# Incredibly bad and weird experiences at restaurants **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 30, 2015, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040 "2015-09-30T14:25:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/141 "2015-10-02T23:59:28Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > And all the pissy little girls still coping with hormonal upset just squealed and clapped their faces and OMFGed all around for a while. Wow, I don’t recall having heard any outright misogyny from you in the past. Am I forgetting something? ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/142 "2015-10-03T00:02:23Z")
“horsie board”? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/143 "2015-10-03T00:11:16Z")
1980s, a North Georgia Pizza Hut. My Parents, Brothers & Sister were all going to Disney world. We ordered a pizza with Italian Sausage. Took forever to arrive. And then, I looked at the Pizza, & asked “what the Hell is this?” No sausage. Chopped-up chunks of **Hot Dog**! And the manager/owner insisted it was Italian Sausage! Dad damn near threw it in the owner’s face. What a bum! ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/144 "2015-10-03T00:17:01Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Call it “defense” if you like, and go rave about it over on the horsie board. Reported. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/145 "2015-10-03T00:45:16Z")
My biggest gripe is the server who disappears. This happens about once every few months–I get the server who says she’s getting me a refill and forgets, or doesn’t come back for twenty minutes. And please don’t throw the check on the table while running by, clearly ignoring the card I’m trying to hand you–I’m trying to save at least one 20-minute round-trip. One time a waitress took close to a half hour to reappear after I had finished, and I smelled fresh smoke on her breath–I was not happy, but I still tipped her since I was not raised by wolves. Last week we were out for a family dinner at Olive Garden and I needed a refill and watched in tedious annoyance as she spent fifteen minutes talking to a family at another table. I wasn’t sure if they were friends or if she was helping someone with difficulties ordering, so I didn’t walk over and tap her on the shoulder. Later she told me “Oh yes, we’re old friends…sorry about the wait.” Next time that happens I will just walk over to the bar and ask for them to refill my glass. I really don’t want the waitress to get in trouble, so I hope my strategy would get them a lighter talking to than if I complained directly to a manager. > [@Honey](#): > > I forgot about the time when my now ex-husband and I went for a late dinner at a mid-priced restaurant around here. Their closing time was 10pm and we were seated at around 9:30. At 10pm were the only customers left in the restaurant, and they started their closing routine. They even had the nerve to start vacuuming, and asked us the lift our feet as they vacuumed under the table. We joked about that one for years afterward. I must admit that when I was a projectionist I would do everything in my power to get people to leave at the end of the last show, especially if the credits lasted twenty minutes. I would start by turning on the house lights. Then I started jacking up the volume to painful levels. Finally, I would turn on the flood lights that the night crew used (those mercury vapor lights that take ten minutes to fully come on). I feel a small twinge of guilt at not letting folks enjoy the forty minutes of credits at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but that was forty minutes earlier that I could leave. It seems that my slow servers are repaying me the karma I deserve from my movie stint 25 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Tonya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/4491bb/32.png) [@Queen\_Tonya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Tonya)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/146 "2015-10-03T00:46:09Z")
A couple years ago we were observing a proper Jewish Christmas with some friends of ours and going out for Chinese. The hostess seated us quickly and took our beverage orders. One of my friends ordered some milk to drink, which prompted the hostess to squeal “Oooh, you want milk? You baby? OK, I put in sippy cup for you!” The milk-orderer was the last one to order, so as soon as the lady made the remarks, she disappeared before we could even react. It was so over-the-top rude it was better to laugh about it than complain, but holy cow! ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/147 "2015-10-03T01:31:10Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > B: If it was a cash tip, someone may have stolen some or all of it before the server got it. When I worked in a restaurant, one of the bussers got caught doing exactly that. He was smart enough not to take entire tips, since that would be more suspicious, but instead was skimming a few bucks off many different tables. Interestingly, the way he was caught was via a sting operation set up by one of the managers after the suspicion was reported to them (of course he was fired immediately). When I was in college, I briefly worked at a Pizza Hut that had another waitress who always walked around looking busy, but she seldom waited any tables; she just walked around looking for tips to steal. :mad: And she was an elementary schoolteacher working on her summer break! This restaurant had some of the worst management I’ve ever encountered. Among other things, the waitstaff didn’t have stations; we just took tables in the order we saw them, which was one way she got away with this. It’s also the only restaurant I ever worked in that I wouldn’t eat at, and it closed not long after I left. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/148 "2015-10-03T01:32:36Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > 1. Heads up, this is crude and not likely to paint me in a very good light… > I was tending bar back in my grad school days and one night I was closing up and there was a regular at one end of the bat and 2 ladies in their 40’s at the other end. The guy slides down and asks the ladies if they’d like a little toot of coke and they’re only to happy at the offer. A few hours later we all ended up at one of the ladies homes at like 4 AM reenacting every really bad porno orgy you’ve ever seen. > > The next day I remembered I had a date with a co-ed I had been seeing for about a month. I took her to the new steak place in town and I’ll give you thee guesses who the waitresses were. > It was…awkward… So, what happened with the girlfriend? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Sunshine\_and\_Smiles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Sunshine\_and\_Smiles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunshine_and_Smiles)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/149 "2015-10-03T01:33:41Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > My dad does overtime at his job (a warehouse), sometimes. Does he hold it against the customers when it happens? No. He either gets overtime, or works out a schedule so he gets to go home early another day. And his top boss is fucking psychopath–he’s just following the law. What’s your Dad’s hourly wage at the warehouse? What’s his overtime wage? As a bartender I made $3.63/h, and that was this year. Would your Dad stay on for a couple extra hours if he knew he was only making $3.63? It is hard to imagine keeping a whole restaurant open past closing time when you are paying the staff and utilities for two jabronies who split an app and drink coffee. Where your father would be still making whatever money he always did, two hours of my time nets me a cool (3.63x2 - which I’ll never see) plus 4 dollars from the party. Fan-fucking-tastic. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/150 "2015-10-03T01:49:14Z")
> [@Queen\_Tonya](#): > > A couple years ago we were observing a proper Jewish Christmas with some friends of ours and going out for Chinese. The hostess seated us quickly and took our beverage orders. One of my friends ordered some milk to drink, which prompted the hostess to squeal “Oooh, you want milk? You baby? OK, I put in sippy cup for you!” She shouldn’t have been rude, but the waitress had a point. What adult orders milk to drink for dinner at a Chinese restaurant? Is milk even on the menu? I’ve never seen it. Maybe it’s on the kiddie menu, hence her comment about the sippy cup. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/151 "2015-10-03T01:49:33Z")
> [@August\_West](#): > > I appreciate your rant, but in this case I think the menu was clear, I just didn’t look at it. I asked the bartender about their steaks, he took my order and asked me about side dishes. Now in an ideal world he might have mentioned to a single guy sitting alone at the bar that he had just ordered enough food to feed everyone at the bar, but I can’t blame the menu. It doesn’t matter what the menu did or did not say, AFAIC. That is appallingly bad service, verging on open spite. > [@JcWoman](#): > > Once we went to the famous Colvin Run Tavern that everybody in the D.C. area raves about. I wasn’t very impressed. We wanted a nice dinner with wine. We were seated without menus and the sommolier quickly came over and asked if we wanted wine. He didn’t offer wine menus, either, so we didn’t know what they had, let alone what would pair with the meals we didn’t know we were having yet. We were both like “… we don’t know yet”. This… this _has_ to be deliberate. I cannot _fathom_ how service could be this bad, by accident. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/152 "2015-10-03T01:52:58Z")
> [@Sunshine\_and\_Smiles](#): > > As a bartender I made $3.63/h, and that was this year. This is complete bullshit. Under the law, restaurants are required to pay you enough to either meet the Federal minimum wage or the State minimum, whichever is higher. You made more than $3.63/hr, liar. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/153 "2015-10-03T01:55:18Z")
> [@Queen\_Tonya](#): > > A couple years ago we were observing a proper Jewish Christmas with some friends of ours and going out for Chinese. The hostess seated us quickly and took our beverage orders. One of my friends ordered some milk to drink, which prompted the hostess to squeal “Oooh, you want milk? You baby? OK, I put in sippy cup for you!” > > The milk-orderer was the last one to order, so as soon as the lady made the remarks, she disappeared before we could even react. It was so over-the-top rude it was better to laugh about it than complain, but holy cow! You stayed there? ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/154 "2015-10-03T02:21:12Z")
Well, at least she didn’t order milk at a BAR! > **[Shagnasty and the Worst Anecdote in SDMB History](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=302800)** > > Been a long time since I pitted another poster. Usually, if I have a disagreement with someone on the boards, I try to keep it in the thread what spawned the disagreement. But this… oh, this needs to be shared. Because it is so exquisitly stupid. ... ---
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/155 "2015-10-03T02:42:54Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > This is complete bullshit. Under the law, restaurants are required to pay you enough to either meet the Federal minimum wage or the State minimum, whichever is higher. > > You made more than $3.63/hr, liar. Spoken by someone who has never been in the restaurant industry or anywhere near it. It’s much much much rarer to find an owner who actually adheres to this law than one who ignores it–and bartenders/waiters who speak up about it tend to find their hours axed until they’re unemployed. ---
**Author:** ![canned\_mayhem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/53a042/32.png) [@canned\_mayhem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/canned_mayhem)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/156 "2015-10-03T03:10:47Z")
> [@apollonia](#): > > Spoken by someone who has never been in the restaurant industry or anywhere near it. It’s much much much rarer to find an owner who actually adheres to this law than one who ignores it–and bartenders/waiters who speak up about it tend to find their hours axed until they’re unemployed. I guess bitching about it is easier than finding a skill set that doesn’t center around fetching water for someone who doesn’t give a shit if you starve to death or not… \<------ never been ‘privileged’ enough to serve other people… LMAO ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/157 "2015-10-03T03:19:07Z")
> [@apollonia](#): > > Spoken by someone who has never been in the restaurant industry or anywhere near it. It’s much much much rarer to find an owner who actually adheres to this law than one who ignores it–and bartenders/waiters who speak up about it tend to find their hours axed until they’re unemployed. I realize this is the BBQ Pit, but cite? ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/158 "2015-10-03T03:30:45Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > My dad does overtime at his job (a warehouse), sometimes. Does he hold it against the customers when it happens? No. He either gets overtime, or works out a schedule so he gets to go home early another day. And his top boss is fucking psychopath–he’s just following the law. Do you have a job, **BigT**? Or are you lecturing someone who in all probability goes out to earn a fucking living based solely on the experiences of your Dad? ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/159 "2015-10-03T03:43:00Z")
> [@queen tonya](#): > > a couple years ago we were observing a proper jewish christmas with some friends of ours and going out for chinese. The hostess seated us quickly and took our beverage orders. One of my friends ordered some milk to drink, which prompted the hostess to squeal “oooh, you want milk? You baby? Ok, i put in sippy cup for you!” > > the milk-orderer was the last one to order, so as soon as the lady made the remarks, she disappeared before we could even react. It was so over-the-top rude it was better to laugh about it than complain, but **holy cow!** iswydt. ---
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040/160 "2015-10-03T03:56:47Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > I realize this is the BBQ Pit, but cite? [Hovland tells Mother Jones that before she got in touch with the Restaurant Opportunities Center last fall—to find out why she was getting zero-dollar paychecks—she had no idea that her employer was supposed to make up the difference in tips. “We never logged our tips or reported them to our employers,” she says, unless they were on credit cards. She adds, “Even after I shared information about the minimum wage difference with coworkers, nobody felt comfortable asking employers about it.”](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/minimum-wage-tip-map-waiters-waitresses-servers) [Sylvia Allegretto spent seven years working as a server. During that time, “no one ever said—ever—‘Are you earning the minimum wage?’ ” she said.](http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/02/24/tipped-minimum-wage-increase) [More than three-quarters (77%) of 337 restaurant employees surveyed have been victims of wage theft by their employers during the past year, and a third said it happens regularly. Restaurants’ varying systems of distributing tips are confusing and open to abuse.](http://sandiegofreepress.org/2015/06/sdsucpi-study-finds-wage-theft-labor-law-violations-and-discrimination-in-local-restaurants/) [Morena Menjivar, a 26-year-old in Washington, D.C., says she worked many shifts at a Latin American restaurant during which she hadn’t earned the minimum wage by the end of the day. She typically made $300 or $400 a week waiting tables, but during dry spells it could be as little as $200, making it hard for her to cover rent and food. She says she wasn’t aware her boss could have been obliged to make up her minimum-wage shortfall, and if she had been, she wouldn’t have been comfortable asking.](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/02/minimum-wage-restaurant-workers_n_1515916.html) While the law says it’s required, it’s very common for servers to not know the law, not feel safe bringing it up with their boss, or if they do know the law and do bring it up, are punished by being fired or having their hours cut so badly they are essentially being fired. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-bad-and-weird-experiences-at-restaurants/733040.md?page=9)