Is there anything worse than getting bad service at a restaurant? Well, yes, yes there is. Imagine bugs in your salad or old tartar sauce on your spoon. Imagine having no one care when the service you get is awful and the food can make you sick.
These 19 stories are the worst of the worst of what we could curate from Reddit. They will make think twice about where you go out for your next meal, that's for sure!
Forged And Fired…
“A new Italian place opened up in my hometown, so my parents, my wife and I went one day for lunch. While taking our orders the waitress turns and walks off without taking my order. Took another 5 minutes before she came back around so I could put my order in. When they came to bring out our soup appetizer, the waitress forgot mine. She apologized and left to go get it.
After 5 minutes she returns to check on our table and I reminded her about the soup. She says she forgot and goes to the kitchen to the get the soup. The manager comes out to say that they have to remake my soup and it would be another 10 minutes. Once the food finally comes, my pasta is wrong. I ordered chicken Alfredo and they brought me chicken marinara. I was so ticked at that point, I just ate what they brought.
To top it all off, the $5 tip I left MAGICALLY turned into a $15 tip when I got my bank statement. The waitress had forged a one onto my receipt. We called the restaurant and she was fired. In all honesty, the food was amazing but the service was horrid. Never went back. The place was closed within three months.”
Is Wendy’s Stalking People On Facebook?
“The worst/best had to be a time when I went to one of my local Wendy’s and they had a sign at the drive through that said: ‘We are out of the following: Burgers, Chicken Sandwiches, Chocolate Frosty, Fries, Sprite, Coke, Potatoes, Chili, Garden Salads, Large Cups, and… All condiments.’
I took a picture of the sign and posted it on my Facebook saying something like, ‘Seriously Wendy’s what DO you have’ as a kind of joke. Then something creepy happened. I got an email from a Wendy’s corporate person (without ever going to their website and complaining); they apologized, and said they saw my post on Facebook and would like to make amends.
They offered me 10 free meals and gave me the names of the store owners to the two other local Wendy chains in case I didn’t want to return to the store in question.”
She Hated Big Groups!
“I’m part of a large local group for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). We meet once a month in the off-season, and have multiple meetings around the city during November. Our group usually attracts 20 to 30 people per normal meeting.
Our fearless leaders had planned to eat at a Humpty’s restaurant for one of our meetings. They called beforehand and explained their intention and booked a side-room for the group that could house us. Agreements were made that we, as a writing group, would likely need power for our laptops, and the venue said it wouldn’t be a problem. Everything was set to go.
So, we show up and there’s a family in the room we booked. It seemed like there was some mix-up, so our fearless leaders went to talk to the staff about it. The staff said there was no record of us having booked the room, and now started to demand that we pay a fee for the room, which was never mentioned before. As a non-profit group the reason we chose to come here was because there was no fee for the room. They demand to speak to the owner to sort it all out.
When the owner arrives, she’s upset that we, a group of about 20, are descending on their notably vacant restaurant. She agrees to ‘wave the fee’ this time (as if there would be a next time).
Now, you’d think that would be the end of it, right? Unfortunately, no. Evidently our presence at the restaurant was so unwelcome that the ‘waitress’ wouldn’t actually take orders. We had about three menus to pass around between us, and when she came to ‘take orders’ from the select tables she bothered to stop at, she just stood there and glared at everyone. If you asked for something, you received no response as to whether your order was received as she’d barely even grunt if you’d ask for something. And, forget about drink refills, that wasn’t happening.
I’m not sure how many people actually managed to order food. Most of us ended up going to different restaurants after the fact.
Our leader called their corporate head office, but unfortunately because this was an issue with the owner of the store, they couldn’t do anything about it. We were essentially treated like poop with no repercussions.
The worst part is, the places we normally visit love our group. Usually 20 show up, and almost everyone orders food, as well as a drink, and sometimes dessert. Plus, we all tip really well. So, the restaurant we went to on that day lost a fair amount of business.”
‘Disgusting Wings’ Doesn’t Even Come Close To Describing What He Was Served
“I was at a local restaurant outside of Cleveland. There are (or were) about 3 or 4 of these places. They have some incredibly delicious sounding chicken wing flavors and I decide to order a plate. They arrive in a somewhat timely fashion with other appetizers. As soon as the food was set down, I dig in looking forward to these tasty wings.
I eat one, which, yes, is super tasty. I then grab a second wing from underneath the first, and it’s furry looking. After passing it around, we come to the conclusion that there are still feathers on my chicken. That’s one way to ruin wings for a while. When the waitress comes back over, I immediately inform her. She simply laughed, says, ‘oh, we charge extra for that,’ and walked away. I figured something would’ve happened at this point, whether a meal on the house, or at least the wings on the house. But nope, when the bill comes, everything is there and full price.
She didn’t get a tip from the table that day.”
What Do You Mean People Won’t Get What They Ordered?
“I once went to T.G.I. Friday’s with a group of co-workers on our lunch break. The company I worked for always picked up the tab, so I order a jalapeño burger. I am with about 4 other people and we have to wait a really long time for everything to come out. It wasn’t so bad, because we didn’t punch time clocks, so everything over the usual half hour break would be paid.
Finally our food arrives. I am eating my burger thinking, ‘man, this tastes really bland.’ I take the top bun off and discover this burger had no jalapeños. I am finally able to flag down our waitress and explain that my burger wasn’t what I ordered. She says she will go tell the kitchen. I am literally waiting about 10 minutes, in the meantime my lunch companions have all finished their food. I am waiting to eat with a bit of burger growing cold in front of me. The waitress finally comes back and says she told the cooks, but they wouldn’t give her the jalapeños or make another burger. What the?
She leaves, then finally comes back with a little bowl of jalapeños. I am quite mad this time, and ask to speak to the manager. He comes over and explains that it is employee appreciation day, so they are short handed. Most of the staff went to Six Flags. So he explained to me, and I quote: ‘Everyone isn’t going to get what they want or the food that they ordered.’ Huh? If you can’t cook what I order then you need to be closed.
Craziest restaurant experience I ever had. I still can’t believe he said that to me.”
Coffee Burns
“A high-end Chinese restaurant in London served me a piece of broken glass in my meal, then accused me of scamming them when I complained about it. I wasn’t in the mood to be patient with them, since my mouth was bleeding at the time. I had to threaten to call the health inspectors in before they’d even consent to refund my money. And at first they tried to only refund the money for that one dish, not the whole meal. Pricks.
Someone later threw a brick through their window. There’s karma for you.”
Timing Issues
“I went to Chili’s with some family one night. One of my family members ordered one of their chicken sandwiches. When the food came, she got the wrong kind of chicken sandwich, so she sent it back. A few minutes later, they arrived with the correct sandwich. She cut it down the middle and opened it up. The chicken was RAW on the inside.
We called over the manager and she had some words with the people working the kitchen. Apparently, they get their chicken patties pre-made, frozen, and only have to throw them in the fryer for a pre-determined amount of time. She told us someone had changed the timer.
I guess one of the cooks thought he should get her food out faster, but he didn’t think his plan all the way through. We got some vouchers for free meals but I haven’t been back since.
Every time I think about Chili’s, I picture the raw chicken in that sandwich and my appetite disappears.”
What’s The Worst That Could Happen At Six Flags?
“We were at Six Flags and the waitress forgot to get our drinks, then, even though we were very patient and nice about it, after getting every detail of our order wrong, she was too embarrassed to show up at our table again.
We semi-inherited a second waiter who wasn’t much more attentive. We noticed another couple next to us was getting the same treatment – appetizers that came after their meal and cold. At this point we were just waiting forever for the check so we could pay and get out (It was a theme park! We wanted to go ride things!) My boyfriend finally went to the front desk to pay and they said that we had to get our check from the waiter. In our search of the restaurant we were informed he had gone on break and the first waitress was nowhere to be seen. So we sat back down, now fuming and the couple started talking to us about the service.
They convinced us to just leave – something I’d never done before or since. It had been almost three hours, a good part of our day wasted, so we did. We took two steps out of the building and the original waitress came running after us furious with the check. We paid and left ‘lol no’ as the tip.”
Addicts In The Dark
“My experience with Boston Pizza has been like 90% good, and admittedly, this incident wasn’t their fault. Except maybe for the fact that their bathrooms are placed down a dark, secluded hallway.
I was at the BP on Clifton Hill in Niagara Falls, Ontario. If you’ve ever been to The Falls, you know that outside of the tourist and rich areas, it can be pretty freaking sketchy.
Two of the girls I was there with decided to go to the washroom before our food came, which was normal enough. When they came back, their faces were white as a sheet and they just grabbed this other girls phone and went outside. This is when we started to get suspicious that something weird was going on.
When they came back in, they gave our friend her phone back and proceeded to go into the back with the manager of the restaurant. Now I was even more suspicious something messed up was afoot.
When the police showed up and surrounded the restaurant and locked the place down, we realized something serious was going on.
As it turns out, when my friends went to the bathroom there was some addict guy just waiting outside the door of the bathroom which, while weird, they kind of just ignored. Inside the washroom, however, they found the guy’s girlfriend (also an addict). She had blood and bruises all over her face and was hiding in the bathroom because her boyfriend was trying to kill her.
I think that the boyfriend figured out after a good 20 minutes that the female sign on the door wasn’t actually stopping him from physically opening the door and going through it, and he went in and grabbed her by the arm and tried to drag her out of the restaurant. By this time, however, the restaurant was already surrounded by cops and locked down.
Needless to say, Mr. Addict was arrested. I’m not sure of what happened to Mrs. Addict.”
They Kicked Them Out Before They Even Sat Down!
“Me and my family went to a Korean soup place close to Atlanta, and, because it’s relevant, we are white Americans.
We all love soup places and go to new ones all the time. My dad had looked up reviews and the place we were going to had really awesome reviews. We walked in the doors and immediately got hit with, ‘No no! American no like food here! You go someplace else!’ My mom just went, ‘are you serious?’ The whole staff seemed adamant, so we said deuces and went to one of our regular Korean soup places where they catered to the likes of us.”
When A Server Goes Missing…
“My parents took me to Steak n Shake after having dragged me out shopping forever (I was a kid, so it was really probably no more than a couple of hours). A waitress takes our order, and heads off. Half an hour later she has not returned, nor have we gotten our food.
Then another waitress walks up and asks if everything’s okay, and if we’d been helped. Dad tells her yes, but we’ve been waiting an awfully long time. She says she’ll check on it, comes back a moment later and says they never put our order in, so she retakes it.
She brings our food, apologizing profusely. Then our initial waitress comes back to check on us and my dad tells her to get lost she’s no longer our server.
We go to leave, without paying. Manager stops my dad and says, ‘Excuse me sir you need to pay.’
My dad gives him the look I always got as a kid when I was in trouble, ‘Oh? I need to pay.’ Then he walked back behind the counter and gave the second waitress a $20, ‘Here, since you’re the one who took care of my family. I’ll make sure you get it since no one else did.’
And then we walked out.”
Lady Bug Salad
“I was on a date with a girl I had been seeing for quite a while. I think the restaurant we went to was Red Lobster. We had to wait a while to get seated. While waiting we noticed two other couples who arrived later than us had gotten seated before us. Anyway, once seated my date had a salad come out ahead of the main course. After a couple bites of her salad she sees something out of the ordinary. There were dead lady bugs scattered throughout the salad. Once the waitress came back around with a replacement salad the 2nd salad had a dead lady bug in it as well. Anyway, aside from bugs in our food, upon giving my date a refill the waitress dropped the drink on the table spilling it all over my date.
Luckily my date had patience and was graceful about the whole night.”
Breaking Down A Bloody Mary
“Australian here, some of my best/worst stories:
My husband and I went into a sports bar to watch a boxing match. I’m one of the few women in the bar. My husband orders a cold brew and I order a Bloody Mary. The guy at the bar says ‘we can’t make a Bloody Mary. We don’t have the ingredients”.
The guy is giving me attitude. He’s either lazy or he doesn’t want to encourage women ordering fancy drinks. I ask him, ‘Do you have Absolute? Do you have tomato juice? Do you have tabasco sauce? Do you have lemon juice? Do you have Worcestershire sauce? Do you have pepper? Then you have enough ingredients to make a Bloody Mary.’
So I get my Bloody Mary and he obviously thought ‘I’ll show that woman’ and made it the hottest, spiciest bloody Mary he could. Very heavy on the tabasco. Fortunately that’s not a problem for me. I finish the drink and go up to him and say, ‘that was one of the best bloody Mary’s I’ve ever had. I’ll have another one, just like that.’ The look on his face was priceless.
He didn’t get a tip because I live in Australia and people are paid wages instead.
At my local pub once I ordered a piece of lemon meringue pie. The meringue had been replaced with whipped cream. I assume it was the last piece and the kitchen thought the meringue might be dodgy and so just scraped the meringue off and replaced it with whipped cream in the hope that I wouldn’t notice. They didn’t charge for it but I was dissatisfied that they didn’t seem to be more mortified over the incident. I emailed the management of the pub and got no reply.
They didn’t get a tip because I live in Australia and people are paid wages instead.
One thing I’ve noticed traveling around Asia is that they tend to bring you things in the order of the quickest thing to prepare. So if you order soup, stir fried pork and vegetables and lychees and ice-cream they bring you the lychees and ice-cream first. So I tended to order soup (‘anything else?,’ ‘No, just soup.’) and wait for them to bring me soup. Then I’d order stir fry. Then I’d order lychees and ice-cream.
They get tips because I’m an Australian traveling in Asia and they’re poor and I’m rich.”
Didn’t Have To Pay?
“My wife and I went to Outback one night after getting a gift card there. It was pretty empty and we waited like 15 minutes to be seated. Once seated, every server walked right past us. Finally after about 25 minutes we just decided to walk out. As we were a server finally saw us and took our order. After getting our food, I went to cut into my supposedly med-rare steak, and it was well done. I told the server. I got it back, still well done. I asked to speak to a manager, and he proceeded to tell me ‘I’m not a chef, so I should let the cooks do their job.’
I then asked for the district manager’s phone, and when he refused I called Outback CORPORATE on the phone. The manager got mad at me saying I was being ‘a wuss, and stop getting upset.’ Just so happens the CSR on the phone heard everything. She called the DM, who told her to tell us to ‘walk out and not even pay because Chuck said so.’
So we did. Never again!”
Uncalled For Arguments…
Shutterstock/OgnjenO
“My dad once passed out in a restaurant (nothing to do with the food, and it was a place we used to go to quite a bit) An ambulance had to be called. As they had my dad on the stretcher, the waitstaff started arguing with my mother about their tip. We did not go back.”
Twenty Percent Isn’t Enough?
“When I was younger, my father and I went to Applebee’s for some chicken wings. We were seated and placed our order with a rather disillusioned waiter.
We ate subpar wings with a side of subpar service, and received a bill of around thirty dollars, to which my father tipped twenty percent as is his standard.
After the waiter took the bill, and we left the tip on the table we began to walk away, the waiter came in from behind us, tip in hand, and proclaimed that twenty percent wasn’t enough.
Needless to say we never went to that Applebee’s again.”
Vomit-Inducing Dessert
“I was at this place in my hometown of Orillia, Ontario. At a pub-type restaurant. They have this famous dessert where they make a cookie in a skillet and put ice cream and whipped cream and chocolate sauce on it. This thing is delicious.
I order it one day and it comes out and I’m all excited because I’m starving and I’ve been dreaming about this for weeks and just before I dive in, I realize I have not one but in fact two spoons stuck together. I unpeeled them from each other and, because I’m an idiot, I assumed the white substance holding them together was just whipped cream or ice cream or something. I stuck this thing in my mouth, and much to my dismay, it was old, stale, tartar sauce. Freaking tartar sauce! I informed the waitress of my tartar issue and she comes back with like 8 other spoons and tosses them on the table and says, ‘here are some tartar-free spoons,’ and leaves.
The next day I had to be picked up from school early because I was on the brink of throwing up all over everything.”
Earthy Salad
“I went to a local supermarket for lunch. These restaurants are generally known for using fresh and local ingredients. Ordered something off the menu which comes with a menu-salad. Happily started eating and when nearly finished with the salad, I happen to find a live earthworm.
I went to show it to some waiter, he stares at me and quickly throws the remains into a garbage bin. He offered me free desert which I kindly rejected.”
She Clearly Didn’t Care About A Tip
“We’ve had several pretty bad restaurant experiences.
One we laugh at still is from IHOP. IHOP all you can eat pancakes to be specific.
We didn’t plan on eating a lot of pancakes since it turns into a brick in your stomach, but three of us ordered all you can eat. The waitress was already rude, asking us how we could drink so much (we needed a refill before ordering), but when we ordered a refill on pancakes, she scoffed and asked how we could eat so many pancakes and that it was disgusting.
We laughed because we thought she was joking, but there was no joke being made.”