Family-friendly, food-related/restaurant/waiter jokes

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m hoping to take part in a variety show around harvest time (five months or so away) and I thought it might be fun to put on a little restaurant sketch with some traditional ‘Waiter, waiter!’ jokes, as well as possibly some other food-related jokes, puns, witcracks, etc…

So I’m looking to collect family-safe material; it doesn’t matter how corny, obvious or even well-worn it is, because it will be presented in a sort of vaudeville/panto style, so groans and boos will be just as welcome as laughter and applause. Punchlines will need to be available for all players - there will be no set straight and funny roles.

Sort of thing I’m looking for is:

Patron: Waiter, waiter! - there’s a fly in my soup!
Waiter: Don’t worry sir, there’s a spider on the bread roll.

Patron: Waiter, do you have frogs legs?
Waiter: Yes sir.
Patron: Well hop on over and bring me a cheese sandwich!

Patron: Waiter, Waiter! Why is there a beetle in my soup?
Waiter: It’s the fly’s day off

Material need not be limited to water/patron jokes or even to dialogue - simple visual gags would also work, as would short monologues or one-liners that the patrons or waiter characters could deliver directly to the audience.

2

Waiter, waiter, what’s this fly doing in my soup?
The backstroke, I believe, sir.

Waiter, waiter, there’s a fly in my soup!
Please don’t shout, sir, or everyone will want one!

3

Patron: Do you serve crabs?

Waiter: Sit down, we serve anyone.

4

“A table for four please”
“Do you have a reservation?”
“Well, to be honest, I’m not keen on the decor”

(Alternative “reservation” gag - guests are dressed as movie Indians; head-dress, war paint tomahawk etc. Exchange long-suffering look with audience on feed-line.)

“Bring me the chef, I have a complaint.”
“At once sir.” (As if by magic, the chef appears)
“What’s the problem, sir?”
"I ordered my steak rare. What do you call this?
“Rare steak, sir”
“Rare? It’s burnt to an ember, man! It’s a quarter the size it should be, it’s so hard it cracked the plate and it tastes like year old charcoal, marinaded in lighter fluid. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life!”
“Exactly, sir!”
[Funnier if you can manage an appropriately appalling looking prop steak]
(Obviously, there are lots of ways to do gags on “rare” - many if not all of them better than this.)

“Tell me, waiter, how do you prepare your chicken?”
“We don’t sir. We tell it straight - it’s going to die.”

“Do you serve beef on the bone?”
“If you insist, sir, but we usually use a plate”

“Are you going to take everything I say literally?”
“If it gets a laugh, sir”
“Well, thank heaven I didn’t order toad in the hole”

Maitre d’: “We can show you your seats now, sir, madam” (Calls over waitress. Waitress and Maitre d’ produce hairdressers hand-held mirrors, and hold them to reflect guests backsides. Guests glance in mirrors, adjust trousers/skirts, thank staff).

To older guest “Would sir care for an aperitif?” “Pardon?” “AN APERITIF?” “No thanks, sonny, I’ve got me falsers” (If you can make “digestif” sound like anything, you’ve got a running gag on your hands.)

If you can give yourself a theme e.g. snooty Michael Winner types in a local caff, it’ll add some continuity, give people a vague sense of character and probably suggest some gags.

5

Real occurrence from summer camp. The cook cooked by touch and timer, having lost his senses of taste and smell years before in an accident; the menus had included a lot of plain 'taters, 'taters with a bit of chorizo, pasta in tomato sauce and, on Sunday, pasta in tomato sauce with a bit of chorizo.

one guy: hey, I think I got a fly in my plain 'taters…

the other thirty-nine campers: What a bastard! HE GOT PROTEIN!

The monitors just looked stunned.

The cook poked his head out of the kitchen and yelled: go on like that and I’m keeping y’all on plain 'taters for the whole rest of the week! No chorizo for anybody! Or flies!

6

Looks like you’ve got a fair few “Waiter, waiter!” type jokes, but if you want a slightly longer sketch sort of thing, you could try the following (depending on the age of the audience - anyone under 25 or so may not get it).

The basic story goes like this: a man is in a fish restaurant, one where the fish are displayed alive in tanks to be ordered, killed, prepared and eaten. The man orders a squid, so the waiter, Gervaise, grabs it and takes it out to the kitchen. He notices that this particular squid has some unusual hairs around its mouth. Anyway, he lifts up a knife to kill it, but as he is about to bring the blade down the squid squeaks. This puts Gervaise off a bit, so he tries again, and again the squid squeaks just before it can be killed. Gervaise thinks, ‘I can’t do this to this poor little creature’, so he calls over the big tough guy who does the washing up, Hans, to do it. Anyway, the same thing happens and Hans can’t bring himself to do the deed either. The punchline is then “Hans that do dishes can be soft as Gervaise, with mild scream hairy lip squid”. Definitely a groaner, but you said that was OK, right? :slight_smile:

Anyway, I was thinking you could do a little scene to set up the joke: a man enters this fish restaurant and is greeted by the waiter (“Good evening sir, my name is Gervaise, would you like to see today’s specials”). If doing the fish tank and squid bit is too difficult, you could just explain what they’re meant to be doing in the dialogue (i.e. “I can particularly recommend the squid today, sir” “OK, I’ll have that one” [points]; “That one, sir?” “No, the one next to it, with the little hairs round its mouth”). Gervaise then takes the squid to the kitchen (you probably do need a little model of a squid at this point) and someone off-stage can go “Ah!” at the appropriate moments. [Gervaise stares at the squid suspiciously, tries again, goes to pieces.] “Hans? Hans! Come over here and kill this squid for me, will you?” At the end, everyone could sing the punchline in chorus. If you have some decent actors I think it could be really effective. On the other hand, it could be entirely not what you’re looking for - make of it what you will :).

ETA: I love Nava’s story.

7

This is currently my mother’s favorite joke:

A guy walks into a bar and he’s got a little bitty lizard on his shoulder. The bartender does a double-take and asks, “What’s that on your shoulder, man?”

The guy glances at his shoulder and says, “Oh, that’s my pet lizard.”

The bartender asks, “What do you call him?”

The guy responds, “Tiny.”

The bartender says, “That’s not very creative. Why do you call him that?”

The guys responds, “He’s my newt.”

(Say it out loud it it’s not coming to you.)

8

A restaurant advertises “We serve cutlets from any animal.”
A man walks in and says, “I’d like an elephant cutlet.”
The waiter is distraught. He goes to the head waiter. “We don’t have any elephants! I told you this ad gimmick wasn’t going to work!”
The head waiter waves him away. He walks to the customer. “Have you ordered the elephant cutlet?”
The customer says, “Yes.”
“M’sieur is alone?”
“Yes.”
“No one is joining you?”
“No.”
“Well, sir, I’m sorry, sir, but for one person we can’t cut up a whole elephant.”

A wombat told this one: There was a famous restaurant named “Merci” specialized in tea from all sorts of exotic plants and even animals.
A man goes in and looks at the menu. All sorts of things are listed. Green, white, chicken, duck, cow, koala.
The last one intrigues him, so he orders it.
When it comes, it’s filled with fur and other things floating in it. The man, disgusted, points this out to the waiter. “Could you serve it without all the crap in it.”
The waiter shakes his head sadly. “The koala tea of Merci is not strained.”

9

One day a sandwich walks into a bar. The bartender drapes his bar towel over his shoulder, removes the toothpick from his mouth and says, “Sorry pal! We don’t serve FOOD here!”

A few minutes later a ghost walks in. The same bartender lays down his towel and exclaims, “You ought to know, we don’t serve SPIRITS!”

Later that evening on the other side of town… a monk, a priest, and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender looks up from his paper in complete shock and says, “Wow. So this really does happen!”

10

Customer: Waiter, there’s something wrong with my soup.

Waiter: I’m sorry sir, but we’ve sold dozens of bowls of it today and everyone raves about it.

Customer: Nonetheless, there’s something wrong with it.

Waiter: It looks fine to me. There’s no fly in it, is there?

Customer: No. But there’s something wrong with it.

Waiter: I’m sorry, what is wrong with it?

Customer: Taste it. You’ll figure it out.

Waiter: Taste it? I can’t do that!!

Customer: Just taste it.

Waiter: Oh all rig… I can’t do that without a spoon!

Customer: Ah-HAH!!!

11

Another real-life food-related bit of humor.

“Wow! They gave me more than four ravioli”–friend had ordered “Four Cheese Ravioli” not realizing that the 4 refered to the number of cheeses in the filling, not the nmber of ravioli.

12

I’ve always heard this one done with the customer having a Yiddish accent, but do with it what you will:

Customer: Waiter, try my soup.
Waiter: Is there something wrong with it, sir?
C: Waiter, try my soup.
W: Did I bring out the wrong order?
C: Waiter, try my soup.
W: Is it too hot, too cold?
C: Waiter, try my soup.
W: Is there a fly in it, sir?
C: Waiter, try my soup.
W: Yes, sir. (goes to try the soup, stops) Sir, there’s no spoon.
C: AHA!

Edit: Dang, knew I shoulda previewed. Still, I like my version.

13

“Waiter, waiter, do you have frogs’ legs?”
“No sir, it’s just the way I walk.”

“Waiter, waiter, how long will my sausages be?”
“About four inches sir.”

Many others like those here and here.

14

We got a million of 'em…

A patron takes a look at his lobster and sees that it’s missing a claw. “What happened to it?” he asks the waiter. “It was injured in a fight with another lobster,” says the waiter. “Take it back and bring me the winner!” declares the patron.

A patron asks for a small empty plate. When the waiter brings it, the patron puts a dollar in it. “What’s that for?” the waiter asks. “Your tip… so far,” says the patron.

You could do a variant on the Monty Python restaurant sketch (one of many): Monty Python's Flying Circus: Just the Words - Episode 3

15

Here is a real-life one. My friend is a waitress and one day a person complained: “This isn’t soup du’jour, I ordered it yesterday and it wasn’t anything like this”.

16

That’s on a par with, “Can I get my pie with ice cream, or is it only available a la mode?”

17

You could do the Frog and Peach skit by Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. It’s a classic. Peter Cook & Dudley Moore - The Frog And Peach

18

I just remembered a fantastic visual one that I saw way back on Not The Nine O’Clock News - the wine waiter is about to pour a glass and the patron says “just a mouthfull please”, so the waiter swigs a mouthfull from the bottle and dribbles it into the glass. I guess you have to see it.

19

A friend once had David Byrne in his section. When asked, “how is the risotto?” he replied…

“Same as it ever was”

Now - I am sure that those with greater humor capabilities than I might be able to stretch a series of jokes with music stars out a bit…

20

You mean like:

Patron: Waiter, why is this called Oasis Soup?
Waiter: <singing> You gotta roll with it…