I went to a local Burger King about an hour before the end of the “breakfast hours”, only to be told they were out of breakfast. WTF? Out of breakfast??? I could see being out of a menu item or two, but all of breakfast.
Which is a shame, as I love the burnt ends, but I like the actual meat to be medium rare at most. I guess if I went in about 9am, I might be able to get it.
One time back in my hitch-hiking days, I was told by a diner, “We’re out of eggs,” but I suspect they just didn’t like me.
But I’m sure they weren’t out of boobies, were they? 
I work in a restaurant and we regularly run out of clean silverware during dinner rushes. Pretty much every Friday and Saturday night the servers have to take time out from waiting our (very busy) tables in order to roll more silverware just as it is coming out of the dishwasher. We have complained to management time and time again, and all they can say is “we ordered new silverware! We order it every week!”. Well, the other day my manager showed me her new order of silverware. It contained 24 individually wrapped forks and some spoons. :rolleyes:
We also regularly run out of to-go boxes and bags, many brands of liquor and wine from our supposedly full bar, and other ingredients we need for various menu items.
I was at a Mexican restaurant once that was out of cheese. How does that happen??
Years ago my dad was at a bar, ordered is regular Barcardi and Coke and was told they where out of Bacardi. Huh? Yup, out of Bacardi. He walked across the street to a liquor store. Bought a bottle of Bacardi, came back, handed it to the bartender and reordered his drink.
Really, I can see accidentally running out of Jameson or Plymouth or Godiva Chocolate Liqeuor, but Bacardi. The bar owner should have just run over to the liquor store themselves and picked up a bottle to get though the night.
Uh, did the bar pay for the bottle? Or did your dad pay for the full bottle, and then ALSO pay for a drink made with it??
(and before anyone accuses me of asking a stupid question, consider this: I worked as a cocktail waitress in a bar where they had a reasonably full food menu. There not only wasn’t any employee discount, but if I wanted to have a veggie burger, I had to buy the veggie burgers at the grocery store and bring them in, and then PAY FULL PRICE for a burger off the menu, made with the veggie burgers I’d brought in.)
Ooooh! And where would this alleged Heaven-on-Earth be located? 
Seriously, though, I can offer some possibilities as to why a restaurant would be out of something you’d think they’d never run out of.
- The stuff is delivered by a 3rd party, and sometimes, shit happens. I work in eastern Washington, but the restaurant supply companies are located in Seattle. That means their trucks have to cross the Cascade Mountains, and in the winter, that can be treacherous. I’ve had to deal with being out of things because deliveries were delayed by weather.
I was a breakfast cook in a place that ran out of Krusteaz pancake mix on a normal delivery day. The truck bringing me more mix had been delayed by weather, and ended up being more than three hours late. The regular customers understood, and ordered something else. But there was one elderly gentleman, not a regular, who couldn’t believe we would run out of something like that. “Can’t you just make some more with flour?” he asked. Well no, I’m afraid I don’t have a recipe for pancakes handy, and in any case we don’t have any flour. “You don’t have flour?” Well no. We use a premade mix. There’s no reason to keep flour on hand.
Yes, it’s true. It’s a rare restaurant that makes these things from scratch. The chain restaurants have their own custom recipes. Which are, in most every case, secret. Even the store managers don’t know the recipe. The stuff arrives premixed (as I’m sure you’re aware, pancake batter and pizza dough contains more than just flour), in a bag or box labeled “Restaurant Name Pancake Mix” or “Restaurant Name Pizza Dough Mix”. So the manager can’t just run to the store and buy ingredients. And they can’t fake it, because a regular customer who goes into, say, Godfather’s Pizza expects the crust to be a certain way, and if it’s not he’s going to be very unhappy.
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Something got screwed up in the ordering process: the manager inadvertently ordered the wrong item, or the supplier delivered the wrong item, or the minimum wage truck loader guy somehow didn’t get that item onto the truck. Or the truck driver accidentally dropped it off at the wrong restaurant.
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Restaurants don’t have unlimited storage space, and sometimes an unexpected, unusually heavy run of business happens and we run out of stuff. This is especially true if the unexpected run comes the day before the scheduled delivery.
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Lettuce: I have, several times, had to deal with the pain of the California lettuce crop being mostly destroyed by freezing weather. When that happens, it is suddenly very difficult (and expensive) to get quality lettuce. When the lettuce freezes and then thaws, it turns into crap that can’t be served. So you take the heads of lettuce that you are able to obtain and you strip away layers until you hopefully find something in the middle of the head that can be served. I’ve done this with full cases of lettuce (24 heads) and ended up with maybe four to six heads worth of lettuce that was fit to serve. And there’s nothing that can be done about it.
Re: the various wonders of why restaurants in the same areas as grocery stores don’t just send people out: Also, from what I know, restaurants generally prefer to buy wholesale. It’s a heck of a lot cheaper.
Both my mother and sister and myself and best friend have been to Subway stores right around the time they’ve run out of bread. Also, I have an uncanny knack for cursing myself whenever I try to order a meatball sub. If anyone else orders for me, sure, I get my sub. But if I try to order for myself, they’re ALWAYS out of meatballs. It’s gotten to the point where it is customary for me to ask “Do you have meatballs?” before attempting to order. Some of the sandwich folks give me odd looks.
In late high school/early college, I worked at a steakhouse/buffet restaurant. One night a week or so we had chicken wings on the buffet, and that was a popular night. We had customers who would order a steak dinner with the buffet, fill up on wings (plus sometimes a few other items off the buffet) and then ask for the steak and potato to be bagged up to take home.
For at least a few weeks, we had no chicken wings arriving with the food deliveries. They were simply unavailable from where we ordered our food, and at least one of the managers gave the (probably at least partially true) excuse that “the chickens aren’t big enough to kill yet.” So I had the distinct pleasure of telling that to customers who persisted in asking but why didn’t we have any chicken wings.
We were asked during the breakfast buffet if someone could order an omelet. No, we have the buffet, there are scrambled eggs on that. Well we obviously had eggs, and we had vegetables/cheese/whatever the hell the person wanted on their omelet, so why couldn’t we make one? Answer: The eggs came pre-mixed, bagged in large, thick, sealed plastic bags. Each probably held enough eggs to feed a dozen people or more. To cook them, we filled our soup tureen with water, heated it up, then threw the bags in for a certain amount of time. Presto, cooked scrambled eggs. We wouldn’t be able to cook a bag that we’d cut open to retrieve just a bit of egg mix for an omelet - plus now that I think about it, I’m not sure we even had a solid grilltop to cook an egg on; I think it was all grating for the steaks!
I.kid. you. not. I worked the most lavish cocktail buffet in town. I would carve a whole turkey and sometimes a whole Ham. every.fuckin.day with my major responsibility and job title as room service. A typical buffet was fresh roasted carved turkey (or ham), Pizza, meatballs, and chef’s choice. Quite successful. 2$ of food 5$ dollar drinks.
Couldn’t edit in time…
Crudite, cheese and crackers, too.
There was a Taco Bell by our old house. It was a rather small building, but evidently, whoever designed it grossly underestimated the business that store would carry. We actually ended up making a game out of the fact they were out of everything. They had this neat little 800# right by the window. We’d call while we were waiting. Things they were routinely out of? Large cups, taco sauce, tortillas, boxes for mexican pizza’s, taco shells, cheese…geeze, everything pretty much.
In later years I worked with someone who had worked at another Taco Bell. She said that store was the worst in the area, they had built on storage and it still wasn’t enough. We routinely saw tubes of cups/lids/whatever stored in the dropped ceiling. I’m sure they violated a billion building codes trying to keep the place stocked.
So you had to shoot him, right?
What a senseless waste of human life.
He might have had some runny Camembert…
and a cat. :smack:
Si
We went to International House of Pancakes one midmorning for breakfast. I wasn’t too happy with the dirty forks as it was. The waitress came by to take our order then told us they were out of bacon. I asked about the forks and she said they were out of clean ones. Mr. Cotta looked up and said, “Well, I guess you’re out of customers as well.” We left.
I’ve been on a flight where they ran out of inflight meals - not just that there were no choices left - they didn’t have enough trays of food for all the passengers. not sure what happened there - it’s not as if they didn’t know how many people would be coming.
My friends and I went to one of our favourite Chinese restaurants only to be told well after our order had been taken that they had run out of rice. We then ordered noodles to cover for the lack of rice. Later, they came back to our table and told us that they had found some rice after all. :dubious: We were worried they’d swept it up off the floor or something… though there were supermarkets nearby so there was no reason for this to ever happen at that restaurant. When they brought our food out later - complete with rice - I said “Hey, where’s our noodles?” to much laughter.
Wow – so they essentially told you they were giving the customers dirty silverware because they were out of clean ones? I’ve never called the Health Dept. on a restaurant, but that might be one of the times it’s needed.
and yet, you continually return.
now I’m shaking MY head!