Welcome back to Behind Closed Ovens, where we take a look at the best and strangest stories from inside the food industry. This week, let’s all restore our collective faith in humanity with stories of some of the best restaurant customers out there. As always, these are real e-mails from real readers.
Katie Fiorentino:
One night when I was in my early 20’s, I went to an upscale restaurant with my parents and one of their friends. After looking at the menu, my parents decided to split a meal. When their friend and I realized that we were going to order the same thing, we decided to split as well. We had a very nice meal with excellent service. When the bill came, my dad put his credit card in the folder as we continued chatting. I didn’t really pay much attention to the transaction. But not long after, our waiter came over and thanked us with incredible enthusiasm—so much so that I wondered what was up.
As we left, I asked my dad if he knew why the waiter had been so effusive. He told me that just because we had split two meals didn’t mean that he’d worked half as hard as he would have if we’d each ordered our own meal, so he tipped based on the amount the bill would have been had there been four entrees on it.
I’ve always known my dad was one of the good guys, but even I was pretty damned impressed with that. And I’ve made a point to use his guidelines when tipping ever since.
(Editor’s Note: Actual e-mail I sent back within seconds of reading this story: “OH MY GOD YOUR FATHER IS THE BEST HUMAN”)
Kinja user Freaked-Out Ethel:
I was waiting tables at a sushi restaurant. One evening, I had a party of 12 (co-workers from what I could gather) at my corner table. The people were fine, keeping things moving but enjoying each others company. It was a weeknight and we weren’t otherwise crowded. I don’t think it was the point of the gathering, but it was mentioned that today was the 30th birthday of one of the men at the table. He made a big production of showing me his ID to prove it. I play along and assure him he would get a free dessert after the meal. This seemed to please him.
When the time comes, I asked him what sort of dessert would he like. He then fired off a long, detailed list of what he is allergic to and the horrible reactions he could suffer if he comes near them. This list mainly consisted of nut allergies, so I suggested the green tea ice cream.
This seemed acceptable, and I brought him out a small bowl of it with the check, then backed away to give them time to squabble over paying the bill.
Then the guy calls me over. He points to the bowl of ice cream in front of him and asks me if I am sure that the green tea ice cream doesn’t have any pistachios in it. Could I go double check with the kitchen to make sure? It looks a lot like pistachio ice cream. After all, he is deathly allergic to them and his throat could swell up and he could die right here on the floor.
I was enjoying some mental exercise of that very thought when the man sitting to his right picked up the bowl and took a small bite, gestured quizzically and passed it to the person to HIS right, “What do you think? Does this taste like it has nuts in it?”
That person picked up on it, took her own taste and passed it to her right with the same question.
Obviously, this had happened before. All the other people at the table tried a bit and passed the ice cream along, to the great amusement of all but the birthday boy.
When it reached the last person sitting to birthday boy’s left, she scraped up the very last taste of the ice cream, licked the spoon, handed the bowl off to her right and announced that no, there were no nuts in that delicious ice cream.
Holly Jameson:
So, recently, I’m visiting my best friend, who works at a coffee place. One of the people she works with is sick, so she asks if I’d mind coming in with her. I have zero restaurant experience, but she says she can give me some easy jobs and when there’s free time, she’ll train me in how to make coffee and stuff. It’s a slow morning, so we have a couple hours to go over the operation; I slam my fingers in the dessert freezer, burn myself making espresso, and get accidentally slapped with a (fortunately cool) spatula. Everyone is super nice and it’s fun and games all around.
THEN, we get some people in. First is a couple: man and woman in their twenties who order some coffees and sandwiches, then go sit and eat. Keep these people in mind for later.
While they’re eating, the devil himself evicts his worst tenants, and they enter the shop. It’s a family: mom, dad, two boys under ten. The family orders a black coffee for mom and three Americanos for the father and the boys. Now, I don’t drink coffee, so I’m already quietly thinking it’s super weird that these actual children are down for Americanos, much less coffee of any kind. The family also orders some food and goes to wait at a table.
My friend starts their coffees and I’m sent over with the complimentary glasses of water. When I’m about five feet from their table, dad stands up and throws out his hands like he’s Gandalf and I’m the Balrog, then he says, “Don’t you bring any of that pussy water over here. My boys don’t drink that shit—they only drink coffee.” I nod and politely say, “Excuse me,” then I go back to the kitchen and silently mouth “What the fuck?!” at the cook for like a solid minute because WHATTHEFUCKEVENWASTHAT? None of us have medical training, but we’re pretty sure you can’t live on Americanos alone. The family ultimately gets their coffees and food from my friend (who has the poker face of an Easter Island Head) and things quiet down for a while.
So that couple I mentioned earlier are getting some pastries to go when the dad and one boy walk up behind them. For a minute, my friend is handling the couple’s order, and the father and son seem perfectly content. As soon as the couple step to the side, dad takes the coffee his son had been holding, thrusts his arm across the counter and pours it out.
As a seasoned veteran, my friend leaps out of the way with the grace of a gazelle, but as a dumb newbie, I just stand there agog tempting the forces of evil. Dad looks at me and starts in on this tirade about how the coffee was SHIT and full of WATER and he needs a strong drink for his son to be a strong man and not turn into a “limp-wristed faggot.” Mom then steps in to tell my friend she was probably illiterate and a “fat illegal Mexican communist lesbian” (THOSE ACTUAL WORDS IN THAT ACTUAL ORDER IS WHAT SHE SAID IT IS SEARED INTO MY MIND BECAUSE WHAT).
My friend and I are now both offended (she as a second generation Mexican-American and I as a first generation Fat-Lesbian). We don’t get the chance to vent our rage, though, because all of a sudden, the girl from the couple leans in and very quietly says, “Hey, could you shut the fuck up?” And they do—we all shut the fuck up out of shock, in fact. Then the Mom tries to start, “Excuse me, did you just tell me—”
“To shut the fuck up,” the woman says with a very earnest expression. “Yeah, you should also leave. Your family is super rude and you should go.”
While the family stands there allowing flies to pass in and out of their gaping maws, the couple waltz out like they just arrived in America after fleeing from great Fucks Famine of 2015. But the bell over the door rings and it’s like the bell at a wrestling match. Mom and dad’s faces both go bright red and they go barreling towards the door with the kids in tow. Having little sense of self preservation, I run out after them. My friend has no choice but to run after me, and the cook loves drama (Editor’s Note: You could’ve just stopped at “he’s a cook.”), so he comes too.
In the parking lot, the couple turn around to face the approaching family. “You can’t talk to us like that,” dad says. The woman stares at him with completely dead eyes and says, “You just gonna talk about it?”
For about half a second, I’m terrified a fight is about to break out…then the guy in the couple pipes up and says, “Talk about it.” Then he keeps repeating, “Talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, ooh ooh baby!” And he lifts his hands and starts dancing backwards across the parking lot while singing “Funky Town.” The girl is just staring down the dad like a cowboy with nothing to live for, and the guy is dancing his heart out (he was actually really compelling to watch, considering he drew my eyes away from the confrontation). Finally, the guy has danced over to his truck, which he hops into, then tears around in with wheels squealing. He comes to a skidding stop perfectly behind the girl so she can reach back and, without breaking eye contact with dad, open the door and hop in.
As they drive off, I can hear the guy singing, “You gotta move on, doot doot doo doo doo doo. You gotta move on.”
Before I wrote this, I called my friend about it and she said, “If what you remember doesn’t make sense, you aren’t remembering wrong. First rule of customer service: nothing makes any goddamned sense.”
Laura Landon:
In my late teens, I waited tables at a small, independent Italian food and pizza place in a small Central Texas town. I had no training, and usually that was okay, no one expected much beyond menus, food and a check.
One night, a middle aged couple came in, ordered lasagna and manicotti dinners and wine. After dinner, the woman ordered coffee. When I served it, I fumbled the saucer and cup and dumped the whole cup in her lap. She was wearing a white dress. Hot. Coffee. White. Dress. Oh! I streaked into the bathroom for towels and mopped her lap as best I could. Apologies. Paper towels, cloth towels from the kitchen.
I offered to pay her dry cleaning bill and they kept laughing and telling me it was okay. Instead, they left me a $20 tip, on a $20 check. This was in the early 70’s and it was incredible. I’ll never forget their generosity. I try to repay them when my server screws up big time nowadays.
Regina Peterson:
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