon was a type of baked potato rather than a steak. When asked how she wanted it cooked she looked puzzled and said ‘regular’ which I took as meaning medium.”
There’s No Way You Could Confuse These Things…
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“I once had a guy place his order, and then say, ‘And give me one of those spaghetti appetizers.’ I had been working there for a couple months, and we had no pasta dishes whatsoever on the menu. I politely tried to clarify this, but he wasn’t having it. He just kept getting more irate. He insisted that he eats here all the time, and he always gets the spaghetti appetizer. Eventually, he gets up from his table, storms over to another one, and points at what he wants on another diner’s table. He was pointing at their cole slaw. And yes, as far as he was concerned, I was still the jerk for not knowing what he was talking about. Our slaw was a southern style slaw, where the cabbage is shredded. So, the cabbage is in strings, but you would still have to be some sort of weirdo to confuse it with noodles.”
Quite The Concoction
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“At the Italian restaurant I worked at as a server/bartender/manager for 5 years, we had a lot of regular customers come in and had some strange requests. Most were nothing too special, but one guy would come in 4-5 days a week and he would never order anything on the menu unless it was a busy night and we wouldn’t have time to ‘get crazy.’ On the slower nights though, he would order things with sauces we didn’t normally make, or special dessert concoctions (even though we prepared desserts daily, and did not make them to order). The craziest thing he ever ordered though, was a Doughnut Explosion. To be clear, we did not have nor know how to make doughnuts. However, there was a Dunkin’ Donuts next to our location, and he sent one of his favorite servers next door to pick up a dozen random doughnuts. When he came back, the customer told me which ones he wanted on his dessert, and I proceeded to go back into the kitchen and whip up his dessert to his specification. It consisted of 2 doughnuts, topped with vanilla ice cream, layered between the brownie cake that was our house specialty, and topped with Chambord and a port wine fig sauce that we put on pork chops. This was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen in a restaurant, but he let me try a bite and it was amazing! Needless to say, he ordered it a few more times before I left that restaurant.”
Don’t Argue With Pregnant Women
“Pregnant woman wanted a peanut butter and pickle blizzard at the DQ I worked at. She brought her own pickles. It is against policy to blend things customers bring in into the blizzard, but they are welcome to stir their own ingredients in. It’s my personal policy to not argue with pregnant women. She got her blizzard.”
That Just Ain’t Right
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“I worked at a coffee shop that serves French crepes. One day a sour old man ordered I make him a crepe with black bean burger, shredded coconut, pecans, whipped cream and powdered sugar. The dude ate every last bite of it. That just ain’t right man. To be fair I don’t think that man had it together in his head.This guy would ride his bike in sub-zero snow storms in the middle of traffic-heavy roads. I know this because I and other motorists would have to swerve around him when I was on my way to work. He had no sense of what appropriate conversation was. He would talk about who he was banging at the time, and he would make sexual and rape-y jokes, to which I would respond, ‘ughhh…haha…yea…’ which horrified customers. This dude would also hit on female co-workers in painfully awkward ways. And then this mofo would ask for that damn crepe. Eventually, the staff and owner decided his behavior was totally unacceptable and we banned him from the shop.”
“He Had Eighteen…”
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“When I was in high school my cousin died, and my family went down to Phoenix for the funeral. Needless to say, my uncle was distraught since his son had just died. We met up at a coffee shop one day, and my uncle, not wanting to think too hard about his order and not being used to visiting coffee shops, just ordered one of what my dad was having. Now my dad is a big espresso drinker. Every morning he makes himself six shots. So that’s his normal coffee order at coffee shops, six shots in a cup. My uncle finished his six shots fairly quickly and noticed that the rest of us were still drinking our drinks, so he ordered another drink, same as before. We finished our drinks and my uncle finished his second round at about the same time, so we all got up to leave, and my uncle, having apparently enjoyed his drinks, ordered one more for the road. He drank eighteen shots that day. I can’t imagine what the barista thought. My uncle was fine, but he was jittery for about a day and a half though.”
She Was Allergic To Everything
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“Not a waiter but manager. I worked for a really, really famous chef in a very meat focused restaurant in London. I had a lady call in booking a huge table for her birthday. She was vegetarian and allergic to everything. Milk, wheat, nuts, onion, tomatoes, even chocolate. And a list of other shit printed on a card. This was legit btw, she sent me a medical report, with severity levels and reactions. something like this is not that uncommon but usually it gets dismissed as attention seeking or un needed drama. This lady also said she’s fine with anything its her birthday, she’s not bothered what she eats, just wants all her guests to be happy without her dying. Anyway, celeb chef owner was in that day for a shoot and new menu testing when I told him about this. He made it his personal project that day to make her a full course meal and even a flourless, egg free, dairy free, nut free carob (chocolate alternative) cake. With orange zest and some sort of sour cream she could have. They even used the test kitchen to prevent any cross contamination. When the dinner was over, the chef had to be gone already, the lady came over to the kitchen in tears saying its the first time in 20 years she could have a birthday without a fruit salad. We just gave her a note from the chef, saying: ‘Hope you had a great birthday and that you enjoyed the cake. Love, J.’ It was awesome seeing how much effort went into this dish, and how happy it made her.”
“I Hear A Commotion And…”
“I worked at a restaurant/fish market type of establishment, where we sold raw product but would also prepare the food on the spot. One day I was helping an old Asian lady out and she told me had never had a whole lobster and would love to try one. As she was shopping in the fish MARKET portion, I assumed she wanted it live. So we went over to the lobster tank and she picked the happiest little lobster out there. I asked her if she wanted to pay $16.99 for it alive or $22.99 for us to cook and serve it to her. She decided to take it alive, so I took some time to weigh it out, and wrap it up in a takeout box for her to take home. I put it down on the table and walk away. A minute or two later I hear a commotion and come out to see this little Asian lady with a knife trying to cut off the claw of the lobster. Apparently, she thought that she was supposed to eat this thing live. I cooked it for her.”
A Potent Dinner
“I had a 4 top once that one of the gentlemen was ordering and asked for extra onion, and he made extreme emphasis on EXTRA ONION. So I go to put the order in and I have to talk to the chef to make sure he understands EXTRA ONION. So when the order comes out, I get a side plate of a cut WHOLE ONION. I giggle and take the order to the table. I put the orders of food in front of all the other guests and leave onion man for last. I set his plate of food and extra onion down, he looks up at me and starts laughing. The whole table is now laughing. I’m like what? Apparently wherever they go, no matter what he always has to ask for MORE onion, and this time my snarky chef nailed it.”
