'"Too many cherries" in the cherry pie': 35+ Utterly ridiculous customer requests that took chefs and waiters by surprise

Advertisement
  • 01
    PETITENGET BLEN FORGE BRL FAZENA PUTRA SA TRA FTHORA YA MA CHENATE MERE EVENE D TE
  • 02
    Chefs of Reddit, what was the most ridiculous excuse a customer had for sending back a meal?
  • 03
    [deleted] Not a chef, but a server at the time. Dude ordered a pizza that had fresh jalapenos on it (they're cut lengthwise). When I gave it to him he flipped out and asked why we put bell peppers on it. I told him those were jalapenos, but he wasn't having it. He walked right into our kitchen and told the chef he couldn't believe he didn't know the difference between bell peppers and jalapenos. The chef just took out a whole jalapeno and said "This is a jalapeno, right?"
  • 04
    Guest: "Yeah" Chef cuts it as it appears on the pizza. "And that's what you have, right?" Guest with a stunned look on his face: "...Yeah" He left me an awful tip.
  • 05
    + [deleted] Woman orders meal and asks for there to be no salt, pepper, garlic, or any other herbs or spices in the meal. Then sends it back because "it's flavorless"
  • 06
    autumnx Okay, this isn't the same thing but still completely ridiculous. I worked at an Italian restaurant as a waitress for a short time as the customers sucked. This lady (in her 40's) ordered a Hawaiian Pizza and pitched a fit saying how we got her order wrong. I asked her what was wrong with it and she said it wasn't a Hawaiian Pizza and the toppings were wrong. I looked at it and it had diced tomatoes, pineapples, and ham. Exactly what the menu stated. Showing her this, she
  • 07
    said "What are you talking about! These are yellow! Pineapples are orange!". Confused, I got my manager and he tried explaining that pineapples are quite yellow. Not orange. But if she didn't like it, she can order something else on the house. She got mad and said no that she wanted this but with the right pineapples. She started explaining what they looked like. I said "Wait, do you mean ORANGES?" as she completely described oranges. She said "NO, PINEAPPLES!" and
  • 08
    started describing oranges again. At this point, I take my phone out, Google oranges and pineapples and show her. She points at the oranges and yells at the top of her lungs "YES, THOSE I want those". My manager told her we do not have those and she can either pick something else or eat what she has. She left.
  • 09
    rbodnicki Where I work, people will often ask for their "undercooked" burgers to be remade. It's normally no big deal, but every once in a while you'll get a ridiculous customer. This one time, a customer came up to the counter and told us their burger was undercooked and demanded we recook it. Unfortunately they decided not to tell us until they were 3/4 done with the food.
  • 10
    So my my manager happily obliged and had their burger remade. After it was finished, he cut the burger into fourths, and gave the customer a fresh quarter of a burger, well done. The look on their face was justice.
  • 11
    OffalJim "Can I have this made with penne instead? I'm allergic to fettuccine" You're allergic to a shape?
  • 12
    [deleted] "Sir, there are teeth in my food!" "Wow. Are you serious? Ok I'll come check it out........ Sir, those are onions." "Well... It's weird, can I order something else?"
  • 13
    HexKrak Before I was a chef I worked a year at a state fair in a "Orient express" booth. A woman ordered a plate of sweet and sour chicken, and 10 minutes later came back with every fried chicken chunk broken open, chicken consumed, and demanded a refund saying there was no chicken in the breading.
  • 14
    Melvin Gro I used to work at a zoo snack bar. We had some of those ice cream carts that had wheels and we would roll them out to different areas of the park and then stay there for the remainder of the day. On this particular day, I was stationed at the "playground" one of the worst places to be because children would run rampant throughout the park while their parents sat around on benches chatting with friends, or just weren't really paying attention to what their children were doing. I'd have
  • 15
    me on a daily basis and BEG for ice cream, but of course I couldn't just give it to them. I'd always ask if they had any money, and they never did, and I'd tell them to go ask their parents for some if they wanted money (not my problem). On this particular day, it was exceptionally hot, and one kid had a temper tantrum when I told him I couldn't just give him ice cream. Like FULL BLOWN, on the floor crying and screaming and I'm just like and continue to help other customers around his howling
  • 16
    body sprawled on the ground. The brat finally pulls himself together and goes to find his mother. About 15 minutes later bratty and his mom stroll over to the cart, child sniffling and happy that he persuaded his mother for ice cream and they start checking out the selections. We had about 15 different ice cream options, all with prices clearly marked. The kid picks out the most expensive option and the mom is all like "whatever you want sweet baby". I hand her the $3.50 ice cream and she unwrap
  • 17
    drooling and slobbering all over it, and it was a day that was hot as so it started melting quickly. She asks me how much it is and I tell her, gesturing towards the clearly marked sign. She starts screaming at me about how she's not paying that much and I'm just like, "sorry ma'am, there's nothing I can do, he's already started eating it". She's like flipping out at me and finally gives me the money- all in change, mostly pennies and nickels.
  • 18
    Then, she asks for napkins. me. The park wouldn't let us hand out napkins because too many people littered and the amount that it costed daily to clean up all the napkins in the park was too much for the park to afford (or so they said). Regardless, not my problem. I politely explain why we don't have napkins and apologize for the inconvenience and This woman literally flips a She grabs the now disgusting drippy ice cream from her sons mouth (starting another temper tantrum, this time with bette
  • 19
    into my tip jar and pulls out $3.50. She stomped away with her hysterical son and I had to try and wipe the ice cream off my shirt with LEAVES from a nearby tree, and was forced to sit at my stand for the rest of the day unable to do anything about it.
  • 20
    [deleted] I was working at Dairy Queen, not necessarily a chef, but I made some good Blizzards. Anyways, this lady comes through drive-through screaming that she wanted a small Oreo Blizzard. No big deal. When I handed it out, she jabbed at it with her spoon and looked at it like it was a dead mouse. She stated "The Oreo's are too pulverized, I want another." , the Oreos come pre- shredded. Whatever they cost us $.25 to make, so I make her
  • 21
    another one. Mixing it for about half a second leaving massive chunks of Oreo on top and barely mixed in. I hand it out and she said it looks perfect. Her ulterior motive? She wanted the 'mistake' for free. She asked, "Well what are you going to do with that other one? Can I have it since you can't give it to another customer?" I said, "I'm sorry, the Oreo's are too pulverized." And threw it away right in front of her.
  • 22
    spinydelta Currently working as a chef, Got a few Creme Brulee's back. One of the times being that it was "Too brown" and another one when a customer complained about "Black dots in the custard" (Being the vanilla).
  • 23
    asdqwezc Once had a guy order a grade 9 wagyu scotch fillet medium rare. This steak we sold for $63 (I think, it was rather expensive). He got the steak, cut it into tiny pieces because it was slightly under MR. Really massive move, because usually if someone says their steak is undercooked you just chuck it back on the grill for a few seconds to get it to the right done-ness. So yeah, we get this $60 dollar steak back in pieces, and have to cook another for this . We make
  • 24
    another one, no worries. He does the exact same thing. Cuts it into tiny pieces, says its undercooked. This guy has now wasted $120 worth of food. The whole kitchen is J livid. He then orders a pasta, which I make and send out. The guy eats the entire thing, says it was and then when he goes to pay he said to the waitress "just charge me for a bowl of chips, it's ok, the boss will understand because we're friends." I don't know if the waitress did or not, an I'm not sure what the
  • 25
    boss thought about it either, becaus he was out for the night. Thinking of that story really me off.
  • 26
    MsBananaHammock As a server, a trio of ladies ordered a pork sandwich and two cheeseburgers. Normal right? Nope, they were on the Atkins diet so they wanted no buns, no cheese, no toppings of any sort. So I bring out three plates, two with just patties and one with a pile of pork. "What is this? This is NOT what I ordered!" Well ma'am, that's a pork sandwich minus the onions, coleslaw, cheese, bun, and fries. Not really sure what they were expecting.
  • 27
    TheWoodchuck I had dinner with a crazy family friend that refused to eat anything brought to the table (old country style restaurant, no menus. You eat what they bring out). She insisted that they prepare her special portions of their traditional recipe dishes, prepared precisely how she wanted them, and went back to the kitchen to supervise that they were following her instructions exactly. She told us that she had them remake her vegetables 3 times, with pride.
  • 28
    I was 12 and it was my birthday dinner. I've never been so embarassed. I asked the waiter to take me into the kitchen. I told my folks that after she went back, I wanted to see the big kitchen. What I actually did was apologize to all the cooking and wait staff for my guest. For years I thought my parents didn't know. What I did not know is that the manager stopped my Mother on the way out and complimented her on having such a polite child. I was 33 when she told me.
  • 29
    € Exodoxe "I choked on an avocado pit that was in my sushi!" She threaten to sue the company. We had to show her an actual avocado pit to end her complains.
  • 30
    grownuprosie Stealing this story from a server friend of mine. Horrible woman comes in and orders the mussels. After my friend brings the plate out, the woman claims that the kitchen stole the meat out of the shells. My friend tries to explain that live mussels are placed in the pan, so it is not possible that there are more shells than meat pieces. The woman then spreads out the
  • 31
    shells and meat on the table cloth to prove her point. Discovered she was wrong and stormed out. The awkward part was that the woman was at a table of 3 other friends who were mortified and paid for the meal with a HUGE tip.
  • 32
    sociallyfoolish These hot wings are too hot, these dry seasoned wings are not saucy enough
  • 33
    Jaredeck The only pizza we have at our restaurant is a simple Margherita Pizza. One guy had me make him a meat lovers/combo pizza with white sauce (which we don't have, so I had to reduce some Alfredo sauce). Took roughly 15-20 minutes to make, and he sent it back because the bottom for the pizza was too dark for him. He insisted I cooked it too close to the flames, and that's why it tasted too burnt for him. The issue is we use a 3 deck conventional oven, with no flames in sight.
  • 34
    DrummerPete When I was working in a kitchen a woman said her soup was "too hot" and she'd "burnt her mouth." Of course, she'd already finished the soup. Edit: The soup was never microwaved in that kitchen. So the chef, being the nice guy he is, gave her some sorbet to cool down her mouth. She was a person.
  • 35
    71 2 averym88 just yesterday (i am a server) I had a table order "the prime rib" and when the prime rib came out to her she was extremely mad that her order was not correct. apparently she wanted the french dip sandwich. TOTALLY the same thing and yes, i was supposed to know that by ordering the prime rib (a dish we have on our menu) she actually mean't the french dip. she wanted her meal comp'd.
  • 36
    Jeffers315 I am a line cook in a fairly upscale seafood restaurant. Once in the middle of a busy Saturday dinner rush, we got an order for an ahi tuna tartare. The way we plate our tartares is pretty elaborate and takes a good 5-7 minutes to create. I happened to be working expo that day and was tasked with building the tartare. I sent it out and it was beautiful. Wasabi and sriracha aioli designs surrounding the slices of cucumber, seaweed salad and
  • 37
    ginger piled around the perfectly stacked raw tuna marinaded in ponzu and eel sauce. I sent it out the window and it came back almost immediately because the lady who had ordered it "doesn't do raw fish." Long story short, she requested we sauté the fish and rebuild the plate for her with a gross pile of well done cooked tuna chunks slopped in the middle. Please know what it is you're ordering before you order.
  • 38
    + GregTheGreat I saw somebody once send a meal back because they gave her too much food. I don't know why she just didn't not eat it all instead.
  • 39
    HankyLanky2 I once heard an old man getting pretty flustered and really irritated because he said he wanted 8 french fries and apparently he got 11.
  • 40
    ✪ [deleted] I was a server some time ago. My restaraunt sold large and small bowls of soup. Once, someone ordered a large bowl and finished half, then asked if they could be charged for a small bowl.
  • 41
    ✪ [deleted] As a waiter I had a lady complain that her pasta was too soft, so I had it remade, but then it was too chewy, so I asked her if there was something else she'd like instead of the pasta. So she ordered lasagna. Yup. It was so awkward because by this time everyone else at her table was done eating.
  • 42
    Baileeboo I once watched a lady pluck a hair from her head and put it on her pizza. I assumed she wanted it for free. However, before she got the chance to complain, I informed her I had witnessed it with a smug look that shut her down without argument.
  • 43
    ▸ [deleted] Not sure if this applies, but worked as a shift supervisor at Pizza Hut. Woman with 3 kids has a long wait to get a table. I felt bad so offered to pick up her bill and then sat them. She ordered 18 pizzas for her and her 3 kids. It taught me a valuable lessen that being nice while running a business is impossible.
  • 44
    KwisatzHaderach85 Woman orders fries for her and her friend after church. I bring fries, "Oh, these are too cold... we want new fries". I go make the fries myself, cook them longer than normal and immediately serve them after taking them out of the fryer. They were steaming still. The woman looks at it, touches it, and I you not says "Oh, these are ICE COLD". Exact words. Had to get the manager to deal with it
  • 45
    TheFoxGoesMoo "Too many cherries" in the cherry pie. you.
  • 46
    Acharai It turns out she couldn't eat it because she was allergic to shrimp. She ordered the Jumbo Shrimp Pasta. I really thought that was self explanatory. Another guy sent back his Cheese Steak because it was too cold. It was pretty cold, because he sat and drank for 45 minutes with it sitting in front of him before he even touched it.
  • 47
    Nohvarr Assistant manager at a burrito place. During our annual town festival, it got packed. I'm talking, more in one day than we normally do in a month, kinda thing. We had a guy complain about the wait. There were 30 chairs in the place, and easily twice as many people waiting for meals, we still had a line running out of the door. It was so packed, that we were just yelling for names, handing you your order, and politely explaining that we were breaking fire code, and we needed the customers
  • 48
    outside to he tables set up for the festival. It was "oh my god!" packed. I can not stress how crazy it was. So, dude is complaining about the wait, our cashier girl tells him we are working on it. He gets it, and then immediately asks for it to be remade. He says with the wait, he knows it's cold... Okay. So, we make it a priority, we rush it out in a few seconds, and he goes to stand in the window, and eat. Whatever, I don't have time to argue with him. He's back complaining about how he wants
  • 49
    one is wrong. I go out, and he's telling me it's wrong. Not how or why, it's just wrong. The owner comes flying out of the kitchen pulls the register open, pulls out a $20. Walks over, pulls the half eaten $7 burrito out of the guys hands, hands him the bill, and tell him to get the out. It was pretty nice. That day I learned, that if you are a big enough problem, my boss would literally pay you to go away.
  • 50
    A_WILD_ _APPEARS. I was eating at the restaurant at the Four Seasons hotel in Maui and a nasty old woman sent her lamb chops back (probably an $90 meal) because there wasn't salt on the table. She got the entire refund after to the manager for 45 minutes because the tables didn't have salt and pepper on them. The food itself wasn't even the issue I think.
  • 51
    Hetril Once had someone return a burger saying there was a bug in it. Her kid interrupted with "but mommy, you told me to put that there." I had the most smug look as she left shamed.
  • 52
    Mr-Sagan A woman didn't want the garlic bread she ordered ...because it had garlic on it.
  • 53
    niltiak2008 I had one guy send back his pizza because it didn't look like the picture of a pizza he had on his phone. The picture had nothing to do with our restaurant or compared to anything we offered. He walked it back to the kitchen himself, told us it was overdone (honestly, I would have said it was closer to
  • 54
    UNDERdone), and shove the picture at us. We did end up trying to make something similar to what he requested, but if he wouldn't have been such a been much more willing to accommodate. , we would have
  • 55
    ChokeArtist50 Not a Chef, but was working at Customer Service at a Food Lion. A women comes in with 80/20 ground beef her husband bought 2 days prior. When I asked what was the problem she told me that her husband had bought "bad" meat. When I asked her if it was spoiled or had a problem, she said that the beef was pink. That was just one of the days that I got written up for laughing at a customer to their face.
  • 56
    [deleted] Once upon a time, I worked at Pizza Hut. Customer: "I would like a Meat Lover's pizza with no meat." At that time, that would mean she'd only have sauce and cheese. And this pizza would cost more. A more expensive cheese pizza. Us: "Here's your cheese pizza ma'am."
  • 57
    Her: "I didn't want a cheese pizza! I wanted a Meat Lover's pizza!" She did this many times. EDIT: She just wanted cheese. And because she dealt with so many different employees who worked different shifts, not everyone got the memo about her. So they all made the same mistake over and over by saying "cheese pizza." Eventually someone made fun of her to a customer and she was sitting right behind them in another booth. That
  • 58
    employee was later fired, not for that incident, but because she was stealing money.
  • 59
    untrustableskeptic I was an expediter in a nice local restaurant. We had an open buffet around Christmas and one of the customers complained that the tiny little onion rings were rubbery. It was fried calamari.
  • 60
    [deleted] I once had a customer that had just had a haircut order food, eat 90% of what was on his plate, then send it back because it had hair in it. His own hair, from his stupid J haircut. I refused to replace the meal and told him if he wants to try skipping out on his bill he can discuss it with the police. Anyone who tries to send a meal back after eating nearly all of it can just off. I got out of food service entirely because I got sick of customers like that. i

Tags

Scroll Down For The Next Article