Valentine’s Day can be a source of stress, not only for those striving to create a special day for their partners but also for the waiters who bear witness to it all in real-time. Here, these servers open up and share the Valentine’s Day disasters they’ve encountered. Content has been edited for clarity.
Delivery Error
“I was a delivery driver for a fruit bouquet company and I had two arrangements from the same guy.
Routes were made for me and the truck was loaded so there was no way I could mess this up. Delivered both arrangements to the appropriate address.
I headed back to the store to find the store owner and the guy who sent these in an argument. This idiot put the wrong name to the houses. And it was on the card with the arrangement. Along with the phone numbers.
So both women called each other and then called the guy. He tried to say it was my fault. Then the person who took the order. He ordered it ONLINE. All we did was import the order.
I hate Valentine’s day because of that place but man was that great.”
Bad Fall
“An old man proposed to an old woman. He tried to get off the chair to kneel, tripped, and fell and I assume broke something since he couldn’t get back up. We had to call an ambulance.
My manager had to drive her teeth to the hospital separately because she had taken them out to eat her soup (lord knows why) and left them on the table in the confusion.”
Surprise Proposal
“I was the manager of a wings-and-pizza place with a full bar. It definitely wasn’t the kind of establishment where you’d consider taking someone for a ‘romantic’ Valentine’s Day dinner, but it was still busy because, well, some people lack tact.
We had a guy who had called ahead and asked if we could place a ring in a dessert for him, and of course, we agreed. He had dropped the ring off a day earlier, and I had put it in the safe in our office to keep it secure.
Fast forward to Valentine’s Day. The couple arrived, so evidently in love that she didn’t seem to notice or care about the fact that he had brought her to a middle-of-the-road place with a sports-bar atmosphere on the most romantic day of the year. They ordered champagne, and entrees, and it was nearly time for dessert. I used my chef skills to whip up a special chocolate strawberry tart that wasn’t on the menu, just for this occasion.
I went to the safe to retrieve the ring, and… It wasn’t there. I was freaking out big time. I asked everyone if they knew what had happened to it. My on-site assistant manager had no idea, so I called my other assistant (who also had the safe code), and they didn’t know either. Finally, my bar manager mentioned that one of the owners had been in earlier, and had spent some time in the office. So, at my wit’s end, I called the owner.
It turns out that he had seen the ring in the safe and thought it was something a customer had left behind. Believing he had stumbled upon an incredibly fortunate situation, he decided (like the scoundrel he was) to keep it for himself and save on a Valentine’s gift for his wife.
So, I asked the server and bar manager to help stall the couple. The server informed them that we were going to do something special for their special date and asked them to hold tight.
I rushed out, hopped in my car, and hurried to get the ring from the owner’s house.
The bar manager approached the table and performed a complicated table-side cocktail mix involving a range of flair bartending tricks. It ended with a flaming shot that, when dropped into the rest, created an impressive smoky effect.
Finally, after about 15 minutes on the brink of a heart attack, I returned and placed the ring on the dessert, which their server then brought out. At this point, nearly the entire staff was watching the table, and when we saw the look on her face, my heart finally started beating again.
She said ‘Yes,’ and the very next day, I began looking for another job.”
