Whether it's bad service, really good service or everything in between, sometimes waiters do some pretty ridiculous things.
He Chased Me For 20%
“A little background, I’m currently living in Washington, DC. I ate at a fairly nice restaurant and left 20% tip as I always do (I’m also a pretty easy customer). This server chased me out of the restaurant and asked “was there anything wrong with the service tonight?” I told him there wasn’t, that’s why I left him 20 dollars on the 100 dollar bill. He said that most of the people who eat there are Senators and it’s customary to tip 30% at that particular restaurant. I asked him if he’d rather give me back my 20 and he left in a huff, calling me a cheap a–. F— that guy” Source
You Must Have Eaten It
“At a Swiss Chalet, six of us at a table. Five plates come out. We wait a couple minutes for the sixth plate. We inform our waitress that we didn’t receive our sixth plate. She responds with “Yes, you did.” After a bit of a back-and-forth, she accuses us of hiding the last plate somewhere” Source
Now That’s Some Grade A Service
“I was eating dinner with my family at an italian restaurant. My little sister (~5 years old at the time) fell asleep at the table.
Several waiters laid out a few chairs, a tablecloth, and a pillow to make a bed. I think my dad left a 150% tip” Source
A Grieving Period
“We took my wife’s father out for birthday dinner one night. He chose the Olive Garden, so my parents and the in-laws met us there and we were seated at a big round table in the back of the restaurant. Our waitress came bouncing up and introduced herself, asked a few questions, and figured out that it was Bill’s birthday. His 60th birthday. I noticed that she seemed to pause when she heard this, but she took drink orders and off she went.
Dinner progressed, but at some point she came back and dropped the f—ing bomb: her own father had just died two weeks prior at age 60. We were all a little flabbergasted, but we offered our condolences and she turned it around a bit by reminding us all how precious we should be to each other, blah blah.
Not 5 minutes later she came back, and proceeded to fill us in on HOW he died: battling aggressive cancer for a year, he died a long, slow, painful death. Very sad. Again, birthday dinner and all, we managed to console her a little and ordered desserts.
Desserts come out, and she brings an extra-happy surprise: a printout of an email that her father sent her. You see, during his time in hospice, he sent her multiple emails daily telling her that he loved her, writing poetry and inspirationals. She saved them, leaving them all unread to go through after he passed. She proceeded to read this poem to us, which was very sweet I’m sure, but I could barely hear it over the blood pounding in my ears out of sheer embarrassment. I was staring at my plate by this point; I can honestly say it was the most embarrassed I have been since middle school.
As she had brought out the desserts, a bus/run guy had come through to clear a booth from the now empty section of the restaurant. About two lines into the poem, he stood up, looks over at her and said, “You’re kidding.” I glanced over at him and he gave me the most sincere “Oh Jesus I am SO sorry” look.
She finished the poem, we paid up, left a decent enough tip (probably around 20% because the service–grief aside–was good), and went home.
The next day, my wife gets a call from a manager. He asks if we had had any issues with our waitress the night before, and my wife very kindly explained that the woman was obviously still grieving and just happened to get a table that rang her like a gong. He explained that it was her first shift back since taking time off to grieve, and that we were her first table of the night.
The manager refunded the meal to us and sent us a $50 gift card” Source
Sir! Wait!
“I tipped 1$ for a 4$ breakfast consistently at a place that didn’t seem to get or expect tips. One day the guy offered me a hot chocolate for free after I was done eating. When I was, he looked busy so I just left. I went up stairs and walked back to Canadian Tire (my work), walked all the way across the large store and almost made it to the employees lounge when he came running after me with the hot chocolate” Source
Are You Sure?
“I just had a great experience at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Four of my friends and I sat down and ordered drinks. After 20 minutes one guy decided to order food. After another 20 minutes someone else ordered food. The food actually was kind of slow, but our waitress checked on us and let us know the order was in. She joked around with us a bit, was always on top of our drinks and gave us a couple free beers (somehow they poured too many behind the bar and were going to have to throw them away). We tipped $21 on a $79 bill.
We paid our bill in cash and told her to keep the tip. A couple minutes later she came back and asked if we knew how much we gave her. My initial thought was we either gave her $80 or $120 since we had been passing money back and forth to get the correct change (the waitress actually broke a $20 bill for us). Nope, she just thought we had tipped too much. We told her that’s how good her service was. There’s not a real point to this story, I just found it odd and positive” Source
A Fried Chicken Nightmare
“I ate at a restaurant run by blacks aimed towards a white customer base. I ordered the fried chicken and got a lecture about how not all blacks like fried chicken and if I came there just to be politically correct I could leave. So, we left and told the manager what happened (also black) and he seemed pretty upset. We are weekly patrons and that was our first time with that waitress. Why is it not ok for white people to like fried chicken”Source
What A Lousy Place
“I used to work in kitchens as a line cook. Waiters used to piss us off all the time.
Coming in 5 minutes before their shift, during a rush, and ask for food.
Ordering food off the lunch menu when its dinner and not asking if that’s ok.
During sunday brunch ordering food off the regular menu and not asking if its ok.
Being prissy and annoying.
I worked at one place that took a tiny percentage (2%) of the waiters tips to give to us cooks, which was a nice thing. Although some waiters wished they could give to us themselves. We would get an extra .25 cents or more an hour depending on our position and hours worked. However what one waiter found out, was that all the money from the waiters was not being given to us, instead it was put into an account that had thousands of dollars of tip money that should have gone to us cooks. What ended up happening was management threw a party, supposedly with our money. We had it at the restaurant, us cooks cooked the food, and it was only with the alcohol that was not very popular. I left shortly after” Source
A Ridiculously Good Night
“I think I’ll join in with a good story in this part. Ridiculous, but ridiculously awesome.
I’m from Denmark, but I’d gone to London to visit some friends. Having looked around, we decided we’d go to Pizza Hut. We sat down, and a waiter comes up to our table and asks for our order. One of my friends decides he wants a small pizza, and the waiter stares at him for a bit, then goes “okay sweetie; I’ll make sure it’s extra crisp just for you”. Our friend is bisexual, and we teased him a bit, telling him to get the waiter’s phone number, and just generally messing about with him. He was not amused.
So, Kapil–as we found our our waiter was called–delivers our food to the table. He gets my friend’s plate the last, and gets up very close to him, and puts it down with a hearty “Here you are, love” (all of this is in an incredibly stereotypical gay voice with one hell of a lisp), winks at him, walks off to the kitchen. This was repeated, with several implied gay jokes when he asked for strawberry ice cream, as opposed to the chocolate the rest of us had.
He kept coming back, ensuring we had our drinks re-filled for the entire night and kept talking the piss out of my friend. We ended up having a picture taken with him, emptied out our pockets of change and dropped it in his tip tray.
We later added him as a friend on Facebook (yay, stalking). He’s straight, and has a girlfriend” Source
We’ll Take That Back
“Me and about 5 or 6 of my friends went to Dennys after a concert one night and we all orderd food. The service was fair (not good not bad) and the food was good. At the end of are meal we all paid and was getting ready to leave and we all put the tip on the table it was a good tip somthing like 30% – 40%. So we all where gitting up from the table and the waitress came over and said in a pretty smug way “I know a tip is not mandatory but you guys could leave somthing.” we all kinda took a look at each other and then i said “yeah your right a tip isnt mandatory.” And then went back to the table and picked up the money.
The look on her face was priceless as we walked out the door” Source
Never Eating Out Again
“I’ve had a few irritating interactions with waiters/waitresses.
I was out on a double date with the woman who would become my wife and another couple. My order alone was not simple but other girl’s order was pretty complex. The waiter was just listening and going “uh huh” after every few words when I said, “Don’t you think you might want to write this down?” to which he replied “Nah, I’ve got it.”
Well, surprisingly enough, he didn’t have it. He brought me a dish completely unrelated to what I ordered.
“This isn’t what I ordered.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it isn’t. Perhaps you would know what I ordered if you’d written it down.”
By the time my order was corrected, my pre-wife and friends had already finished their meals. Then he brought the bill, which included being charged for the original, incorrect order.
“Go get your manager.”
“Why?”
“Because this is ridiculous. You’re charging me for my order and the incorrect order.”
The manager comes over and apologies profusely. He tells the waiter to create another ticket without the incorrect order and offers me some gift certificates ($30 worth, not bad) for the inconvenience. The waiter brings me the new ticket and I notice there’s an 18% automatic gratuity tacked on. I look at the previous, incorrect ticket…and there is no automatic gratuity. In other words, this a–hole waiter tagged on a tip hoping I wouldn’t notice because he sure as Hell wasn’t getting one from me. I pointed it out to the manager and the look on his face said everything. He took the ticket from me and said, “Dinner’s on me, sir, enjoy your evening.” I’m pretty sure somebody got fired.
Out to lunch with some co-workers at one of my favorite local eateries. I was trying to get the waitress’ attention because I ordered a grilled steak burrito and got a grilled chicken burrito instead. The place was packed, you could barely hear yourself think. So I called out: “Miss! Miss!” and raised my hand in the air. By instinct, I snapped my fingers, as well.
Apparently this is like the cardinal sin of being a restaurant patron. She literally stomped over with this sour look on her face and tartly said: “Don’t…snap.” I can’t convey in this font the intensity of the words. “I’m sorry,” I offered, “it’s just really loud and I couldn’t get your attention and my order is wro…”
“Don’t snap.” she said as she cut me off. “Just because I work for tips and get paid like crap doesn’t give you the right to treat me like I’m your personal servant.”
“Wha…you know what? Just take this back and get me grilled steak burrito.”
I got my burrito (which she probably spit in) and didn’t leave a tip.
In defense of the good, hard-working waiters/waitresses everywhere I offer the sorriest tale I’ve ever encountered. This alone made me want to make sure to leave a good tip.
Like most college students, I was pretty low on cash. So my friends and I loved Ryan’s. The food wasn’t very good, but it was plentiful and cheap. So when we’d scrap together a little cash, off to Ryan’s we’d go.
We showed up on Sunday afternoon just as the church crowd was leaving and were taking our seats at a recently-vacated table. Our waitress was a lovely young girl. I remember thinking she was in one of my classes, but I couldn’t remember which. Anyway, as we were getting ready to tell her our drink order she said, “Hey…guys…I know you don’t know me, but I just need to get something off my chest.”
This was completely out of the ordinary, so of course we were completely attentive.
“The folks who were sitting here before you just tipped me with food stamps.”
My roommate was the first to speak. “You are f—ing kidding me.”
“Nope. Food stamps. And it wasn’t even 10%. It was a family of 8 and they left me a $5 food stamp.”
My hats off to you, waiters and waitresses. You work a pretty thankless job on average. And to those of you who provide crappy service and think tips are a given, go blow a hobo” Source
Not Good Enough? Here!
“My wife and I once went out to eat at a restaurant near where we lived. We were both seated fairly quickly and opened our silverware while waiting for our server to arrive. I noticed my fork was slightly dirty, like the dishwasher hadn’t completely cleaned off all the old food. Now, I didn’t for a moment think that I was intentionally given dirty silverware… and when the server came to take our drink order, I politely said, “Excuse me… but this fork is dirty. Could I please have another?” She smiled, said, “Sure!” and left. She came back a minute or two later and placed another set of cutlery on the table. “Here you go,” she said. She then put a glass full of hot soapy water on the table, and said, “That’s if this set isn’t clean enough for you.” My wife and I looked at each other, got up without saying a word, and walked out” Source
Begging For A Tip
“I went to TGI fridays and ordered a drink. The waiter gave me a hard time about my ID , so much in fact by the time I got the drink, I just drank it and paid for the one drink and decided to leave.
As I was leaving he ran up and said ” thanks buddy so much for the tip, I just want to thank you so much for your kindness”
I became fairly enraged, loudly I said ” When you are total d–k to the customer don’t expect a tip and I hope your manager and co workers can hear what a terrible person you are to the customer, Im going to go home and make sure this is well documented and reported, my friends with me will do the same”Source
Getting In The Way
“One time a bartender didn’t fill up my pitcher all the way, so I politely requested for him to do so. He started this thing about me complaining and why I’m making a big deal about it (when he was). He ended up giving me a dirty look after there was no tip; like he was surprised he got no tip for being a jerk.
Another time I left no tip because the bartender was badgering me about why I got kicked out of another local spot. She was trying to be cute making me call her ma’am and saying please ma’am just to get a beer. I wrote down on the bill “$0 Tip MA’AM”. That was fun.
Bottom line: once you start getting inbetween me and my beer, you’re gonna lose a tip” Source
Totally Deserving
“That happened to me at a Denny’s. Kinda.
I left like 2 bucks on a 6 dollar tab and the waitress made some crass remark on my way out, when her manager was right there. I turned around and asked her if she was being crass with me. I don’t think she knew what the word meant. Then she said “sorry for the service” with a smug attitude. So I told her to give me the tip back. That’s when the manager got involved as I started toward her (I’m a Marine vet, she’s lucky I didn’t bother her for a discount). So the manager comped the meal for both me and my friend and she gave us our cash back… All of it.
And before anybody might want to come in and call me a d–k, I used to be a server and have put up with a lot of bulls–t. 2 bucks on 6 ain’t bad, especially when coffee is self serve” Source
Wait! Come Back!
“I was vacationing in Beijing where tipping is not part of the culture. I left the equivalent of a $5 tip for a $30 meal and as I was walking out the door, a waitress frantically chased me down and stuffed the tip back into my pocket telling me it was far too much” Source
An Awesome Affair
“Ate at a steakhouse in Phoenix one night after going to a play with my family. It was late and the place was nearly empty but the hostess offered to sit us anyway. My sister ordered some sort of fish and about 10 minutes later they came back and said they were out of that fish till the morning delivery. We didn’t really think anything of it my sister just ordered something else and we kept talking. The staff was so apologetic that when the bill came they had comped my sisters meal and gave us $50 worth of gift cards. It was pretty awesome” Source
Crying With Gratitude
“One time the whole family was eating out in a somewhat upscale area with a lot of tight-a– retirees, and dad left about a 25% tip because the waitress was just really exceptional at handling our large party in addition to so many other people (I think she, the bus boy, and the owner were the only ones out handling about 10-15 tables).
She came running out with the tip thinking we had left without taking our change. She almost cried when dad told her it wasn’t a mistake (the tip was close to $100). Apparently that was close to what she makes waiting tables for the entire night, because all the penny penching old farts tip around 5-10%.
I guess the ridiculous part was dad couldn’t believe she came out to correct the ‘mistake’…then again, that’s why she earned the tip, heh. Pretty sad how some misers are willing to pay for good food but not tip the servers (fixed income my a–)” Source
Creeper…
“I had a waitress look me up on facebook by the name on my credit card. She sent me a message letting me know she was my waitress and that we should hang out sometime.
And no she wasn’t attractive” Source
Are You Serious?!
“Went to a Chili’s with 4 friends, the service was s—, it took about 1 hour 1/2 and they brought out the wrong food twice before getting us our meal; my burger was bloody rare even though I asked for medium rare, etc. We decided to leave a 5% tip, so I gave the waitress our money and ask for x amount of money back, clearly signalling that the difference was her tip. She plays stupid, and brings all of our money back, clearly upset with the small value of the tip, and says she “wasn’t sure what we wanted to do.” I handed her three dollars and said “that will be all.” Her eyes went a little wide, and she marched off in a fuss. When we went to left the restaurant, the manager approached us and said that we should acquaint ourselves with usual tipping practices to avoid future misunderstandings. I told him to serve better food in a more timely matter. He just stared at us as we left. I’m pretty sure if I ever go back I’m getting “special ingredients” with all of my food” Source
That Took A Turn For The Worst…
“Yeah.. about 20 years ago my family waited over a 1 1/2 hours for our food to be delivered (dont ask me why, it’s my Dad). The waiter was rude when we asked what was up, and constantly left us with empty drinks.
So, when we left we left no tip. We all went into the restrooms, and when I came out my Mom was standing there and we started talking. The waiter who was male, STORMS UP and gets right in my Moms face (less than an inch). Now, my Mom is a tiny woman and this waiter was a big guy and he started SCREAMING and her wondering where his tip was. I started to advance on him, but my Dad came out of the bathroom and literally picked the waiter up and threw him about 5 feet into a wall.
The waiter was fired on the spot, and we received free meals for a year.. but we never went back” Source