Welcome 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 truly horrendous restaurant customers. As always, these are real e-mails from real readers.
I really wasn’t planning to do another Terrible Customer Stories entry any time soon, but in looking over my submissions, I realized I had an absolute crapton that fit that category. If these seem like a lot of stories, just know that I didn’t use all the ones I had — I’ve got at least double this amount kicking around just waiting to be used.
Amy Tarantova:
In 2007, I was working in the back “private dining club” area of a restaurant in Galveston, TX. Members pay an annual fee, which means if you’re working the club, you get REAL minimum wage plus tips, and you get a cheat sheet detailing the likes/dislikes of each club member, so you know never to push a crab smothered redfish for Mr. Johnson because he only ever eats the oysters rockefeller. They host events (mothers day brunch, new years eve midnight dinners, etc) which truthfully, were the best gig, because it was all buffet — I only had to handle drinks and special orders, which were rare. But because the club had members, many of which had been members for decades, they kind of felt like they OWNED you when you were their server. One in particular stands out, Mrs. P.
Mrs. P was a widower who lived with her — in her words — “colored nurse” named Dora. Dora was awesome and always super nice — she would have an Arnold palmer, the free shrimp cocktail clubmembers received, a fried shrimp and fish platter, and a slice of pecan pie. Always. If you ever asked her what she wanted, however, Mrs. P would cut you off and say “ITS IN THE BOOK,” meaning it was in her club member file. Dora’s order was listed in the book, with an additional note to NEVER EVER speak to her in Mrs. P’s presence. Also in the book was Mrs. P’s preferred meal, which one was ALWAYS supposed to ask about since she sometimes would tweak her order:
Vodka Martini, with blue cheese stuffed olives (we did not have these ready, you had to make them by hand fresh for her), up. Well Vodka.
Shrimp bisque — a cup’s worth, but in a bowl. (Editor’s Note: Oh my God, when old people ask for shit like this)
Bread — from the restaurant next door, NOT THE NORMAL BREAD WE ALWAYS SERVED. I cannot fault her for this, next door they made fresh baguettes and at our place they had a gross black cracked pepper bread that was baked every 3 days – with softened UNSALTED REAL BUTTER not the piped margarine that was available in the reach-in. You had to actually go to the sauté line cook, ask for a ramekin of butter, and if the dish was cold (meaning you had prepped it in advance) she would put it in your front apron pocket.
Salad — house salad with vinaigrette, tossed tableside, NOT A SERVICE THAT WAS ACTUALLY OFFERED.
Fried whole flounder — which is only actually available 1/4 of the time because no one in Galveston is constantly gigging for flounders. There are peak times when you can get a fuckload, or times when you can’t get any, and since we didn’t serve frozen fish, if there was no flounder Mrs. P would come down on you with the wrath of a thousand fiery suns. If this was not available, she would proceed immediately to dessert.
Chocolate Molten Lava Cake — that she always complained about. I waited on her for a year (as I replaced her favorite “colored” waiter, who didn’t actually leave the restaurant but refused to wait on Mrs. P anymore), and she never once actually met a lava cake that was up to her standards.
She would rattle all of this off to you, occasionally deciding against one of the items you had carefully planned for her in advance, I am convinced just to keep us servers on our toes. She once ordered the legendary pecan pie, only to have it arrive to her disappointment, covered with pecans. She told me she didn’t realize it came “with nuts all over it” (despite the fact that Dora always got pecan pie, and we were in Texas, so what the fuck, it wasn’t like she’d never seen a pecan pie before). She once berated me over the dirtiness of her martini, and proclaimed that because I couldn’t even get that right, she needed me to bring her a small container with olive juice so she could dirty it herself. From then on, all servers had to bring her a small container with olive juice, and for fucks sake, that better have been chilled and not just pulled out of the bar well, because if it was room temp, it would bring up the temperature of the martini and then she could taste what utter shit the well vodka was.
The last time I waited on her — before I took a short vacation that coincided with Hurricane Ike devastating the island — she got up to go to the ladies’ room and I came by to refill her and Dora’s water. “You know, it’s so sad,” Dora said to me, “She’s so lonely because her friends are all dead and her children don’t like her. She’s a mean racist coot.”
“I’m so sorry that you have to be around her,” I replied, looking over my shoulder to make sure she wasn’t coming up behind me.
“It’s OK, I promised her husband, before he killed himself, she’d never be alone. She hates to be alone.” She shook her head, “All that crazy’s just up there all the time.”
It was then we heard her screaming for Dora. She had fallen in the bathroom. Dora rushed in to get her up and they quickly left. I went into the bathroom and discovered she’d fallen trying to steal TP from under the sink — the cabinet doors were still open and there was toilet paper everywhere. I could hear her at the entrance, yelling at Dora to hurry up and bring the car around. So sad, to be alone, with all that crazy.
Andrea Gellar:
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