Horrendous Restaurant Customers, Part 1
In DepthWelcome back to Behind Closed Ovens, where we take a look at the best and strangest stories from inside the food industry. This week, we’ve got more stories of horrible customers (to be followed by part 2 next week). As always, these are real e-mails from real readers.
Callie Rossmeyer:
About 8 years ago, when I was in my late teens/early 20’s, I worked at a movie theater. It was the only one in my town and it had exactly one screen, so all the employees shared the various responsibilities (tickets/concessions/cleaning/dicking around while the movie was playing/making the yellowest batch of popcorn possible). This particular day, I was working concessions. We were showing some big blockbuster movie, and being the only theater in town, we got SLAMMED. We had just finished a big rush and the movie is about 15 minutes in when this older couple walks in. The husband orders a large popcorn and a soda, pays, and then his wife approaches the counter. She places both hands on the glass and looks up at me with an expression that I think is best described as all the leftover parts from a preschool Mr. Potatohead set.
“Hello! What can I get for you today?”
“I would like a box of popcorn.”
“Well, we sell it in bags, usually, but I can pour it into a courtesy tray, if that’s better. What size do you want?”
“No, I don’t want any size, I just want popcorn in that box.” She points to our cardboard courtesy trays.
At this point, I think I get it. Our large popcorns had a free refill and sometimes people would get their refill at the same time as their first bag so they didn’t have to leave the theater during the movie, which we would give them in the “boxes” she kept referring to.
“Oh! Did you want the free refill now? I’m happy to do that.”
“Nooooo. I don’t want my husband’s popcorn. I WANT MY OWN.”
“Right! I can give you the refill now, in one of the courtesy trays and you won’t have to share a bag with your husband.”
“NO NO NO. HE needs to keep his refill. I WANT MY OWN POPCORN.”
“…OK…I…what…what size?”
“I TOLD YOU I DON’T WANT A SIZE. Just take some popcorn from over there. Put it in a box. And GIVE. IT. TO. ME.”
“…You want free popcorn?”
“It’s not free if you give it to me!”
“Ma’am. I don’t…I’m sorry. I really don’t know what you mean. If I give you popcorn and you don’t give me money after I give you the popcorn, then it’s free popcorn. And that’s not how this works.” (I am so overwhelmed and confused that I am gesticulating WILDLY) “I can’t just give you stuff.”
“It’s not free popcorn! You’re giving it to me! Century Theaters does it all the time for me and they don’t say anything.”
My mouth opens and my face falls off and I am so mad at this lady. She is being purposefully obtuse and aggressively confusing. And she’s yelling at me. She sees me weaken.
“Just put some popcorn in the box and I won’t have to tell your manager about your rudeness.”
I am not afraid of my manager. He is, in fact, standing in my view, hiding in the stock room, and trying very very hard not to laugh. But I have given up. My soul has shriveled and become a sad popcorn kernel inside me. My spirit is but a tiny, weak flame as I repeat the phrase “It’s not free if you give it to me” over and over in my head. I grab a box (I’m calling them boxes now, not courtesy trays because everything I know is wrong and did you know it’s not free if you give it to me?) and am about to fill it, when she says-
“You’re making me miss the movie.”
My eyeballs light aflame and turn to dust. I am SEETHING. She obviously is used to harassing people into giving her free shit and even though it was just popcorn and basically garbage after this show (the last of the day), I didn’t want her to win. So I put exactly three pieces of popcorn into the FUCKING COURTESY TRAY I DON’T CARE THAT IT’S PEDANTIC THAT’S WHAT IT’S CALLED and slide the tray over to her. She is not satisfied.
“I’m going to need more than that.”
I take the popcorn scoop and put what amounts to maybe 15 more pieces of popcorn in her tray by letting them fall through the air from the scoop into the tray like a beautiful, angry, yellow waterfall.
“OK! There you go! If you want more than that you’re going to have to buy a bag.”
She points at my name badge and scowls her stupid potato face scowl and says, “YOU are getting fired, bitch.” Takes the tray with her 20 pieces of popcorn and goes into the movie.
A reasonable person might just give up and chalk it up to a crazy, entitled customer and go about the rest of their shift. I was not a reasonable person that day. She called me a bitch! She yelled at me! AND I STILL GAVE HER FREE POPCORN. Sure, it wasn’t a lot, but she still got SOME and I was cranky about it. So with my manager’s blessing, in the last 10 minutes of the show, I scooped up all the popcorn from the popper into our storage bags (essentially garbage bags for popcorn that we kept for the next day’s first showing if we felt like keeping it) and found where she was sitting in the theater. I slung the bag over my shoulder like the fucking Santa Claus of popcorn and sat in the seat directly in front of hers. I put my giant ridiculous garbage bag of popcorn on the seat next to me and ate out of it, in a comically animated way for the rest of the movie. I stuck my whole arm in there, swirled it around, shoved it in my face like cookie monster. It was not dignified. It was not pretty. But it felt so fucking good. Look at all this popcorn! None of it is for you, potato lady! I’m just throwing it on the ground! Here ground! This is for you! Don’t worry chair, it’s not free if I give it to you! I looked absolutely bananas crazy.
As far as I know, she never called to complain about me.
Nina Gray: