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 restaurant employees who were just unmitigated disasters. As always, these are real e-mails from real readers.
Matt McNair:
My sophomore year of high school through my sophomore year of college, I worked summers at a local old-school 50’s style drive-in. The staff was almost entirely high school kids or recent graduates who were attending the local community college. No one older than 20.
Shenanigans.
One employee in particular seemed destined for an early grave. We’ll call him Jacob.
During closeup one night, Jacob was tasked with sweeping and mopping the kitchen. Basic KP duty. I was mixing a batch of root beer in the back room when my lungs began to itch. Seconds later, the entire kitchen staff came barreling around the corner doing their best impression of Han Solo running from the Imperial shield bunker on Endor.
Seems Jacob thought it would be clever to mix up some extra-powerful cleaner to make his job easier. He’d mixed a half-gallon of bleach with a half-gallon of ammonia in the mop bucket. For reference, this is the equivalent of crossing the streams. We recovered, and Jacob was educated on WWI chemical warfare. (Editor’s Note: I am in love with these entire last two paragraphs.)
Next. We made our own cole slaw. Toss three heads of cabbage, 10 carrots, a bowl of dressing, a bit of salt and pepper into this ancient chopping mechanism, give it a few passes, and voila. Jacob was assigned the job. Again, how hard could it be?
About half an hour later and Jacob was still hard at work on a job that should have taken, at most, 10 minutes. The kitchen manager walks to the back to investigate. “Jesus Christ, Jacob, what the hell is this?”
“Cole slaw, duh.” You could hear his eyes roll.
“Jacob, have you ever eaten cole slaw?”
“Duh.”
“Did it fucking look like pudding?!”
I had to see. Jacob had made a slaw smoothie. It was literally liquified. I still don’t know how.
(Editor’s Note: Goddamit, Jacob.)
Bryce Jamison:
My place of work happens to be very close to a Subway, so I often grab a quick sandwich from there for lunch, and over the past year I’ve gotten to know the people who work there. I recently went in and found a new employee working behind the counter, wearing the trainee badge and all. She made my sandwich, and being a trainee, it took a little longer than usual. I’m not here to judge her for lack of sandwich perfection, she was new to it. However, I will judge her for something else.
When we got to the condiment section, I requested mustard. She took the bottle out and squeezed, and I noticed that rather than mustard coming out of the bottom as is normally the case, a little bit of mustard oozed out of the top. No big deal, she had grabbed the bottle upside-down.
However, she hadn’t noticed her mistake, and became determined to get the mustard out. She squeezed the bottle significantly harder, and this time mustard shot out of the top of the bottle and smeared all over her hand and arm (she was wearing short sleeves).
She still did not notice her mistake, despite her arm dripping with mustard. Her brow furrowed in frustration and she now used two hands to squeeze the bottle with the force of a thousand suns, thus creating what future historians will call The Great Mustard Geyser of ‘15. It shot out of the top and splattered all over her arm, her hand, the counter, the sandwich next to mine, the vegetables, it was a mess. There was more mustard in the room than there was oxygen.
And the most insane thing is that she was so razor-focused on getting the mustard on the sandwich that she STILL HAD NOT NOTICED. She reared up for another go at it and started to squeeze.This time I stepped in and muttered “Um, I think it’s upside-down.” She finally, finally looked at the mustard apocalypse that she had created…and just shrugged, flipped the bottle over, and applied the mustard. When she was done she went to the next customer, completely ignoring the mess that her mustard adventure had created.
Strangely enough, not a single drop of mustard got on my sandwich before she flipped the bottle.
Aaron Slade:
In the early 1990’s, I worked as a line cook at a one-step-above-pub-style restaurant in Worcester, MA (Editor’s Note: WOOOOOOOOOOOOO-STAAAAAAAAHHHHHH sorry I have no idea what just happened). It was a Saturday morning, and I arrived at about 10 AM for the long day, began lunch set up and prep for the night. Then the owner, a little loud Napoleonic fella, burst into the kitchen and announced to the Chef and I that one of the servers had committed suicide overnight. She had been there a while and was one of the better servers. We cooks liked her.
The owner genuinely shaken up; he had just gotten a call from her sister, but didn’t know anything else. I had gone to school with the sister, so I offered to call the house to see how we could help. The owner was going to close the restaurant for the day, he offered to cater the wake, send food for the family. More generous than I expected from the shifty bastard.
I called the house and her younger sister answered. I reintroduce myself, expressed my condolences…and she asked what the hell am I talking about. Her mother had just spoken to the “dead” sister a moment ago, and person I was talking to certainly had made no call to the restaurant that morning. We talked another minute and the only only conclusion we could reach is that the server had called in dead to work.
She. Called. In. Dead.
Zoe Leventhal:
I spent a good twelve years of my life working for Fazoli’s. Now, for those who haven’t heard of it, Fazoli’s is essentially the fast food variant of Olive Garden. Crappy Italian food, served by underpaid, overworked, underappreciated people. The original goal of Fazoli’s was to provide “upscale quality Italian food at fast food speed and prices”—which it actually did when Kuni Toyoda was still in charge, until Sun Capital bought it out and proceeded to try to turn it into Italian McDonald’s, only without wanting to spend all the money McDonald’s has to make it the way it is. (Editor’s Note: If you guys remember Dustin Hucks’ Breadsticks story, that was at a Fazoli’s, though he never explicitly stated such)
The first GM I worked with had quit, and it was the first week of our brand new GM (I will refer to him as “Charles”). Now, we had another gentleman who worked there (who I will refer to as “Buddy”). Buddy was a really nice guy, but he was rather…unbalanced. As such, he was on medication to control his mood.
So, it’s a Friday night and we’re packed to the gills, I’m on the register, we’ve got a line to the door, and buddy is out delivering breadsticks to the tables. That’s when Buddy completely flips.
It turns out his new doctor had decided to tinker with his medication and the changes had a rather bad effect on him. Buddy starts screaming, throws his breadstick basket to the ground, and tries to shove over the soda machine. By the grace of god, he didn’t manage to tip it (although he almost managed to). So he grabs the lid off the soda machine, and, using it like a Frisbee, hurls it at some kids in a nearby booth. Charles, in what can only be described as luck granted to him by the Lady herself, manages to catch it in MID-AIR, right before it slammed into those kids.
Buddy still isn’t done, though. Still in a Hulk-like rampage, he plows into the line of people, grabbing these various decorative bottles that were glued to the shelves on the other side of the soda machines. He RIPS THE BOTTLES OFF THE SHELVES, before hurling them onto the floor. At this point, Charles and two other managers tackle him, trying to get him under control. He actually manages to throw them off of him, before running for the door, kicking it open (and shattering the glass in the process) and running off into the night (presumably to climb the nearest skyscraper and swat at planes).
Amazingly enough, they gave him another chance—only to fire him about a month later after another freakout. As for Charles? He stopped showing up to work a couple of weeks later. That probably should have been my clue that I should have done the same thing.
Carly Mientkiewicz:
A friend of mine who was in the process of being tested for celiac disease wanted to go out for her birthday. She was being careful in what she ate during this time until the results were final. She picked a restaurant and when we were ordering, asked the waitress what the soup of the day was. She was told minestrone. My friend then asked if the soup had any wheat in it. The waitress goes “oh no, honey, it’s just vegetables, beans and noodles.”
Ella Creegan:
The summer after my senior year of high school, I was dating a very good looking boy. He was very tall and broad shouldered and looked like he was in his 20’s, while I was very short and looked younger than 17 (this has benefited me in the 13 years since). We went out to dinner, a lot, because his parents gave him a huge allowance and were never home. It was great.
I mention that he was good looking because a lot of waitresses would flirt with him. Most would figure out relatively quickly that we were on a date; they’d notice us hold hands, or that I was wearing his class ring on a necklace, or maybe we’d say something; whatever it was, the flirting usually didn’t go past the drink orders.
One time, however, we were at a TGIFriday’s or some place like that and the waitress did not get the message. It was late, like 10:30 or so. We were waiting to order our food when our waitress came back with our drinks – we were holding hands, so obviously on a date, but she didn’t notice. She plopped my soda in front of me, then leaned over to place his soda near his left arm. She leaned in, as if she wanted to brush her breasts across his chiseled jaw. It was weird.
Then she took our order: she barely acknowledged me, but touched his arm when he ordered (meatballs) and giggled, like meatballs are the funniest word in the world. She actually winked at him as she walked to the back to put in our order. We were cracking up at this point, because we were obviously together.
She came back with our food a little later and after again, plopping mine down, she leaned over and gently placed his plate in front of him. “If you want more *meatballs*,” she said, channeling her inner Marilyn Monroe, “just ask. It’ll be…my…pleasure.” She winked again and walked away.
By now I was starting to get uncomfortable, so I decided to say something when she came back. But, when she did, she has 3 meatballs on a small plate, which she delicately added to my boyfriend’s food, WITH HER FINGERS. “I thought you might like some extra…meatballs.” she said.
At this point I was enraged and about to say something, but before I can my boyfriend said, “Excuse me, we’re on a date. And I don’t want your meatballs.”
WELL. She was in utter disbelief that he could be on a date with me (!!!) so laughed and said, “You’re shitting me, right? I thought she was your little sister!” then starts laughing maniacally, as if it’s the funniest thing in the world. My boyfriend asked for the check. She stopped laughing immediately and stomped off towards the server station. We just sat there in complete disbelief and try to ignore the patrons around us who have, at this point, all noticed what was going on.
She came back with the check, flung it down in front of me and says (no lie), “Well if you’re old enough to date HIM, you’re old enough to pay!” She then gave him the saddest puppy dog face and flounced off.
On the check was her phone number and a little heart.
Doug McManus:
In the 80’s, I worked in a fancy restaurant in Faneuil Hall. One of the servers was not the sharpest tool. For dinner, the chef prepared duchess potatoes, and we told the server it was pronounced douche potatoes—which he cheerily explained to every table that night.
Jenna Carmine: