Stories of Phenomenal Restaurant Smartasses
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 restaurant employees who ran out of fucks and just couldn’t help themselves from giving in to their inner smartass. As always, these are real e-mails from real readers.
Matt Hardin:
This took place several years ago in the town of Fayetteville, AR, at a restaurant known as ROTC (The Restaurant on the Corner). The waiter in question, we’ll call him Simon, was a waiter who earned the favor of regulars by being efficient and direct but made no attempt to be pleasant just to fish for tips or, frankly, for any reason whatsoever. Curt, typically scowling, and on weekend mornings and afternoons and almost invariably severely hung over, he could be a nightmare for newcomers not prepared for the no-nonsense approach he took to the job.
One Sunday brunch, I and some friends were dining there when the table besides us, a family of five or six people, flagged him down. Now, they weren’t especially rude, but it was a very busy morning and they weren’t his customers (their waiter had been gone for several minutes). “Young man,” the matron of the group said to him, indicating the baked potato on her plate, “I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. I ordered hash browns. That is a baked potato.”
Simon stood there for a few silent seconds with a blank expression, like he was only slowly able to process the events taking place before him. Then with a look of genuine confusion, he leaned over and eyeballed the potato. Slowly, gently, he reached over and lifted it from her plate. He stood again and inspected it, holding it above his head to check the underside, turning it around to investigate every angle. Then, seemingly satisfied with his evaluation, he returned it to her plate, turned to her and replied, “You’re absolutely right, ma’am, that IS a baked potato!” Then, leaning down in an almost conspiratorial fashion, he pointed towards the kitchen and said, “Don’t let them fool you!”
With that, and before the shocked and confused customers could immediately respond, he made off to the back, leaving them speechless and our table trying to suppress muffled giggles.
Dani Taylor:
I was working in a confectionery stand/bar in a small theater. It was opening night for Rocky Horror and we had these flashing daiquiri cups that we used to serve, well, daiquiris. We served them in all our previous shows too, and the amount of parents who would get upset when we said their children couldn’t have them because they were not “slushies” was disturbing. “But little Johnny wants it.” “Yes, but I can’t serve a child alcohol.” “But he wants it!” “I can put coke in it if you like, and he can have the cup.” “No, he wants a slushy!” “We don’t serve slushies. You can buy the cup and go to 7-11 afterwards?” *entitled parental rage rant* And so it would go.
This night was particularly special. Post-show, we didn’t serve drinks, and the tills were already packed up, so I was closing down the bar. I was usually always so polite, but I had become a broken woman from years of daiquiri-slushy meltdowns—and I had been screamed at twice that day by D-grade ‘celebrities’ who were attending the opening. Being an opening, champagne, beer, wine and soft drinks were free. Our infamous machine-made daiquiris, however, were not, since management wanted to try and make some money out of all these nobodies.
A severely drunk man approached the bar and grabbed a cup.
“I’m just going to take this.”
“Cool, but then I’m going to call the cops straight after.”
“Oh no, it’s fine, I’m friends with the owner.”
“Great, I hear he buys his friends expensive gifts, so you can ask him for this cheap cup instead when you next see him then.”
“Do you know who I–”
“No. Have we met?”
“You’re really cheeky.”
“You’re really entitled.”
“Excuse me? I’ll have you fired.”
I handed him my phone. “OK. Why don’t you call (owner’s name) now since you’re such great friends and ask for the cup and get me fired because I’m doing my job and not letting someone I don’t know steal his stock?”
Long pause.
I called security over, got my cup back and the guy got thrown out. Turns out the cup was broken anyway so I ended up just throwing the fucking thing out.
I worked there two more years and got several promotions, so I guess they were best friends.
(Editor’s Note: Holy shit, Dani is my fucking hero.)
Brett Alderson:
This didn’t happen at a restaurant, but in the office of the preschool I worked at in AmeriCorps. My coworker and I were in our early 20’s and working out of the office, which was actually the kitchen where we cooked food for the kids (all allergy friendly, no peanuts, no dairy). So I was unable to bring my go-to lunch, the classic PB&J, and would regularly bring leftovers or a frozen meal if I was super lazy.
About the middle of the year, my coworker got really into crossfit and paleodieting and would constantly tell me that I was fat and lazy because I ate things like processed food or cheese. CHEESE. One day, he showed up with a bunch of hamburger meat, and at lunch proceeded to lecture me about the benefits of raw food and how we’ve evolved to eat raw food and we’re just fooling ourselves by cooking everything. Then he proceeded to eat about 3/4 a pound of raw ground meat. I was absolutely disgusted and told him he was going to get sick.
He left early that day saying he wasn’t feeling well and was out for the rest of the week. When he came back, I had this playing on his computer.
He never lectured me on the merits of raw food again.
John Carp:
I was working drive-thru at a charming Mexican cantina chain with a talking Chihuahua for a mascot (we affectionately called it Toxic Hell), when a man sporting the local Tennessee drawl pulls up and asks, “‘scuze me…? Do y’all have burr-ee-toes?” I recall clearly that we had more varieties of burrito on the menu than any other kind of fake-ass TexMex “cuisine” (even more than the namesake product). Further, note that, in the drive-thru, there’s a board that spells all that crap out.
I don’t know where my response came from, but it made me believe in angels or the collective subconscious or whatever.
“No, sir. You want Burrito Bell. They’re right down the street.”
He paused, said “Okay,” and drove off.
Matthew Parker: