If customers are rude, belligerent, or overly-aggressive, then restaurants have no obligation to serve them. If they refuse to change their behavior, then most restaurant managers have no problem with kicking them out. These outrageous customers got themselves 86'd and banned for good after they couldn't control themselves.
They Never Forgets A Face, Especially One That Assaulted A Waitress
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“Don’t try to come back if you’ve been 86’d from my place or someone else’s. We have long memories and we talk among ourselves. Grope a waitress at a different place and you can bet your butt someone in my restaurant will recognize you. Some time back, a man who’d done something like this came to my place with his wife, who was a brunette, and his kids. We asked him politely to leave, he didn’t want to, waved the ‘I am a lawyer’ threat, and told us he had 14,000 followers on some review site and would destroy us.
My sous chef at the time, a quirky, short, and not very patient woman, responded with, ‘Oh, don’t you remember? You groped my servers’ behind at [another restaurant] when you were there, drinking that $900 bottle of champagne with the blonde girl you practically had sex with on your way in.’ Usually, we’re the most discreet bunch on the planet, but harass my staff and you’ll be kicked out and get a free divorce in the process.”
He Stripped Totally Naked, But His Reason Why Was Truly Unbelievable
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“I was finishing my meal with my husband at a small diner when the customer seated directly behind me asked the waitress to turn the heat up. It was a very warm summer day and was already almost uncomfortably warm in the diner. The waitress politely told him that the heat doesn’t work in the summer, but she would fetch the sweater that he asked her to hang when he arrived. I guess she thought he was satisfied with that response, so she left to get his sweater. When she returned, I heard her gasp, and I reflexively turned around to see what happened. He had completely removed every stitch of clothing he was wearing, and had them neatly piled on the table in front of him. She ran and grabbed her manager, and he confronted the naked man. He asked him to quickly don his clothing and leave, or he’d have to call the police. The man responded, ‘You can’t make me leave. I’m suffering from severe hypothermia because your inept waitress wouldn’t turn the heat up, and now I’m experiencing paradoxical undressing as a result of that. Call me an ambulance or you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.’
The manager said, ‘That’s fine, I’ll call an ambulance straight away, but you’ll have to wait for it outside, and you’re hereby banned from this diner.’ The man got up, scooped up his pile of clothing, went outside and sat on the curb, still in the nude. Shortly thereafter, two police cruisers and an ambulance showed up. He was handcuffed and put in the back of one of the cruisers, still completely naked. The ambulance followed the cruisers as they left. Most of the customers were still shaking their heads.”
Things Don’t Go Well When You Grab A Girl Donald Trump Style
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“Before hitting my stride in sales I was an “AMW” (Actor, Model, Whatever) in Sydney, Toronto and Los Angeles, among other various ports of call. This invariably means I was a waiter or bartender. I’ve had the pleasure of kicking out Leonardo DiCaprio from the Nightwatch on Sunset and Vine (who may or may not have been doing something illicit in the bathroom stall), and I even kicked out Micheal Jordan and an Asian call girl after their third bottle of Dom Perignon, which they were drinking straight from the bottle (all I saw them do was drink, but she WAS a lady of the night), however, the craziest place I ever worked at was Don Cherry’s, a bar and occasional restaurant in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. You think Vegas is sin city? Windsor has more strip bars, per capita than any other city and being a border town with the drinking age at 19, Windsor attracts EVERY underage American in three states. Did I mention that Canadian beer has far higher alcohol by volume than American beer?
Underage drinking + higher alcohol consumption + a different country (where the rules don’t apply, apparently)=lotsa fistfights.
Now, I’m not a small guy, 6’1″, 220 lbs, but because I was a ‘pretty boy’ when I was young, drunk males tended to not want to listen to me when they offended my delicate sensibilities. So here in fair Windsor, where we lay our scene, we have 300 kids from Michigan all drinking at the upstairs ‘holding area’ as fast as daddy’s credit card will allow and waiting to be let downstairs to the main bar and dance floor where the perceived ‘real’ action is.
As the night thunders on I spy with my little eye one of these gents grab a girl Donald Trump style. This is grounds for ejection under any social convention, so I jump the bar, signal to the bouncers and grab this guy by the scruff of his neck and the belt on his jeans and start heading to the stairs and the exit. He was tipping the scales at about a buck-twenty, buck-thirty, but JESUS he was a wiry, tough bastard and his close buddies weren’t having this, it was almost like I had grabbed their sister’s privates, oh the irony! Anywho, after what was probably ten minutes of fighting, this is where things got crazy.
During the scuffle, one of the Bouncers named Davis was kicked in the balls so hard he was puking and coughing his lungs out in front of the bar. At this point, we have all 30 or so of the offenders outside the bar and sequestered across the street in a parking lot. The bar, both upstairs and down had emptied onto the street to watch the carnage. Our two off duty but uniformed police officers have called in reinforcements and paddy wagons for crowd control. I’m catching my breath and checking my head for soft spots when Dennis sees the guy that kicked him in the balls, across the street, in the middle of the crowd of battered, pissed off American teenagers. He bolts, making a beeline for this dude and I, in some misguided form of loyalty (I was sleeping with his sister at the time, so there’s that) run after him.
Davis and I do a good job for about three seconds, tossing the tossers here and there, regular two-man wrecking crew. But, here’s the thing. You know those souvenir, miniature baseball bats you can get at all the stadiums in America? Yeah, well turns out that even a glancing blow to head will stop a confused and surprised 220 lb bloke trying to back up his mate. When I came to, probably only a few seconds later, I lay there on my back, bleeding profusely and looking up at the distinctly gratifying sight of Roy the cop and a number of his brethren ‘helping’ these gentlemen into the wagons. I go stumbling back across the street looking like I’d just done a shift at the slaughterhouse trying to head-butt the cows into submission and into the adoring gaze of about 250 American teenage girls. Twelve stitches over my left eyebrow. Nice manly scar, and more dates with those girls than you could shake a stick at.”
Her “Service” Pig Was Not Welcome In This Establishment
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“When I’m out running errands with my service dog, there’s only a couple of restaurants we tend to frequent, as the staff and most customers don’t seem to mind, and even enjoy, the presence of my dog. On one rainy, cold afternoon, we went to one of those restaurants for lunch. We were seated at our normal table, a two-seater that could accommodate my wheelchair and service dog, then our waiter proceeded to seat a young, 20-something girl who had just walked in. As he was finishing taking her order at the table just across from mine, she pulled a tiny pig and a bottle of pink nail polish out of her purse, place it on the table, and despite its loud, screeching protests, painted said pig’s nails/hooves/whatever they’re called. The stunned waiter calmly told her pets weren’t allowed in the restaurant, and pointed to the sign on the nearby front door that she recently walked through, which clearly spelled out that rule. She simply said, ‘Oh, he’s not a pet,’ and continued her painting, never even looking up at the waiter.
He again tried to reason with her and said in the same calm voice, ‘I’m not sure what you call a pig in a purse, be it a pet, animal, or what-not, but we don’t allow such animals in our establishment.’ This set her off.
She placed the pig, wet nail polish and all, back in her purse, stood eye to eye with the waiter, and yelled, ‘But SHE has a dog and you never kick her out! This is discrimination! You can’t kick out a service animal!’ while pointing at me.
Again, calmly, he responded, ‘That dog laying quietly on the floor is a legally protected service animal. According to the law, purse-dwelling, loudly-screeching pigs aren’t considered service animals. I’m going to have to ask you to remove the animal from this establishment.’
She moved even closer to his face and screamed, ‘But he IS a service animal! I’m not leaving!’ and sat back down at the table, and folded her arms in front of her.
Now, this particular waiter is pretty well versed in the ADA laws governing service animals, so, he calmly asked her, ‘What service does your service animal provide for you?’
To which she responded, ‘It calms me down when I paint his nails. You can’t kick me out.’
The waiter turned and walked to the back, and came back about a minute later with a stack of papers in his hand, and a highlighter. He thumbed through them and highlighted a few things, handed the papers to the girl and said, ‘According to the laws you claim to be covered by, first, pigs aren’t considered service animals. Second, the service you describe that your pig provides to you isn’t covered by the law. Third, your pig has caused a disruption in this establishment by screeching, so even if it was a protected service animal, I could still ask you to remove it. Fourth, that dog over there IS a service animal, protected under these laws, but I wouldn’t hesitate to have that service animal removed from here if she caused a disturbance. And last, you’re not welcome here anymore. That’s not discrimination. Please leave.’
The woman stood and stomped out of the restaurant, but not before telling me I was a disgrace for ‘faking a disability just so I could bring [my] filthy dog wherever [I] please.'”
His Stalker Antics Made Them Come Up With A New Rule For Everyone’s Safety
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“I worked at a pretty busy restaurant that was semi-upscale. The bar was a big draw for the after work crowd and it was usually hopping on Friday and Saturday nights. Our bartenders were awesome and a major reason we had so many repeat customers to the bar.
One of the bartenders was an exceptionally pretty young woman who was incredibly sweet and friendly. Everyone on our staff loved her and one customer in particular translated her friendliness as being interested in him. Wasn’t the case. He was really making her uncomfortable and she started letting other members of the staff know about it.
So we noticed he started coming around a lot more often and at the time, I was the hostess manager so I instructed my staff not to give him any information about that bartender or her schedule and if he was getting pushy, to either get me or one of the managers on duty to deal with him.
So he showed up again while the bartender was working and was getting frustrated that the male bartenders working that night were going out of their way to serve him so she didn’t have to. He kept trying to talk to her and finally stormed out of the restaurant. Well, he came back about a half an hour before closing and from the front door, he was looking into the bar area to see if the bartender was still there. Apparently, he had done this a few other nights as well. When he didn’t see her, he asked the hostess if she had left for the night and she responded, ‘I really don’t know. Let me get my manager.’ I was a little spooked that he came back so late, so I asked one of the other managers (a former college football player) to come with me and help me deal with this guy.
There was definitely something off about him. We asked why he was looking for her and he said something about how he didn’t feel like they got a chance to talk that night and was hoping they could talk now. Then he started asking if there was a way he could get in touch with her or if we could let him know when she was working over the next few days. At that point, we told him that he was making people feel uncomfortable and that while we appreciated his business, it would probably be best if he found somewhere else to go. He said he didn’t understand what the problem was and was still insisting that we help him get in touch with the bartender. At that point, we were just telling him that he had to leave and we would prefer he not come back. He left, but the whole thing was really, really weird. After that, we made our ‘no one walks out to their cars alone after dark’ rule 100% mandatory and made sure that staff was communicating to each other about customers that were getting a little ‘too attached.’
The bartender worked there for another four months after that weirdness and to the best of my knowledge, the guy never came back thank goodness.”
They Were Ticked They Got Cut Off, So They Decided Property Damage Was The Way To Go
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“It was a slow Monday night in a bar I owned years ago. Almost all our customers were regulars or friends of mine or the staff. Two drunk kids, complete with baggy sweatpants and baseball hats with those silly flat brims perched precariously high on their heads, came in around midnight and immediately started problems. Nothing too crazy, just being way too loud and close-talking to people who were obviously not interested in making new friends. You know the type.
This is honestly one of the toughest types of situations to deal with. When a customer gets aggressive with my staff or makes my other customers feel unsafe, it’s an easy call: you toss them. What these guys were doing wasn’t so out of line that they deserved an instant 86. In fact, if it had been a busy weekend night, I doubt that anybody would have even noticed their behavior. This was a bar, not a restaurant, a limited amount of rambunctiousness is to be expected. But a huge part of our job is to provide an enjoyable atmosphere for our customers and in this case, these guys were ruining that.
So I gave them each a glass of water and quietly told them that they were welcome to hang out at an empty table as long as they like, but we wouldn’t serve them any more alcohol and they needed to leave the other customers alone. This tactic works about 80% of the time (including on me in my younger, more ridiculous days) as the customer usually doesn’t even realize how he’s acting and is grateful for the heads-up and the opportunity to save face.
Not this time. The mood turned ugly very quickly and the kids got in my face and started talking about all the violence that they wanted to inflict on me. Bad move. One of my bartenders and I threw literally them out. They stood outside the bar for a few minutes, yelling about how the owner is a jerk and nobody should go there but when we opened the door and took a step outside, they jetted off, leaving in their wake nothing but the scent of fear. I bought everybody sitting at the bar a round of shots and we spent some time laughing at those two clowns.
About 20 minutes later, we heard a sharp CRACK and I turned around to see the glass on the front door spidering out from a small hole. I tore the door open and ran outside, one of our regular customers hot on my heels, to see those two Eminem looking idiots running away down the street and a rock on the ground in front of the broken window.
I turned around and shouted at my bartender to call the police, and then the customer and I started running after them to make sure they didn’t disappear. We chased them for a couple blocks and when they noticed us catching up, they jumped into the middle of the street, flagged down a passing police car and told the cops that we were trying to assault them. The cops, understandably, started coming at us. I put my hands up and started to explain the situation. They weren’t having any of it.
But right as I’m having my ‘Oh crap’ moment, my bartender came diving into the middle of the scene, cell phone in hand, telling the cops that they might want to talk to their dispatcher before handcuffing anybody and that there were two more cars on the way with instructions to detain two kids who matched the descriptions of our rock throwers.
We were all escorted back up the street to the bar, my crew and I were let back inside, and the kids spent the next hour on the sidewalk in handcuffs while the police took statements. They spent the night in jail and had to pay for the window damage, but I decided not to press charges. I think they learned their lesson.”
His Drunken, Racist Rant Was So Unacceptable, Even The Pianist Got Involved
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“I was only the pianist. It was simply my job to shut up, sit behind my piano and tickle the ivories. Of course, I sometimes circulated tables, and greeted the diners, asking for requests if there was a special occasion. And if people were feeling chatty and approached me, I could carry on an amicable conversation while still playing a tune. Otherwise, I mostly just observed people and had very little contact with them.
That was my job.
So it was unlike my character when I confronted a diner, a belligerent drunk at the bar, who became loud and obnoxious one night and started screaming obscenities at one of the bussers, who accidentally spilled a drink on him.
He yelled out a racial slur about people of Hispanic descent while the poor young man cowered and tried to wipe up his accidental spill.
The diners in the room suddenly got very quiet, and for a moment, I was shocked and actually stopped playing. I tried to make up for it, by switching songs to something more upbeat, playing louder to cover up the exchange happening in the bar area, which continued with:
‘Why don’t you effin’ go back to Mexico where you belong!’
The kid was born and raised on USA soil. A young high school student with perfect grades. His father, Armando, was a good friend of mine that I hung out with after work shifts and weekends, also a musician, who worked playing music in the lounge upstairs.
‘You people don’t belong here!’ The man spat into the young boy’s face as he attempted to quickly clean his spill and escape the angry man’s tirade.
The kid was nearly in tears. I looked around horrified, looking towards the boss, who had ‘conveniently’ lowered her head and pretended to be busy with paper work, and the floor manager had ‘suddenly’ disappeared from the room altogether.
The shouting escalated. I stopped playing. The dining room grew hushed. I watched the veins in the man’s temples bulge out, as his face turned red, and he shouted directly into the young man’s face:
‘You’ll never amount to anything but a dishwasher! Get used to this job. You’re nothing, la ‘co-co-racha.’ Get this crap cleaned up and get out of my face!’
I stood up. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was about to lose my job, but I didn’t care. I marched up to that guy and said, in as calm a voice as I could muster:
‘Sir, you have no idea who you’re talking to. This young man is a straight-A student. He is a citizen. So is his father. He has just as much right to be in America as you do, but he has more right to be in this establishment than you do.’
The man looked at me and blinked at my audacity, but I continued.
‘Gather your things and leave now, or the authorities will be called. You are hereby 86’d from this establishment, the card room, the lounge and the property in general. If you ever set one foot on these premises again, you will be prosecuted for trespassing on private property, do I make myself clear?’
I looked him directly in the eye, as his mouth hung open. I tried very hard to deliver my voice in a clear, professional tone, without showing how nervous I was to be facing off with a big man like that. My voice quavered, betraying my authority, and I had a few places where I fought off the need to burst into tears.
I was actually very frightened of him. I am not a very brave person. I was a 21-year-old kid, facing off against an overweight, middle-aged, balding, and very inebriated professional white guy.
I had no power to order him off the premises, but nobody else was doing anything about it, and he’d pissed me off. Yet, somehow, my authority seemed to work! He closed his mouth, tipped back his drink, went to say something, but I cut him off..
‘LEAVE NOW. If you don’t leave in another thirty seconds I’m calling the cops.’
That started him moving. He wove his way out the archway, into foyer, past the fountain, and down the halls as I made certain to follow him all the way to the front entrance and out the door. I probably should have called him a cab, but he just made his way to the club down the street. He was their problem, then.
In all my years, I’ve never heard such a disgraceful, racist, derogatory, hateful thing such as those words that man said that night. He made me sick. I’ll never forget it. Those hateful words are burned into my mind, along with every sweaty pore of his bulbous red nose, and thick framed glasses. Especially his eyes. His ugly, brown, bloodshot hate-filled eyes.
When I got back into the restaurant I was met with applause. The owner wasn’t that angry at me but did pull me aside and reprimand me gently.
She told me that I wasn’t allowed to ’86’ customers from her establishment. To ’86’ someone means they are forever banned; It’s permanent. The greedy spinster actually wanted his repeat business! Disgusting. Get this, my boss, Ileana, was of Hispanic heritage, herself.
But I guess she knew best.
Humbled, I sat down at my piano and dinner resumed as usual. The diners spoke in a hushed atmosphere, and I made record tips that night, even though my music suffered because, for some strange reason, I couldn’t get my foot to stop trembling underneath the piano on the pedals.”
Their Days Of Scamming For Free Food Were Over
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“When I was chef/owner of a small restaurant, we had two ladies that would come in for lunch 2-3 times a week. They would send everything back, complaining about taste, quality, claim it was old, etc. It seemed that they just wanted a free meal. Every time there was a negotiation about the bill. After much discussion with servers and managers, my decision was that these people were just as bad as a walkout. The next time they came in, the manager and server were to let me handle the issue.
As expected, the next time they drop by, they send back their soups as cold. Then they complain about the meals. I go to the table, they can’t describe what is wrong, they just don’t like it after they have eaten over half of it. They, of course, are talking very loudly to cause maximum disturbance. I talk just as loud. I tell them that they aren’t happy with us and we aren’t happy with them. I take their plates, clear their beverages, tell them to leave and not to return, loudly.
Apparently, our regulars were tired of their crap as well. I received a big round of applause. A few minutes later, my server gave me a big hug.”
When She Made Poor Sarah Cry, That’s When He Stepped In To Save The Day
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“My husband has kicked people out of his restaurant before. This particular story stands out to me as one of his greatest kick-out stories.
He was the general manager at the time for a fast/casual dining restaurant. He was walking up to the front and saw the end of a transaction, then saw his employee leave the register and quickly walk into the back in tears. He asked what happened and this is the story he got:
While the employee (let’s call her Sarah) was ringing a family of four up, the mother of that family began insulting Sarah, saying that she was stupid and telling her that she looked like a boy and was extremely ugly. This, understandably, upset Sarah, who is a sweet and quiet girl, hence the quickly walking to the back and crying.
My husband doesn’t stand for this sort of behavior. He confirmed the story with employees who saw this happen and asked for the family to be pointed out to him. He walked over to that family, looked directly at the woman and asked her what she said to Sarah. She had no answer and was shocked that she was being confronted. The dad of this family at this time piped in saying that he knew the owners. My husband quickly shut that down by saying, ‘Really? Good. I know them too.’ Then he went back to asking the woman what she said to Sarah to make her cry. When she still didn’t answer him, he told her what he heard, asked if it was true. The woman fumbled and gave no explanation, still had no answer. He then told them to finish their food and never come back. They promptly left without finishing their food.”
Cussing Out The Cops Is A Great Way To Get Arrested
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“When I was in high school, I waited tables at a locally owned and managed restaurant in my sleepy hometown. It was the only restaurant in the city that was open 24 hours on the weekends, so naturally, after the bars closed, everyone would pile in. I made bank in tips working 3rd shift because drunk people tend to overtip, but it also meant dealing with intoxicated customers that would get sick, or be extremely rude, loud, and ignorant. One evening an intoxicated customer entered with a couple friends. From the moment he sat down, he was loud and extremely vulgar towards his waitress, saying some very inappropriate things to her. Between tasks, she went and told the manager. He went to the table to tell the man to knock it off or he would have to leave. This, of course, just fed the man’s drunken ego. He said something to him like, ‘You can suck my penis!’ After hearing such a statement, the manager went straight to the telephone and called the police. The police arrived and the sight of the officers just fed the man’s ego even further. After several calm attempts to get the man to cooperate, the police finally had to grab him by the back of his neck and aggressively push him out of the restaurant, which of course, caused a big scene. On the way out the drunken man yelled some obscenities at the officers. With that, an officer shoved the man up against the glass window at the entrance way, cuffed him, and led him out to the squad car.”
“When We Saw His Vehicle, All Of The Girls Would Go To The Back”
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“I used to work at Bojangles. It’s a fried chicken, fast food restaurant in the North Carolina region.
There was an older gentleman notorious for harassing the females at my job. Now, a few cat calls or comments were a usual thing, and we weren’t too affected by them, but this man was out of control.
It was so bad that when we saw his vehicle, all of the girls would go to the back while a manager filled his order.
He was kicked out a couple of times for his most uncomfortable remarks or gestures.
The first time I came in contact with him, I was cleaning the dining area with a coworker, and he called us over. He asked us how old we were (17 and 18 at the time), and then told us we were extremely filled out for our age. As we awkwardly excused ourselves, he grabbed my coworker’s butt. The manager was told and the man was asked to leave. My coworker did not want to involve any police.
The second time he came in, I had to once again clean the dining room because my shift was ending. While cleaning, I watched this man to be sure he didn’t come near me, but he just talked to me from across the empty dining room. ‘This chicken is always so hot and juicy, I bet you are too.’ Obviously, I escaped that situation, told my manager, and he, once again, was asked to leave.
There have been times where the police have been notified because he would leave the restaurant, but not the premises.”
His T-Bone Wasn’t Well Done To His Liking, So He Thought A Scene Would Change Things
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“I was in the restaurant business for about 17 years. I owned and ran Italian restaurants, pizza, fast food restaurants, concept restaurants, steakhouses and pubs. I was running a nice concept restaurant in a well-to-do area with a good sort of upper middle-class client base. So one night we have a family of four for dinner. The husband was in a bit of a mood upon arrival, so I knew it was going to be a bit of a difficult table. I made sure that I assigned our strongest waitress to their table and I made a point of also keeping an eye on them.
When they ordered main courses, the husband ordered a T-bone steak, well done. I immediately went to the table and explained to him that, in order to get the piece of meat around the bone well done, we would have to cremate the rest of the steak. I suggested that we grilled the steak until most if it was well done. He could then eat the part of the steak that was well done, after which the waitress could return his steak to the grill and we could grill the rest of his steak until it was all well done. He agreed, and we did this in three stage, to ensure that we gave him as much well-done steak as possible without burning anything.
After all this, there was a thin strip right up against the bone (less than 2% of the meat in the steak), that was still a little bit pink. He started screaming at the waitress, at which point I stepped in. He proceeded to start screaming at me, at which point I walked him outside. We stood nose to nose outside. I told him that I was doing him a favor by not beating him up in front of his family, that’s why I took him outside. If he said or did anything other than handing me the cash for the dinner, I would reverse that decision. He paid up and had to wait outside while his family finished their meal.”
