What is it about restaurant workers that makes people thing they can treat them like garbage? These customers are the absolute worst– trying to walk all over poor waiters and totally run amok. Thankfully, these restaurant employees fought back, making for some completely insane encounters. From the absurd to the downright violent, these stories truly showcase the worst of the worst. This content has been edited for clarity.
“I Want My Buns!”
“It was a good day in the life of young me. The weather was beautiful outside. Customers were happy inside. The Cashier and I had a date planned for that night, and I had some fresh threads and new kicks ready to go for what was sure to be a good night.
So, I’m in the kitchen on autopilot doing what kitchen workers do in order to keep the food flowing and the people eating, when I just barely register the chime to let me know the next person was up in line at the drive-thru.
Now is as good a time as any to explain that our drive-thru system sucked. We had those fancy headphones, but they didn’t work. In order to work around this, a speaker was wired up so we could actually hear the customers when they ordered. This speaker was situated so this kitchen staff could hear it as well, but unless you worked here, you really wouldn’t know about this setup.
Cashier: ‘Hi! What can I get for you?’
Customer: ‘Yeah, I’d like a large burger combo, plain, and a Dr. Pepper to drink.’
Fun fact, ‘plain’ means the burger has just the buns, meat, and cheese (if ordered), in case you didn’t know.
Cashier: ‘Sure thing. So that’s a large burger combo, plain, and Dr. Pepper to drink, correct?’
Customer: ‘That’s what I said.’
Cashier: ‘Okay sir, your total is $xx.xx. Please pull around to the first window.’
Customer: ‘Just so the morons in the kitchen know, that means just the meat and cheese and nothing else!’
I looked up above and thanked the deity of fast food for whatever I did to deserve such a wonderful opportunity to deliver world-class customer service. By now, you’ve already figured out what’s next. Into his bag went large fries and a wrapper containing only two patties and two slices of cheese. I could tell it was him just by the way he opened the door.
Customer: “What on earth is this?! Do you think you guys are funny? Where are my buns?! I want to speak to a manager!’
Personally, I think I’m hilarious, so I lost it in the back while my Awesome Assistant Manager, who was working in the kitchen with me and heard the whole thing goes up to deal with this guy.
Assistant Manager: ‘What seems to be the problem sir? Was there something wrong with your order?’
Customer: ‘Look at this! They didn’t give me any buns! I WANT MY BUNS!’
Assistant Manager: ‘Well sir, I heard when you ordered and you specifically said that you wanted just the meat and cheese and nothing else. It looks like we gave you exactly what you asked for.’
More screaming and yelling by this lovely customer followed, but Awesome Assistant Manager did not yield. The customer was offered his buns, but vehemently refused, thinking we would tamper with them. He left in a huff and, much to my surprise, without a threat to never return. I’m pretty sure it was implied though.”
Give The Man His Sammiches!
“There I sat in a popular fast food chain, enjoying nuggets of a certain variety while on my break. As I slide another crispy chicken into my mouth, I notice a rather irritated man walk in with a bag gripped tightly. This man, will hence forth be referred to as Barf because his behavior made me want to vomit. Barf walks up to another employee who is sitting down and clearly on break.
Barf: ‘You ruined my meal!’
Employee: ‘Sir, I’m on break. I’m sure someone at the counter could help you though.’
Barf: ‘They better!’
Barf stomps over to the counter like an angry child and starts to shout again.
Barf: ‘YOU BETTER FIX MY FISH SAMMICHES!’
The young man at the counter to whom barf was barking at will be referred to as PJ.
PJ: ‘Of course sir, what’s wrong with your food?’
Barf: ‘There’s too much tartar sauce everywhere!’
Yup, the problem was that there was too much sauce. THAT ruined his meal.
PJ: ‘Alright sir, would you like no sauce or just less?’
Barf is at this point, overcome with rage.
Barf: ‘Less sauce! LESS SAUCE! There was too much and I want less sauce!’
PJ: ‘Ok sir, If you’ll just stand to the side, I’ll have them ready in a second.’
Barf: ‘NO, I NEED THEM NOW! You already made me late for work because you took so long the first time. I NEED MY SAMMICHES RIGHT NOW!’
I eat my last nugget as I check the time, it was 1:18. I don’t know when he starts his job, but I’m pretty sure he would have been late even if he skipped the food entirely. PJ explains to Barf that the food is going to take a moment, and after a bit of huffing and puffing, Barf slams the counter with his fist and stands off to the side. Barf waits for a moment before he shouts over to PJ, ‘WHERE’S MY FOOD?!’
PJ: ‘Coming right up, sir!’
Barf then looks at PJ and mumbles something incredibly offensive loud enough for the whole place to hear.
PJ’s eyes opened and he clenched his fists, it couldn’t have been easy, but he held in the hate. Then I heard the squeak of a chair and noticed an enraged dude in the corner who was vibrating with anger and staring directly at Barf. Rage guy picks up his extra large drink, walks over to barf and whips it at his head. Barf looks at rage guy astonished and confused. The man stands an inch from Barf’s face and screams at him.
No, he was not simply raising his voice, he was throat flexing screaming and it was glorious. He must have done it for a minute straight while Barf shook in terror. Rage Man walked out of the store as silence filled the room. Barf looks at PJ half pleading half angry and says, ‘AREN’T YOU GONNA DO ANYTHING ABOUT THAT?!’
PJ looked him dead in the eyes and smiled as he said, ‘About what sir? I didn’t see anything happen.’
Barf left as I reveled in ecstasy at the justice I had witnessed.”
“Minimum Wage Rat”
“In a land where fries and burgers reign supreme, I am a veteran of two years. This means I have encountered my share of crazies, from the old pervert who waited for my shift to be over to follow me home to the crazy lady who throws coffee at the drive-thru presenter. But this weekend took the cake for most frustrating. This weekend I had to apologize for my WEIGHT to a morbidly obese woman who threw a fit that I weighed a mere 110 pounds.
She screamed, ‘YOU CAN’T WORK HERE! YOU THINK YOU’RE FUNNY? ARE YOU LAUGHING AT ME?!’
To clarify, my face was all shock and horror. I was not in any way smirking, smiling or laughing. She then proceeds to argue with my manager about how she should have her entire meal (about $30 dollars) free for the inconvenience of stressing out over my weight. Seriously? My weight was so much of an issue to you, that you wanted me fired?!
This was only the beginning. A woman went through drive-thru and gave our cashier 33 cents for a soda, which is a dollar. She quickly drove to the second window. The message come in through the headset, ‘Uh, the woman only gave me 33 cents.’
Okay, no problem. Maybe she made a mistake. I open the window.
‘GIMME MY SODA!’
‘I’m sorry ma’am, but it seems that the girl in back didn’t receive the correct amount of change, you owe her about 75 cents.’
‘EXCUSE ME?! ARE YOU ACCUSING ME OF STEALING? GIVE ME MY STUPID SODA YOU CHANGE NAZI!’
I refuse again, repeating that she owed 75 cents. The woman swerves into a parking space and stomps out. ‘WHERE IS THE MANAGER’ she screams at one of the girls waiting to clock in. My manager goes over and sees what the problem is, I quickly briefed her on the situation.
‘THIS MINIMUM WAGE RAT WON’T GIVE ME MY SODA. I WANT MY SODA AND MY DOLLAR BACK. THIS IS THEFT. I’LL HAVE YOU ARRESTED!’
My manager asks her to calm down and she starts crying about how mean we were, then suddenly she changes tactics.
‘I GAVE YOU 20 DOLLARS! CHECK YOUR CAMERAS! CHECK. YOUR. CAMERAS.’
She starts walking away yelling, ‘I’M GOING TO SUE YOU ALL. I’M GOING TO OWN THIS STORE. NO ONE STEALS FROM ME. I’M NEVER COMING BACK!’
I live and work in the ‘nice’ part of town. Yeah, classy. My customers are really classy.”
Most Expensive Nacho Cheese
“This isn’t my personal experience, but rather the story of my classmate. He works at a fast food restaurant, and recently he was in an altercation at work. He rang up a customer’s order, and he added nacho cheese onto his meal, which is a little extra. He informed the customer, just to double check. He had in fact misheard him, then promptly removed the cheese from the order.
Well, the customer, for whatever reason, didn’t believe him. My classmate insisted that he did take the cheese off the order and he wasn’t being charged for it. The customer called him a liar, then reached across the counter and punched him in the mouth, splitting his lip and resulting in a trip to the hospital, which required stitches. Now, the customer is being taken to court on an assault charge, which could get my classmate upwards of $5,000 dollars. All over nacho cheese.”
He’s So Disgusting!
“I was cashiering at work, in a restaurant at the mall’s food court. This guy comes up and asks if I have a toothpick. No, we do not. Then, he asks for a napkin. Sure, no problem. He proceeds to twist up one of the ends, stands there staring at me, and starts cleaning out his ear. All the while he’s making throat clearing/scratching noises, mouth open. Then he attempts to hand me his wax covered filth napkin, saying, ‘Be a doll, throw this away for me.’
I had no idea how to react and just said, ‘No thank you,’ and walked to the back.
I really wanted to take a tray and bash his head in a bit.”
She Has To Get To Her Kid, Stat!
“I worked at a fast food restaurant for several years until my daughter was born. Shortly after that, my fiancé and I moved 40 minutes away, and I got a new job in at the same restaurant in this new town.
When I started at this new job, my General Manager told me that if I ever needed a day off or if I had to deviate from my normal schedule for any reason, that I had to call every single person on the employee list (whether I knew them or not) to find someone to cover my shift, and to only call the GM if no one agreed. Okay, whatever. He told the day manager that I didn’t need any training because I had worked at the other location, so that was nice. But despite that, I was given the cold shoulder by all the employees for some reason. I would try to talk to them, but I was always met with silence and ignored completely.
For the first 5 weeks, I was scheduled at the exact same time every week: 11:00 am on Saturday morning and 12:00 pm on Sunday. However, they never had an end time, and just let people go home when things died down. But because I have a baby, this was annoying to me because I never knew when I was going home, and she was with a sitter who also didn’t know how long she’d have my kid. On the sixth week, I came in at 11:00 on Saturday morning as usual and was met with a barrage of screams. ‘You’re an HOUR late! Where were you?!’ ‘Why are you so late?!’
I calmly explained that I hadn’t looked at the schedule because for the last 5 weeks, I had been coming in at the same time. But, I guess it was my bad for not looking at the schedule. Whatever. And then my manager looks at me and says, ‘Well, you’re scheduled to work a double, too.’
Apparently the look of confusion prompted her to explain, ‘It’s prom, so a bunch of our employees took the night off.’
Now, it was made apparent to me the moment I started there that if I needed a day off, that I had to call people and ask them to cover for me. Did I get a call asking to work so someone could go to prom? No. And I wasn’t the only one. About 3 other girls were blindsided with it. ‘It’s been on the schedule since last week.’ She said. But even if I had checked the schedule, I wouldn’t have known because they put night shift schedules on completely different sheets. Since I worked days (as per my request since I have a child), I had no reason to look at the night shift. Because I have a kid, someone should’ve told me so I could make plans to have her taken care of.
I finish the first half of my shift and the night manager shows up, and a couple of the day crew leaves. The night manager, who I’ll call Birthday Girl (it was her 18th birthday) is dumber than a box of rocks. I mean, she’s nice enough, but just not too bright. So she comes in all happy and introduces herself to me.
Birthday Girl : ‘I’m an AWESOME manager. Unless you’re using your phone, then I won’t be so nice.’
Me: ‘Well, I have a kid so I need to check it periodically, but otherwise I don’t use it.’
Birthday Girl: ‘Hmm…well…okay I guess. As long as you’re not on Facebook and stuff!’
I don’t have a smartphone anyway, so it wasn’t an issue. For the first two hours of the night shift, Birthday Girl was on Facebook. She was taking a bunch of selfies and not doing any of the work. Fine. Whatever. But around 7:00, my sitter texts me and says that she can’t keep my kid past 8:00. So, the next conversation ensued.
Me: ‘Hey, can I please leave around 7:45? Something came up with the sitter and I need to get my daughter.’
Birthday Girl: ‘Um…no.’
Me: ‘My fiancé is at work, and after 8:00. I won’t have anyone to watch my kid.’
Please note that my daughter was only 5 months old at the time.
Birthday Girl shrugs and says, ‘Sorry, I don’t know what to tell you, but I can’t let you leave.’
Me: ‘I have no one to watch my infant daughter. I need to go home before 8.’
Birthday Girl: ‘Can’t you just, like, have them drop her off and then leave her in her car seat while you work?’
How is that even a suggestion? What if I had to nurse her? What if I had to change her? What if she was screaming incessantly? What if someone spilled something on her? What if someone tripped on her? What if someone walked in the doors and took her when no one was looking? She asked me to leave my infant daughter virtually unsupervised in a fast-food restaurant for four hours because she didn’t want to be short-staffed.
That’s when I lost it. I stormed outside in tears to call my fiancé, and he was just as upset as I was. He was working, so he couldn’t get the baby and I didn’t know what to do. I would’ve just clocked out and left, but I needed to get my tips. Finally, I convinced her to let me leave. And you know, it wasn’t even busy. She was trying to keep me there just in case it got busy.
When I got my daughter and arrived home, I called my mom and told her what happened. She encouraged me to quit. I agreed. My fiancé agreed. I quit that night. I know she was just a dumb kid manager, but to dismiss the well-being of a small child for any reason is inexcusable. And that’s why I’ll never work in fast-food again.”
Give Me A Legal Cheeseburger!
“I work at a fast food place. We close at 1:00 AM on Friday and Saturday, and then we close at 12:00 AM every other day. One night I was doing my usual thing, cleaning all the machines and whatnot, general closing business. Someone drives up to the window and lays on their horn. I walk over, unlock it, and say, ‘Hi, we’re closed for this evening. Sorry.’
Lady completely ignores me and goes, ‘GIMME A DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER AND FRIES WITH A COKE!’
Me: ‘Sorry ma’am, but we’re closed for this evening.’
Customer: ‘So? I’m here, I have money. Give me the food I’m ordering.’
Me: ‘Ma’am… we’re closed.’
Customer: ‘So?!’
Me: ‘So, I can’t serve you any food, not even if I wanted to. Our grills and fryers have been shut down and cleaned.’
Customer: ‘Well, you have a legal obligation to serve anyone who comes here!’
She said this with the smuggest look on her face, ‘You legally cannot turn away any customer under California law!’
Me: ‘Sorry, I’ll be right back.’
I walked over and took out the ‘WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE TO ANYONE’ sign off the wall and took it to the window.
Me: ‘Yeah, see this? We’re gonna have to exercise this right starting… now. Have a good night!’
I slammed the window and locked in. I was tired and cranky and wanted to go home. I’m still amazed that I didn’t get fired for that.”
“Sir, This Isn’t Money”
“I applied to work at this place at least three times before getting the job. After working there a week, I was promoted to shift leader of the night crew. I thought that was pretty sweet. It was the first time I was in an authority position and I was a little nervous. In my first week, I accepted a fake $50 and got scolded pretty bad for it. Never again would I let that happen in my working career.
Fast-forward a few months: I get this guy that’s buying dinner for his whole family. He ends up getting five subs, a few cookies, some chips, and a bunch of bottled drinks. When I ring him up, he hands me the most fake looking $100 I’ve ever seen. It looked like he took a green piece of paper and then glued little ‘100s’ on the corners, printed off Benjamin’s face and glued that on, and then scribbled, in hand, some numbers on either side of it.
‘Uh… sir, this isn’t money.’
‘What?’
‘This isn’t money. What is this?’
‘It’s… um… a hundred dollar bill…’
I looked at him with a face not too unalike if I were asked to repeat verbatim the entire works of Shakespeare. In that pause, he tried to reach for the big bag I had stuck all of his order in. We ended up reenacting a scene from every childhood flick where I’m holding it above my head behind the counter, while he’s jumping and grabbing at it. Luckily, I had a co-worker with me to call the cops and scare him off. When the cops got there, I had to fill out a report and show them the security video. The worst part was having to waste all that food (by waste, I mean eat).”
Ultimate Restaurant Showdown
“One time, in addition to my normal duties of a host/manager, I was helping take orders and run food out. It was the Christmas season, and we were super busy. One of the tables decides to be the worst table in the history of the bad tables. Here’s how it went:
Their food arrives. I, only having two hands and the ability to carry three to four plates at a time, had to take their orders out. I set down Father’s steak, Junior’s chicken fingers, and Sister’s soup. As I straighten up, the father looks at me with a look you get when you show a cow a cheese burger. I ask him if anythings wrong. ‘UM YEAH! Where’s the rest of our food?! My parents and wife are very, VERY, hungry!’
Whatever, I apologize and go right back to the kitchen to grab the remaining food. I drop it off and offer to get them anything else. They brush me off, saying I’m annoying them. I scamper off to another table nearby to help those people out. Even though I’m still in earshot, they feel the need to yell, ‘Hey you, get over here!’
I can’t just stop talking to one table and rush over to them, so I turn and look at them and politely say, ‘I’m sorry, I’ll be with you in a minute.’
Nope not good enough for these people. The mother starts yelling out, ‘My boy needs ketchup!’ while the father starts yelling out he needs a new drink because all the ice melted in his water. The boy didn’t know what was going on, but everyone else is yelling, so monkey see monkey do. The table I’m trying to help (a couple of regulars loved by everyone who I worked with) looks at me and just tells me to go help them so they will shut up. I return with ketchup and a new cup of water.
Later, the party next to this family is being too loud for their eating pleasure, despite them yelling to each other while seated about a foot apart. I’m walking past with a tray of drinks, and the father reaches out and kung-fu grips the back of my shirt and pulls it back. Needless to say, a whole tray of drinks is ruined. The floor is wet, I’m wet and smell awful. The father’s leg gets hit with some splash black. After scolding me for getting his work pants wet, he asks me to ask the table next to them to be quieter. Being the people pleaser I am, I told him I would. Which I did do after 5 minutes of cleaning up glass and spilled liquids, all while being watched like a hawk by this family and being talked about.
Some of the things they said were, ‘Do you think he’s slow or its just his first day on the job?’ ‘Definitely slow,’ and, ‘Did you see how he spilled that drink on me? What did I do to him?’ I wish I did spill a drink on him purposely.
Finally, this table finishes their food. They finished their drinks and coffee, so the server brings them their bill. Father picks it up, opens it, looks at it for about one second, and snaps the book shut. I’m not in the area, so they decide to stop the other hostess on duty and start to freak at her. I hear this from the other side of the restaurant and decide to investigate. I step in front of the hostess, cutting the father off by loudly asking if there was anything I could do to help. They don’t think they should have to pay full price for their food because their ‘experience’ was terrible. I just want them to leave, so I offer to comp their drink order, about $60 in adult drinks. Nope, not good enough.
Apparently my unwillingness to give them a free meal was the last straw. Father stands up and starts demanding to speak to a manager. Lucky for me, I’m the only manager on duty! So I told him I’m a manager. Father gets closer to me and starts yelling how I’m too young and too stupid to be a manager. I was 19 at the time, but I’ve been working in restaurants since I was 14 or 15, so I knew what I was doing. This table has given me nothing but a headache and a tray of broken glasses. I’m still keeping my cool at this point though, so I say sorry again and he starts demanding to speak to the owner. The owner was there, but he was busy in the kitchen. I tell the father, ‘I’m sorry; he’s very busy at the moment, but I am more than qualified to help.’
The man is yelling at full volume. Mother and kids are watching in awe as Daddy yells at the bad manager. The grandparents are just sitting there looking at me as if I was starved of oxygen in the womb. ‘THIS WHOLE DINNER HAS BEEN A NIGHTMARE FOR ME. FIRST, YOU DON’T BRING ALL OUR FOOD, THEN YOU SPILL A TRAY OF DRINKS ON ME AND FORGET MY SON’S KETCHUP. THE PEOPLE NEXT TO US WERE LOUD AND ANNOYING AND YOU DID NOTHING TO STOP THEM. SO I DON’T THINK I SHOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR THIS MEAL! SO EITHER WE DON’T PAY OR WE WILL CALL THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU!’
People from the bar are coming over to see what’s the ruckus. Servers and chefs are coming out of the kitchen. I have to raise my voice louder than this man at full volume. I’m done with this guy now. ‘SIR! SHUT UP! Do you just want a free meal or something?! Did you forget your wallet at home along with your basic manners? Whatever it is, I don’t care! If you leave right now I will pay your bill! JUST SHUT UP AND GET OUT OF HERE!’
Well that’s all they needed to hear because they got up, collected their coats, and vanished into the night. People applauded the servers were laughing. I went to the back computer, paid for their food, and I still left the server a nice tip because she had to deal with them too. I was repaid double the money I spent on their check.
Here’s where it gets better. A week later, I was working the day shift. Guess who comes back? That’s right it’s the father and some of his work clients. I stepped in front of the doorway so he couldn’t get through without knocking me over. I’m greeted with, ‘Get out of my way.’
I’m not moving an inch, ‘I’m sorry, sir. After the way you acted here last week, you are not allowed back in this restaurant as long as I’m here.’
The guy responds by trying to force his way in by pushing my chest while I’m holding onto the door frame. ‘SIR! You are not coming in here after you acted like a child last time you were here. After you refused to pay for your bill, after you grabbed the back of my shirt causing me to drop a tray of drinks, after yelling at the top of your lungs, after saying I’m slow. You are not allowed!’
His clients were standing about 5 feet away. The man turns around to look at them like, ‘Can you believe this guy?’ when one of the clients does the fake look at the cellphone, saying, ‘Oh no, something urgent has come up, we gotta go.’
Father gets angry his clients left. As he was leaving he says, ‘You just lost a customer, see if I ever come back here again!’
My response: ‘Good, don’t come back.’
“Are The Chickens Shaved?”
“I work at a popular chain restaurant that sells roasted chicken products. I am trained as a cashier, kitchen hand, and as management when they need me to. I’ve been working with this company for over 6 years now.
Today, I worked a cashier shift. It was going smoothly, until this one customer comes through drive-thru. No issues taking his order, he yelled the total out to double check that we weren’t about to rip him off (I’ll assume that was why), and he drives forward. A training cashier happened to be on drive-thru, and I had been supervising her when dealing with customers as she was on her second shift. The order was made quickly and happened to be ready by the time he made it to the pay off-pick up window. I overheard him say something to the cashier, which she gave me a confused look, so I stepped in. From now on ‘CC’ will be crazy customer, and my interactions will be ‘Me.’
CC: ‘Are the chickens shaved?’
Me: ‘Yes, the chickens are ‘shaved’ to remove their feathers.’
CC: ‘Alright, I’m going to give you the money and I want to see the chickens.’
I opened up the chicken bags and explain like here is one chicken, and here is the other. It is there and in good condition for you.
CC: ‘Why the heck are you showing me the chickens, I don’t want to see them, just show me that they are there!’
I again show each bag to him.
CC: ‘I’m doing this because I don’t want to drive off without my order. I want to receive what I pay for, so I’m going to pass over this bank note. I want this done at the same time as you pass the chickens over to me and I won’t let go until you do.’
Luckily, this whole transaction occurred in time less than two minutes. I served him, played his silly game, and he drove away with no problems. However, the trainee and I laughed when he left because we both heard him ask to see the chickens and we were really confused as to why he asked to see the chickens and suddenly didn’t want to see them.”