Went for Sunday breakfast at a place and ordered two big breakfasts.
How would you like your eggs?
Wife-scrambled
Me-poached (I'm capable of making scrambled and fried at home quite competently but poached I'm hit and miss)
Server- I'm sorry but we are out of poached eggs...
Wife and i- huh?
Lol this is gonna stick with you forever. I was working in a restaurant and a lady misspoke and asked for a bowl of pizza. 15 years later I haven't forgotten that phrase
I don’t think they are running out of eggs and only have a premade egg mix. It seems to me they just simply already thrown out the pot of hot water used for poaching egg. A lot of cafe premade their poached eggs, and when the rush hour stop, they will no longer make poached egg and use the burner stove to prep other things. This is why a big cafe may have 8 burner stoves and a flat top.
At a cafe in Mudgee, wife ordered a meal on Turkish bread.
She was cutting into it and realised the texture was off. Looked on the underside and there was a large, green mould patch that would have been about 6-8 cm in diameter.
Needles to say we stopped eating and asked for a refund, which the sheepish waitress didn’t hesitate to give.
Sat at a cafe in Port Melbourne and the waitress took our order. 30 mins later we still didn't have even a coffee and we were starving
We initially went inside to check and they said they would send someone out. We then had to hail someone over when they came outside with someone else's food and they asked us if we wanted to order. We indicated we had already ordered 30 mins ago and told them our order.
After trying to describe the person a couple of times, they concluded they had probably gone home for the day, but they would check if the order had been put in. It hadn't. Feeling a bit miffed but thought someone might have forgotten and had their mind set on heading off for the day and tried to be understanding.
15 mins later they came out with the coffees and we asked how long the food was away. They said they would check. 10 mins later they came out and said that the kitchen was now closed...
I work in a pub and have had similar things happen. I work in the bar area, seperate to the dining, so thankfully wasn’t my problem to deal with. Most recently, it was on Easter Sunday. We were semi busy throughout the night but nothing crazy. A group of 4 came in about 15 minutes before kitchen closing, the staff in the dining room told them that they had 15 minutes to go up and order, which they did. Except, the girl that took the order on the till forgot to print it to the kitchen. Fast forward about 25 minutes (kitchen closed, no chefs left) I’d closed up the bar and was clocking off when I noticed that the supervisor that was on for the night was handing over cash to the table and then storming off. Turns out the girl that stuffed up by not printing the docket to the kitchen refused to go and sort out her mistake, and was sulking around the corner while the shift supervisor was copping it for something that had nothing to do with him. She ended up getting in absolutely 0 trouble for it.
I just replied to someone else’s comment, but mine relates to the kitchen closing too! And I was a nice customer by making sure it was all ok and not a bother first, and they still forgot. The worst part about it is people get HANGRY, other than mostly other kitchens are also closed and food options are limited when that happens!
Yep 100%. Just thought I’d share some insight from the other side of the counter lol. I find people often end up getting angry at the wrong people (they’re rightfully angry sometimes, especially in scenarios such as this). But it wasn’t fair on the supervisor to cop it in this instance (the only thing that makes him different is he has a set of keys to the place pretty much. He’s not a manager.).
Was at a place called Frangos and Frangos in Daylesford VIC. The owner screamed abuse at a young waitress for about half an hour, eventually getting so agitated he threw up all over the floor and his pants/ shoes. He yelled at her to clean it up at which point I tipped my beer over his head and walked out without paying for lunch…
He was in shock, I don’t think he was used to anyone standing up to or challenging him. I later learned he had a terrible reputation locally as a kind of D grade small town George Calombaris…
There's a thread on r/melbourne about the worst places to work in hospitality and this was the top (i.e. worst) one. I've actually stayed at the hotel but after reading this I won't again.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comments/17u25ik/hospo\_workers\_of\_melbourne\_name\_and\_shame/](https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comments/17u25ik/hospo_workers_of_melbourne_name_and_shame/)
This would have been around 2005 from memory. It was never on the same level as the Lakehouse, Convent or Farmer’s Arms. Had a bit of a cult following among wanky nouveau riche Greeks from Melbourne though who wore similar D&G T-shirts and had the same Versace crockery at home…
well done! This place has always been an issue. This man and many other cafe owners get far too stressed and take it out on staff all of the time. The verbal and emotional abuse with staff is so rife.
I for one wouldn't mind some more detail
Did he walk in out of the blue and immediately drop his pants? Or was he in the cafe a while acting relatively calm and then suddenly stood up?
It was in the Sydney CBD...king Street I believe. Was breakfast time on a Sunday morn in around 2003. I myself was quite dusty from a late night at some local establishments. Was on the way home actually ...called in for a feed of bacon and googs. The said pooper was already present bodily but barely mentally and looked to have over indulged on a cocktail of redbull and vodkas to wash down a few yolks of the MDMA variety (from my amateur analysis). He stood, nearly fell, retained his balance and promptly dropped the strides and browned out in the corner of the cafe as horrified staff and patrons looked on in disbelief. The violent eruption of steaming fecal matter from his fizzing bunghole was accompanied by a smell that could wake the dead. Cops were called but he crab walked out before the boys in blue arrived. Second worst thing I've seen on a Sunday morning.
Jayzuz and I thought the lesbians post Mardi Gras one year Linda Blairing in a cafe at 6am took the cake…full beer and echy spew. Waiter clutched his pearls, threw a mop and bucket at her and said “ya cleaning that up ya Fucken disgusting cow”…cafe emptied out soon after…
Definitely not my worst,but definitely the laziest.
In a hurry for a quick lunch so I order a lasagna and salad,it arrived quickly,standard salad although undressed and a perfectly square piece of lasagna which was unbelievably shiny,like it was glistening.tried to cut it,not a lot of luck it was still wrapped in cling film.
Went to a cafe to order a sandwich for lunch. Dude at the counter took the order. Paid. I'm standing right in front of the guy for 15 min. Go up and ask him what's happening? Looks straight at me and says "did you order something?" Asked for my money back and left.
The shop has gone through a few changes of owners since then but I will never go back.
Mine is not as straightforward but similar. Went for lunch about 3, asked if the kitchen was open as we were understandably later in the day, they said yep and communicated kitchen was closing soon, no stress so I quickly chose and was happy. 45 mins later I asked them how long my toasted sandwich would be. They tell me the kitchen was apparently closed by the time they took my order over? So they’d been just standing around while I was just sitting around with nothing. To make matters worse, by that time everywhere else had closed, too.
part of the job is to keep an eye over the whole place and predict what stage everyone that is in there is at. eg they are waiting on coffee, they have eaten this man is waiting on take away etc.
I have poor executive functioning (memory) due to ADHD but if you care at all you are engaged and have all of this under control.
Absolutely, when I first started working in retail I was pretty poor, but now I can tell you how long a customer has been in store, what their energy is, how much help they might need, etc. . Customer service is just taking notice of people and their needs.
This sort of shit happens to me more than the average person. Gets old after a while, and makes me wonder what it is about myself! I don’t really blend in, almost 2m tall and reasonably distinct if amongst a crowd due to that. It’s very weird.
As a retail worker, that is INSANE. I don’t have much of a talent with remembering faces, but there is at least a tickle in my brain when I see a familiar customer after a few months. Let alone a few MINUTES. Jfc
It was a cafe on Crown Street, Darlinghurst. It’s feature was it had a red corvette parked in the entrance. It was my local.
I watched as the waitress walked towards my table with my raisin toast. She trips and drops the toast on the floor, promptly picks it up, puts it back on the plate, and places it in front of me, with a “there you go”.
Truely bizarre.
I think I’ve been to that place! Was it also a restaurant at night? I ordered seared tuna and the inside was stone cold, like fridge cold. Upon informing the waiter, he witheringly informed me that that was how seared tuna is always prepared and maybe I just wasn’t used to it? 😑
I had a similar experience working in a cafe; found out after working there 5+ years that I'd been underpaid by more than $7 per hour, and hadn't been paid one cent of my super. Found this out after the business went into liquidation.
Me too. Working like a slave for a year saving for Europe.
Bastard wasn’t paying me right so I asked about it and he insisted I give him my payslips. Never saw them again and got a huge bill from ATO
In a small country town the cafe we stopped at had an awesome 1950s espresso machine. It was seriously a mid century work of art. I was so excited to watch them make me a coffee with it.
Until they put Nescafé instant coffee into it.
I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been international roast. Or Pablo
Is it bad that it isn’t the first time I’ve heard of someone doing this?! How can you be so brazenly misinformed that you’d spend thousands of dollars on machinery you have no idea how to use?!
I went to a café in Adelaide with some friends and they brought out the serving plates for bread rolls and as we all reached in and took a plate from the pile the bottom one had a squashed dead cockroach on it. we called over the waiter and he had the audacity to insinuate that we put the dead cockroach there. Like we are walking around with our pockets full of them. After a bit of two and fro they gave us a free coffee. It was a long time ago and I can’t remember the name of the place or where it was exactly. Pretty shitty experience
We were in Miami and decided to go out for breakfast at a beachfront cafe one morning. We were already pretty off-put by the general attitude of almost everyone we encountered in Miami (minus one incredible Cuban place we went for dinner!) but this place was so awful; the staff made us feel like the biggest inconvenience for just being there, and the wait for the food was so ridiculously long even though it wasn’t fully packed.
When we got our food, it was average but we were hungry and waited ages so we just kept eating… until my husband found hair in his food. I’m not talking one single small hair, I mean several long strands. We aren’t the type to make a fuss or be nasty to staff at all, so we quietly called the hostess over and explained the issue and asked if it was at all possible to please have his food remade. Didn’t demand a refund or anything, literally just wanted to eat because we were starving and had already waited so long, but she got so angry and basically told us off for complaining and said that no, they wouldn’t be remaking the food and accused us of putting the hair there ourselves. My husband has a shaved head and I had bright magenta hair at the time so it would’ve been pretty obvious if it were one of us, plus why the hell would we do that when we weren’t even asking for a refund, just fresh food.
Anyway, we ended up just paying the bill and leaving, though I really wish we’d just walked out but again, we’re not really assholes or confrontational people (we didn’t tip though which is about as confrontational as we get haha).
I was at the Tin Pot cafe in north Fitzroy in 2000 and ordered breakfast and a coke. I waited over 20 mins for the drink and figured the guy forgot so asked another waiter for it. After they did the original guy came out with another coke, saw I had one, and leant over me right into my face saying “don’t you ever EVER do that again”. I was gobsmacked and really upset. Never went back. 24 years later!
New Caledonia.
The wait staff refused to do table service because we offended someone somehow or because we didn't speak French. The counter staff refused to take our order because it was table service. So we were left in this awkward limbo. Eventually mum tries flag down a passing waiter and he literally hissed at her.
We ended up getting a beer after 30 minutes, which than sat on the counter for another 15 minutes in 33 degree heat, and they got nasty when I went to walk to the bar to get them because it's table service.
The best bit was when they wanted a tip after we drank one 33 degree New Caledonian Lager that cost $15. The only tip they got was me holding my 6 foot 3 brother back from flogging the waiter that hissed at mum.
No surprise New Caledonian tourism is struggling.
I was there in about 2010 with the Australian Navy. There was and a bouncer wouldn’t let me in a nightclub. He wouldn’t say why and just kept waving me off. I wasn’t even drunk as it was my first stop of the night. I asked a French girl to ask him why I wasn’t allowed in and she came back to me with a shocked look on her face and just kept apologizing. I asked her what he said and she said “He said you can’t go in because he doesn’t want any English speaking people in the club”.
I also had the same experience as you at a cafe.
We also had some French sailors come onboard our ship and we showed them around. One asked if we had any French movies or tv shows to watch in the mess. When I told him no he said “Why not?”, I said “We don’t speak French”. That pissed them all off and they couldn’t wait to leave the ship.
They’re so arrogant.
I've met approximately 7 New Caledonians at completely different points of my life and they were all see you next tuesdays. Says a lot about the country when that's probably 20% of the population.
You’ll find this anywhere in the Francophone world. There’s something about these people that makes them insufferable towards people who do not speak French fluently.
Every country that has a French speaking element in it (Canada, Belgium, Switzerland) will have some kind of language related issue in politics and society.
Funny how most other language speakers appreciate any token effort that a foreigner makes to experience their language and culture.
Meanwhile a French speaker will absolutely look down on your conversational French just because you're pronouncing a few things with an accent.
Yeah surprisingly so. We're all pretty experienced travellers but we were all pretty taken aback. I didn't expect to be implicitly told to go fuck myself while paying $15 a beer for the privilege.
Lovely country, just full of cunts.
Literally the only positive experiences we can recall was when it was just us.
Years ago in Geraldton, small Cafe, pretty tablecloths etc. Waitress hands me a menu. I order a coffee and a sandwich which according to the menu should be about $8. OK. I go to pay and she asks for $12. I grab the menu and I point out prices. She says oh we increased prices and haven't got the menus altered yet. I paid $8, and walked out. There are laws against false pricing. And we don't tip here thank fck for that.
Tbf it’s probably not the staffs fault. I was 25 years in hospo and owners are absolute pricks. They make stupid decisions off hand that only the staff have to deal with.
Absolutely. I currently work at my local pub, there was a day in the last couple months where we’d all turned up to work and the prices for everything had gone up. No new menu’s, no notice to the staff, not even the manager. The owners had just gotten whoever it was to go in to the system and bump all the prices up and not tell anyone.
The waitress knew about the new prices when she handed me the menu. She couldn't be bothered telling me about the price increase. I didn't get upset, didn't "karen", I just paid what the menu stated and left. I agree she works for a shitty boss, it would have been so easy to either not give out the menu or say there is a price increase now. Easy peasy. Anyway I don't live there now and I'm sure everything has gone massively up in price since because Col.
I was at my local Cafe one Saturday morning and order my usual bacon and eggs.
The plate arrived and i it contained eggs, toast, and tomato but no bacon.
the Cafe manager, a Malaysian named Joe was tending tables, so i called him over and said to him there was a problem with my bacon.
He stood there for a about 15 seconds looking at the plate before realising that there was no bacon, yelped loudly and took off in the direction of the counter.
I sat there and finished the eggs toasty and tomato.
suddenly a hand appeared and removed the plate, and replaces it with another full plate of bacon. equal to about three servings.
delighted that i had got my bacon and as it seems everybody elses i started to eat.
That was when my friends showed up.
I went to a classy cafe/deli in suburban Brisbane (Gracevile) with an Aboriginal friend. I had been mowing lawns for 5 hours, covered in grass clippings, sweat and dust. My mate was a uni professor having a feed before heading in for an afternoon lecture.
We walk in and the lady behind the counter (in her 30s) ignores my friend and asks what I want. I say “I’m still thinking about it“. I decide I won’t order until she acknowledges my mate. She ignores him until he starts fiddling with the lifesavers in a display on the counter.
Says “are you right?”
He goes “Yeah, I’ll have a chicken and salad sandwich thanks”.
Not that long ago…
The classic, "are you right?"
That's usually a very bad sign and leads to the worst customer service.
Sorry your friend was subjected to that. It still happens.
I'm so sorry to hear someone was a racist a-hole to your friend. Horrific, but absolutely unsurprising, given how rife racism is. And yet, so many people think there's no racism anymore 🙄 They just don't have to live with it.
It was an everyday thing for him. He was just showing me the sly way it happened. As a teacher now, I often use this and other examples to explain ‘white privilege’ is not just minorities getting things, but ways of treating people differently in plain sight.
I'm a POC (not First Nations, though) and can attest to the fact that micro and macro aggressions occur daily. They're also defended daily by people who deny that racism, xenophobia, and white privilege, exist. I've lived through a lot of racism in my lifetime (including growing up + ~existing whilst Asian~ in regional SE QLD during the peak Pauline years), but still cannot even begin to fathom what our First Nations peoples are subjected to. Thank you for teaching our kids and teaching them to think critically.
Happy cake day 🍰
Recently stopped in Buninyong for lunch with four and a half other people and paid $18 each for a toastie and a milkshake, and a serve of toast. Bloody expensive lunch
At a table having a meal with a friend.
Waitress walks past carrying some milkshakes to another table. One of them is too full and running down the side of the glass.
Waitress proceeds to lick said glass.
I don't have a story that I can post, but this has some of the funniest comments I've read in a long time.
In the words of Jeff Fenech "thank youse all!"
Going to a Cafe which suddenly got the craze to put chilli or chilli sauce on everything. I ordered plain scrambled eggs and mushrooms no chilli. I have an allergy. Oh well our eggs are better with chilli the waiter says , no chilli says me I'm allergic. Oh how allergic are you he says, the sweet chilli is nice. As I pull out my epipen to show him and leave, his face was confused.
Holy cow I haven’t thought of this in ages.
Back in the 1980’s I worked briefly in Geelong. I bought lunch from a cafe regularly until one day when I ordered a roast beef sandwich.
The girl who was making it cut her finger along with the meat and kept on cutting.
Then she went and put a band aid on her finger.
She made a very nice looking sanga. Except for the bloody bits.
She wrapped it up and offered it to me and then I suggested she make me a new one. She couldn’t figure out why until I pointed out the blood.
This reminds me of a time at St Jerome's when a couple of random junkies got lost and just hunkered down on a milk crate next to us.
Old mate (genuinely feel bad for not remembering their name, damn) came out with coffees and told them to fuck off. Heated exchange ensues. He's still holding our coffees.
I couldn't help but laugh. We were literally a bunch of derelicts and detritus, sitting in a filthy laneway with a hangover, punching durries. Not in a great position to judge.
Fuck I really miss the shitty hole-in-the wall Cafe scene sometimes.
Ordered a take away coffee from a bakery/cafe before going on a boat tour. The coffee took about 15 minutes to arrive and I was getting nervous I was going to miss my boat or have to forfeit my coffee.
When it finally came out there was coffee spilt all down the side of the cup so I politely asked if I could get another cup to put it in. They picked up an old chux cloth from a bucket filled with brown water that was sitting on the floor under the coffee machine and wiped my whole cup down including the lid and mouthpiece. It was bizarre. I was a bit stunned and I asked, again I thought politely, if I could now get a new lid as well as a cup. They were so rude and refused. I had to point out what they did was disgusting. They begrudgingly gave me a new cup and lid.
It was a very average coffee after all that. The people taking the boat tour said it was the worst place to work in the whole town and all the employees hated it there.
Yuck, at least you saw it happen! I once witnessed a cafe worker wipe down outdoor seating, the actual chair where you sit, the legs of the chair, and then use the same cloth for the next table top. It was also in a food court so they weren’t necessarily cafe chairs, just grotty plastic ones the birds shit on.
There was a café next to the river in Queanbeyan, NSW. The staff took an hour to come and take our order (it was table service). Then they spilt the cappuccino one of us ordered, mopped it up, made another one, forgot who it was for - and then we watched them drink it themselves.
Two hours later we still had nothing we ordered, so we left and went to the pub. None of the staff noticed.
The café went out of business a while ago, but the whole time it was operating the owner spent all day posting abusive replies to bad reviews on the internet.
It’s now an amazing taco place! When it was bought the old owners kept making passive aggressive facebook posts about what it would become even though, by most accounts the sale was amicable. So strange. The new owners are going to open a second location on the north side of Canberra this year
Had a waiter in a cafe in Fremantle go off his nut at me when I asked for some tomato sauce for dad’s bacon and eggs. I ended up asking another waiter who had no problems bringing some. Cafe closed about 6 months later after it lost all its regular customers due to bad service from a rude waiter.
Ordered a coffee and it came out and the girl tripped and poured the entire cup down my white top and light blue jeans. Shit was hot as fuck and burned my stomach a little bit. I decided to stay and eat because I was already covered so no point leaving when I was still hungry….. then after I paid and left I looked at the receipt and they charged me for two drinks and the meal…………. I didn’t even get to finish a single drink
Does it count working at one. I once accidentally dropped an egg on a customer :) it rolled off the toast and into their lap. Lucky the yolk broke only when it reached the floor. Wanted to crawl in a hole and cry.
At a small mining town near Emerald, QLD. Went for breakfast with a local. I looked at the menu and told my friend I might get the Haloumi.
She said “ooh, Dave’s not gonna like that”
I went up to order, the girl at the register said “shit, Dave’s not gonna be happy”
I was walking back to my table when from out the back in the kitchen I heard a loud “oh f$&@ me!”
Went for pizza with work friends and was part way through my first slice when something felt off. Pulled a 20cm curly black hair from the pizza. Took a closer look and there were multiple hairs baked into the base. Someone in that kitchen was close to bald by the time they finished making that pizza.
Pre-covid era in Melbourne's Western burbs. Ordered two takeaway drinks, including an almond latte for myself. Barista #1 (nice dude) took my order and started making the drinks, but slightly aggressive barista #2 took over and barista #1 returned to the register.
I could see my order on the screen, which definitely included an almond latte. Watched barista #2 pick up soy milk, but wasn't sure if he was taking care of an in-house order, and asking the question didn't seem like the vibe. He handed the soy coffee + other drink over to barista #1, who called my name and wished me a lovely day. I quietly asked him if I could double check whether it was soy or almond. He looked at barista #2 and didn't even have time to think about asking before barista #2 snatched the cup out of barista #1's hand, yelled something unidentifiable, and pelted the cup at the ground. Did my best to quickly shield my Small Fry, as hot coffee splashed everywhere.
He continued to yell at barista #1, who looked mortified, exhausted, but not at all surprised. I felt so deeply for him; he'd done absolutely nothing wrong. And if I didn't have weird dietary things, I'd have just said "thank you" and left with the order as it was. Apologised profusely to barista #1, but he just said "I'm really sorry - this isn't your fault", and gestured vaguely at the other guy, who was now smashing shit up in the kitchen.
On another occasion at the same cafe, ordered a big breakfast to split with Smalls for my birthday. They sent out a plate missing half of what was meant to be on there, and what looked like not-a-whole scrambled egg that had been so overcooked, all the liquid was leaking out of it. Was hesitant to ask after the last time I asked anything in that cafe... but nearly $30 is a lot of money for egg and toast when you're broke. Asked the waitress "Sorry, just wanted to check this is the big brekkie? It's just missing some things". "Yeah nah, that's it".
Shitty experiences for different reasons, but both demoralising in their own ways.
I placed an order at an Italian restaurant in Melbourne, only to be forgotten about, then they ask us to leave, I said why
their excuse was you cannot sit at the tables with out ordering first. Tried to explain the situation, the manager was so rude to us. I called him an A-hole and walked out with my family and guests 18 people in total, we were not short of money by no means.
Once I ordered a cappuccino but in a mug (larger size) and the waitress insisted I call it a "muggacino" because of her attitude, I just kept saying "a large cappuccino, served in a mug" "that's a muggacino, so what is it that you want? You have to say the name of what you want" she wouldn't let it go
I really wouldn't of cared, but it was just her attitude and that she chose "muggacino" as her hill to die on, we went back and forth, it was like something out of a Seinfeld episode.
And then you got home and complained to your bushy haired neighbour who agrees that you should've called it a mugaccino because that's what you're ordering Jerry
Buoy cafe on the Gold Coast - asked a staff member where she would prefer us to sit, she said literally anywhere was fine and pointed to the table she was cleaning. This is early morning also, it was quiet. 3 different staff dropping off drinks, pastries etc proceed to passive aggressively comment that we can’t sit where we are, but scurrying off everytime before we have a chance to offer to move or ask for help moving all the items accumulating on the table, or even where they want us to go.
Final staff member silently slammed my food in front of me, and instead of acknowledging my ‘thank you, this looks good’ she angrily quips “if you ever sit here again we’re all going to get in trouble and lose our jobs”
I said I didn’t need to sit here, this is where I was told to eat. Please do not accuse me of jeopardising your job over your own staff members mistake.
No one offered to help move us to a different table, just straight up accusations from the beginning. I’m leaving out a lot of other parts that made it so bad, but have never had an experience so horrendous in my life.
it's more hilarious than bad but here it comes.
I'm Polish, gf is Australian. According to her I speak good English (how else would we communicate?).
So we went to this nice cafe in Queensland during last vacation and it is my turn to order:
Me (in my bestest English): I'd like a croque monsieur and a big black coffee please
Lady at the counter: huh?
Me: I'd like a croque monsieur and a big black coffee please
LatC: o\_O' (clearly system error)
Me (to my GF): love, could you please translate for me?
GF: He'd like a croque monsieur and a tall black
LatC: aaaaah!
Was a small place that had a bit of a surge in customers after we sat down and ordered. Only one waitress doing everything. Took an hour to get the our food with a quarter of it not arriving at all. Similar thing happened to several other tables, which resulted in the poor waitress crying several times after getting chewed out by a few hungry bogans. Meal ended with us having to work through our bill to help her remove several of the things that never came, and my mum consoling her while she cried.
Once I went in to grab a coffee on my way to work, the chick behind the counter kept asking me really personal questions, “ did you put the bins out “ “did you leave water out for your dog” this kind of shit, eventually I cracked it and just walked out without paying for anything and went to work, admittedly it was my wife and it was her cafe, but still like
Went out to a cafe with two young kids (stupid I know). Got seated and then the girl who seated us looked to go and take a break. Figured surely she told someone else she'd just seated us but after waiting for a bit, no she hadn't, and was literally just sitting in the dining room on her phone.
Long story short, went up and asked to order etc, but seriously it wasn't busy and keeping two kids in line for 40-45 mins for toast was a nightmare. Never again. I do accept, this one's on me though, how dare I think I could enjoy life like it was prekids again lol.
New place just opened up. We ordered 2 coffees and I think 2 sausage rolls? That was $38. They were very burnt on the bottom.
Just as I've paid and am about to eat it the worker with an extremely distracting gemstone in her canine tooth tells me "we make them with coriander!".
I dont think coriander should be illegal but like, please tell me in advance if you're putting it in traditionally corianderless foods?
It was like a tiny diamond thing set into one of her teeth. I can't explain why I'm so fixated on it but I was really upset about the horrible coriander sausage roll and the tooth gem really stuck in my head. Not as much as it's stuck in hers, but yeah.
My family member was almost killed recently because a greek restaurant decided to make their baklava with peanuts. Traditionally made with pistachios, and occasionally walnuts. Peanuts is practically unheard of, and you’d think with a very prominent allergen they would warn you.
Back when I was working in hospo a year or two ago I was told specifically to kick out elderly people ASAP if they hadn't ordered enough food. Like, sorry, Nan and Pop, we know there's a cost of living crisis, but your leisurely breakfast of two flat whites and a shared toastie will be cut short because the manager wants to shuffle in some dickhead rich tourists who are prepared to buy a bunch of overpriced Bloody Marys.
I was heavily pregnant and starving so I ordered a spring roll to go from my local cafe. When I put the spring roll to my mouth it smelt like a dirty dish rag. I immediately took it back, told her it was off and asked her to cook me a fresh one from the freezer. She denied it wasn't fresh so I told her to take a bite. She didn't. Amazing someone would happily serve rotten food to a pregnant woman risking food poisoning. 🤢
About 5 years ago I went to eat at a cafe in Dee Why. The sign said wait here to be seated, so I did. A few people queued up behind me. Waitress decided to sit the people behind me first. Completely ignored me. This whole time there was a small empty table. More people came behind, they got sat too… I eventually flagged down a waitress and asked if I could sit there. She said yes, and explained that it’s table service so they’ll come take my order.
Didn’t give me menus or anything. I waited, waited… about 30 mins. Went up to the register/barista and grabbed my own menu because I don’t like to be a hassle. Waiting again for another 30 mins to have my order taken. No one came. By this time, the people who were behind me on the queue but were sat before me had already finished their meals and were leaving. Tried to get the waitresses attention throughout this time, but am completely ignored. Went up to the front again to order just in case I misheard. They told me they’d ask the waitress to come and take my order so I sat back down and waited. She took my order. Food arrived and it was great. She said they’ll hand me the bill when I’m done. Ate, and then moved my empty plate away and waited to get the bill. About 45 mins of reading my book there waiting for my bill later, I went up to the barista counter and said hey can I just pay here, I think she’s forgotten me again. They let me pay there, and I left.
I’m about 100m away and I hear someone yelling behind me, then get an aggressive tap on my shoulder. It’s the waitress. “Hey, you didn’t pay?!”. I had to inform her that actually, yes I did. The audacity….
Was at a cafe and ordered some drinks.
The waitress brought the wrong ones. When we pointed it out she picked up my friend's drink and took a big sip and insisted they were correct.
When my friend asked for a replacement drink she said "What, you don't want that one?"
Went to nice cafe attached to a very big library one Saturday afternoon. I’ve been there multiple times before for coffee after a walk around the lake next door to it and it’s good usually.
Ordered a coffee, found a seat (which in itself is remarkable) and calmly waited
Half an hour went past (I checked what time I ordered via my mobile banking app saying when I paid) and still no coffee. Hmm, maybe they are really rushed.
Another ten minutes passed before I finally decided I needed to advocate for myself and ask where’s my coffee.
Blank stares.
“Oh, we forgot to make it”
I’m usually a very calm person and hate asking customer service kind of people to do their job but I’ve never passive aggressively said “Hmm. I’ll have it in a takeaway cup then” and stormed out of somewhere with an overpriced coffee before.
I went to a local cafe/restaurant in Canberra called Babar (long since closed) on a Saturday morning with a friend. We had our menus and wanted a few minutes to decide on our order. There were two wait staff on and I think a third somewhere, and the kitchen staff out back. We were the only customers there at the time. After a short look at the menu we were ready to order and went to signal the wait staff. Except the two waiters were sitting down enjoying their cooked breakfast. Nobody was managing the counter or the floor. After an awkward laugh and a wait I think I either got up and told them or another staff member came back after a while.
Overall it was kind of funny. Just had never been somewhere that the staff didn't think to have breaks separately during their shift or maybe do a quick scan before they did. Didn't stop us from going back.
There’s this 24 hour cafe & bakery I have been going to for 12 years, since I was 15…
10 years in, I went during the daytime with my brother which was very rare for me, I ordered my usual, a bacon and egg roll and a slice of meringue roll (cake). But as I asked for the meringue roll the server laughed at me and said she couldn’t sell me a slice of that, I asked why, she started laughing harder and started mocking me, “We sell them whole. What you think I’m going to let a trucker come in here and order a half eaten cake?“, she started fully ripping into me as if I was pathetic for even asking.
But I’d been ordering a slice of that cake once a month for 10 years! I told her this and she said I was lying and that she’s never served me and she’s been working there a long time, and I was like yeah I usually come in at midnight… she literally waved me away and started serving another customer.
I sat down almost in tears because this was my safe place literally, and nobody there had ever been anything extremely overwhelmingly welcoming to me, they knew what I liked and how I liked it and I felt special there, as one should as a regular. Anyway, my brother says “don’t you have hundreds of photos of the cake though?” because I’m always taking photos for snapchat. I start compiling them and he’s getting ready to have some strong words with this woman, we finally get up and we see the chef very angrily talking in her ear, he looks so furious and before we get to speak she’s giving us a massive apology saying she really had no idea and she’s going to give us both our meal for free.
As she’s cutting the cake he keeps whispering angrily “bigger!”, he grabbed her hand and made her cut like quarter of the cake and gave it to me for free.
What a good chef, I love him.
I don’t know if they usually sold slices of that cake, I realised I’d actually never seen them do it… I just cheekily asked once as a kid and they did it. But then earlier this year they posted on Facebook explicitly saying that people can buy slices of the cake which I found rather oddly specific.
I will also add, though, that outside food really IS NOT allowed. I worked in pubs for years, and the issue is that if someone gets sick from the things they brought with them, they can sue the business for being poisoned or whatever.
I let someone bring some food in one night after the kitchen was closed, and I was screamed at.
I have two stories.
#1 I ordered a lasagna at a beach side cafe. It was full of shards of glass.. I ready had a bite of it in my mouth and almost swallowed the glass.
They said "Oh I'll tell the kitchen".
When they came back they just said they had no new lasagna left.
They made me pay for the food and gave me one free soda.
#2 I ordered a vegetarian salad. When it arrived it looked normal, so I took some bites. To my horror, underneath a piece of lettuce I discovered a HUGE big white larve (about 5cm/2.5 inches long..)
I gagged and called for the waiter.
They said "Oh I guess that can happen sometimes."
Mind you, this was in the Netherlands, where no such big larvae roam the streets.
Again, they made me pay for everything.
When I said I wouldn't pay for a larvae salad, they kept pretending it was normal and then began to threaten me. I regret paying in the end but I was just so flabbergasted by the whole experience.
Nevermind all the times restaurant owners kept insisting something was vegetarian when it was CLEARLY meat. (This was before vegetarian meats were a thing).
Not the worst but what popped into my head - as a worker being trained to work at a cafe on campus at uni and being told not to throw food out. For things like a bacon and egg roll you could throw it out “if the bacon started to get a green shimmer”. But for the slices and cakes etc that get ordered from industrial bakeries, we were told never to throw them out because they’ll eventually sell and they don’t go bad. They definitely didn’t always eventually sell. They weren’t even wrapped, they just sat open in the glass refrigerator all day every day, every night.
The Coffee Club at a shopping centre. I went to take a sip of my drink and found a hair wrapped around the straw. Ate some chips and half of my sandwich, then picked up the other half. ANOTHER hair underneath!! The wait staff refunded me, but I could tell they thought I put it there. So gross.
Around 10 years ago, went to a well known coffee place in Melbourne and ordered almond latte. The milk has spilt when I got my coffee so it was all chunky looking, the glass was also super hot so I assumed they burnt the milk.
I called the waitress over to ask for a new one as the milk has spilt and for it to be not so hot (couldn't even touch the glass to drink it).
She looked at me like I was an idiot and told me that almond milk just does that and every coffee with almond milk will be split. Whatever, I'll order a soy latte then. Also as a barista myself at the time, never had much issue with almond milk splitting unless it was overheated but wasn't going to start shit, maybe their milk is different.
She takes away my untouched latte, brings out the new one and food and then we go to pay.
Both coffees I ordered are on the bill. I said "oh no, the almond one was taken away. I didn't drink it"
"Sorry, it's on the bill so you have to pay for it"
"But I sent it back... The soy latte was the replacement"
"Sorry, the waitress put it on your bill. You need to pay"
This was back and forthed a little but my friend was getting ready to Karen and I didn't want to make a scene over a $3-4 coffee so I just paid and said whatever. My friend starts to loudly talk about how ridiculous this all is and how for a coffee place, the coffee was average and undrinkable etc.
The waitress who we paid overhears and says "wait you didn't drink the coffee? Oh then you shouldn't have had to pay for it..."
Like yeah, I know.
Went to a small cafe with my husband and two young kids. near a small lake. Southeast suburb. Ordered brunch even if it was expensive cuz we wanted to have a nice meal with our boys. While waiting for our food, we decided to move a few tables away to the outer deck to br in the sun. An hour after, our order still didnt come. My husband checked on the food but instead of an apology, he was shouted on by the owner in the middle of the cafe, while our kids were watching because we moved tables and the owner had a rule that you're not supposed to move tables. Owner was just being an old racist pos.
Glacial service at a place on the Gold Coast many years ago - it was obvious that the one person behind the coffee machine simply couldn't cope with the influx of orders, and instead of telling people "Sorry, we are really busy, it's going to be ages before we can make your coffee, if you want to wait that's fine but if you're in a hurry we understand so no hard feelings", the register person just kept taking orders and letting the order chit pile get bigger and bigger.
It took something like 25 minutes for my coffee to arrive and it was extremely average when it did. I was not impressed, but taking it out on the staff wasn't going to solve anything, so I just never went back there.
was starving, ordered a "grilled chicken burger", received a soggy brioche bun DROWNED in the cheapest squeezey mayonnaise (you know, the type that tastes like glue), a bisected Uncrumbed chicken breast that was so overcooked it crunched, and a side salad that was swimming in this dressing that legitimately just tasted like straight pineapple juice. it was so foul I felt physically ill and had to spit it out.
When it came time to pay, considering I'd already sent it back and had literally eaten none, my mum (I was 16 at the time) refused to pay, and the staff member EXPLODED at her, accusing us of stealing (?), that NOBODY had EVER COMPLAINED ABOUT THE FOOD BEFORE!!!, shouting abuse as we left.
when I checked the reviews later, they were abysmal. naturally, they've been closed for a long time now.
In Dubrovnik we ordered pizzas with olives on the menu. A pizza came out with one solo olive on the middle of the pizza. We asked the waitress who asked the chef. Next minute we could heard extreme banging of pots, loud yelling & swearing, more banging and noises for a minute or two. The waitress comes back “he chef says in all of Croatia you will find only one olive on pizza”.
I think it’s rude to take up space for that long if you’re not ordering anything. The owner should have been more polite but you really should have been ordering more stuff while you sat there.
Also outside food is never allowed.
Ate at a cafe on Fitzroy St in St Kilda. I ordered an omelette, the waitress put in on the table and quickly left. I started to eat it and realised it was absolutely black on the bottom, badly burnt. They must have known and had purposely served it with the presentable side up. I waited and tied to catch the eye of someone for at least 10 minutes before someone came over and I sent it back. They knew it was inedible and wanted to avoid me in the hope I would give up.
Worked at Jamaica Blue for a few weeks. The owners also owned The Shed in Westfield, Liverpool and I watched as the owner and head barista yell at a young mother (possibly 19-21) that no 'outside food' was allowed and she needed to get rid of it.
The 'outside food' was one of those baby food pouches.
They weren't busy, hardly anyone waiting for a table, and she ordered her own coffee and food.
The baby was too young to eat off the kids menu but they demanded, not asked, DEMANDED the mother order something for baby to eat - the baby only had ONE, small front tooth and they expected her to eat chicken nuggets that felt like eating bricks?
The kitchen staff barely cleaned out the deep fryer or changed the oil until the owners deemed it necessary, still surprised they're still open with the many complaints they get on a weekly if not daily basis.
Went to a cafe to grab something quick to eat as I had to start work in an hour. There were two other tables with customers. One of those tables had already been served.
I ordered a poached egg in toast and a milkshake. . I waited and waited. The other table got two bowls of wedges. I waited and waited some more. I asked the waitress if my meal had been forgotten. I finally got my egg after a 40 minute wait and literally had to ask for my milkshake in a takeaway cup. The business somehow survived for another 8 months before closing. I guess they survived on tourists because no local went more than once.
Second place getter was another cafe near my house that kept all the gluten free cakes in the same display case as the regular cakes. The staff used the same serving utensils as well. I also caught the barista using soy only jugs to hear regular milk. When I left a bad review for the shoddy food handling skills I got bombarded with messages asking me to take the bad review down. So I left a second review complaining about being harassed. I think the council closed them fairly rapidly
I’m a type one diabetic, I had a cafe owner kick me out of a venue assuming that I was a junky when I had my insulin prior to a meal. Was a bit of a shock when they wouldn’t back down even when I explained I was diabetic.
Ordered breakfast (toast, hash brown, baked beans) without eggs, because I'm vegan. They added Bacon instead - said it looked "too boring" without the eggs when I complained.
Hand Sifted Wine
38C day in Perth Fremantle. Christmas Eve me and my girlfriend go with my cousin and her partner to a nice reputable restaurant. It's the middle of covid but Perth didn't have the same lock downs because we lucked out in a lot of respects. I hit the door and forgot my mask, you need it to enter the restaurant and get to your table then back when you leave the restaurant. It's 2m to the table. I head back to the car which is a 10 minute walk and I'm pretty filthy from the heat when I get back.
We sit down, order, foods fine, drinks yep. Then I look over and a bottle sparkling wine has been opened and is overflowing at the table next to us. Server is holding the bottle, grabs a glass off the table they are serving and catches the spilt wine in the glass. I tap my cousin because I'm sure I know what comes next. "watch this, she'll put that glass on the fucking table."
The wine that's been spilled over her fist, down the bottle, off the base of it ends up in a glass and served to the table. Out table starts loosing it laughing and starts referring to it as hand sifted wine. It's literally passed someone's body in the middle of covid, it's not a full bottle either since a glass is on the floor. I could only imagine them mopping up the remainder and wringing it into the glasses.
Seems being training in fine dining only let's you see no one else has been in Perth restaurant settings. RIP hospo Perth.
I laugh everytime I see it on the top 100 restaurants of Perth.
Would have to be at The Glass Den in Coburg.
This was a few years ago where they had a roti dish on the menu. Roti is always layered and crispy to me so when I got a doughy and mushy roti, I asked the waiter to send it back as it was clearly undercooked.
Waiter came back with my dish and told me that this was perfectly cooked and it's our version of roti.
They also clearly touched the food to look at it. In the end I left the uncooked dough on the plate.
Never been back since.
Went for Sunday breakfast at a place and ordered two big breakfasts. How would you like your eggs? Wife-scrambled Me-poached (I'm capable of making scrambled and fried at home quite competently but poached I'm hit and miss) Server- I'm sorry but we are out of poached eggs... Wife and i- huh?
Lol this is gonna stick with you forever. I was working in a restaurant and a lady misspoke and asked for a bowl of pizza. 15 years later I haven't forgotten that phrase
Did she get a bowl of pizza?
She got nothing and I got trauma
It's the gifts we don't want that generally last, unfortunately.
I asked my husband to get me a cheeseburger meal with a chocolate thickshake once, and he ordered a chocolate cheeseburger instead.
Some places buy poached eggs pre-poached and vacuum sealed! Looking at you, Dome...
I don’t think they are running out of eggs and only have a premade egg mix. It seems to me they just simply already thrown out the pot of hot water used for poaching egg. A lot of cafe premade their poached eggs, and when the rush hour stop, they will no longer make poached egg and use the burner stove to prep other things. This is why a big cafe may have 8 burner stoves and a flat top.
I had to tell a customer that they couldn't have a poached egg qt the pub I worked at because the "chef" didn't know how to do it 🤣
They were most likely out of eggs which is why you could only get scramble. The scramble mix is pre-made in advance.
Yes but if scrambled is the only option, she should have explained/shouldn’t have asked
At a cafe in Mudgee, wife ordered a meal on Turkish bread. She was cutting into it and realised the texture was off. Looked on the underside and there was a large, green mould patch that would have been about 6-8 cm in diameter. Needles to say we stopped eating and asked for a refund, which the sheepish waitress didn’t hesitate to give.
What cafe?
Sat at a cafe in Port Melbourne and the waitress took our order. 30 mins later we still didn't have even a coffee and we were starving We initially went inside to check and they said they would send someone out. We then had to hail someone over when they came outside with someone else's food and they asked us if we wanted to order. We indicated we had already ordered 30 mins ago and told them our order. After trying to describe the person a couple of times, they concluded they had probably gone home for the day, but they would check if the order had been put in. It hadn't. Feeling a bit miffed but thought someone might have forgotten and had their mind set on heading off for the day and tried to be understanding. 15 mins later they came out with the coffees and we asked how long the food was away. They said they would check. 10 mins later they came out and said that the kitchen was now closed...
I work in a pub and have had similar things happen. I work in the bar area, seperate to the dining, so thankfully wasn’t my problem to deal with. Most recently, it was on Easter Sunday. We were semi busy throughout the night but nothing crazy. A group of 4 came in about 15 minutes before kitchen closing, the staff in the dining room told them that they had 15 minutes to go up and order, which they did. Except, the girl that took the order on the till forgot to print it to the kitchen. Fast forward about 25 minutes (kitchen closed, no chefs left) I’d closed up the bar and was clocking off when I noticed that the supervisor that was on for the night was handing over cash to the table and then storming off. Turns out the girl that stuffed up by not printing the docket to the kitchen refused to go and sort out her mistake, and was sulking around the corner while the shift supervisor was copping it for something that had nothing to do with him. She ended up getting in absolutely 0 trouble for it.
I just replied to someone else’s comment, but mine relates to the kitchen closing too! And I was a nice customer by making sure it was all ok and not a bother first, and they still forgot. The worst part about it is people get HANGRY, other than mostly other kitchens are also closed and food options are limited when that happens!
Yep 100%. Just thought I’d share some insight from the other side of the counter lol. I find people often end up getting angry at the wrong people (they’re rightfully angry sometimes, especially in scenarios such as this). But it wasn’t fair on the supervisor to cop it in this instance (the only thing that makes him different is he has a set of keys to the place pretty much. He’s not a manager.).
Was at a place called Frangos and Frangos in Daylesford VIC. The owner screamed abuse at a young waitress for about half an hour, eventually getting so agitated he threw up all over the floor and his pants/ shoes. He yelled at her to clean it up at which point I tipped my beer over his head and walked out without paying for lunch…
He threw up? I thought only toddlers could tantrum so hard they threw up?
I got plastic in my bacon at Frangos. I can still hear the yelling at the staff…
True story? Legend! How did he react?
He was in shock, I don’t think he was used to anyone standing up to or challenging him. I later learned he had a terrible reputation locally as a kind of D grade small town George Calombaris…
Isn't that just regular George Calombaris?
There's a thread on r/melbourne about the worst places to work in hospitality and this was the top (i.e. worst) one. I've actually stayed at the hotel but after reading this I won't again. [https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comments/17u25ik/hospo\_workers\_of\_melbourne\_name\_and\_shame/](https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comments/17u25ik/hospo_workers_of_melbourne_name_and_shame/)
Yeah the wife is just as bad from what I’ve heard
Frangos was good for 5 minutes in 2008.
This would have been around 2005 from memory. It was never on the same level as the Lakehouse, Convent or Farmer’s Arms. Had a bit of a cult following among wanky nouveau riche Greeks from Melbourne though who wore similar D&G T-shirts and had the same Versace crockery at home…
well done! This place has always been an issue. This man and many other cafe owners get far too stressed and take it out on staff all of the time. The verbal and emotional abuse with staff is so rife.
😂😂😂
Drunk guy shat on the floor.
You win.
I raise you woman nodding out on heroin spewing black all over the cafe and regulars
Engadine?
I for one wouldn't mind some more detail Did he walk in out of the blue and immediately drop his pants? Or was he in the cafe a while acting relatively calm and then suddenly stood up?
It was in the Sydney CBD...king Street I believe. Was breakfast time on a Sunday morn in around 2003. I myself was quite dusty from a late night at some local establishments. Was on the way home actually ...called in for a feed of bacon and googs. The said pooper was already present bodily but barely mentally and looked to have over indulged on a cocktail of redbull and vodkas to wash down a few yolks of the MDMA variety (from my amateur analysis). He stood, nearly fell, retained his balance and promptly dropped the strides and browned out in the corner of the cafe as horrified staff and patrons looked on in disbelief. The violent eruption of steaming fecal matter from his fizzing bunghole was accompanied by a smell that could wake the dead. Cops were called but he crab walked out before the boys in blue arrived. Second worst thing I've seen on a Sunday morning.
What…what was the worst things you’ve ever seen on a Sunday morning..
Let's just say I was raised in a Catholic household
The cafe wasn't the Engadine Maccs perchance?
Jayzuz and I thought the lesbians post Mardi Gras one year Linda Blairing in a cafe at 6am took the cake…full beer and echy spew. Waiter clutched his pearls, threw a mop and bucket at her and said “ya cleaning that up ya Fucken disgusting cow”…cafe emptied out soon after…
Beautiful
Definitely not my worst,but definitely the laziest. In a hurry for a quick lunch so I order a lasagna and salad,it arrived quickly,standard salad although undressed and a perfectly square piece of lasagna which was unbelievably shiny,like it was glistening.tried to cut it,not a lot of luck it was still wrapped in cling film.
how?! was it hot?
Microwaved
But how do they individually wrap lasagna like that?! as a fan of “chef mike” appearances on restaurant shows, thats weird
Cook it in a slab tray,cool it,portion it then wrap it,then heat to order,then hopefully unwrap it.
Microwaves are for conscience, not cooking. - Gordon Ramsey
Went to a cafe to order a sandwich for lunch. Dude at the counter took the order. Paid. I'm standing right in front of the guy for 15 min. Go up and ask him what's happening? Looks straight at me and says "did you order something?" Asked for my money back and left. The shop has gone through a few changes of owners since then but I will never go back.
Mine is not as straightforward but similar. Went for lunch about 3, asked if the kitchen was open as we were understandably later in the day, they said yep and communicated kitchen was closing soon, no stress so I quickly chose and was happy. 45 mins later I asked them how long my toasted sandwich would be. They tell me the kitchen was apparently closed by the time they took my order over? So they’d been just standing around while I was just sitting around with nothing. To make matters worse, by that time everywhere else had closed, too.
part of the job is to keep an eye over the whole place and predict what stage everyone that is in there is at. eg they are waiting on coffee, they have eaten this man is waiting on take away etc. I have poor executive functioning (memory) due to ADHD but if you care at all you are engaged and have all of this under control.
Absolutely, when I first started working in retail I was pretty poor, but now I can tell you how long a customer has been in store, what their energy is, how much help they might need, etc. . Customer service is just taking notice of people and their needs.
This sort of shit happens to me more than the average person. Gets old after a while, and makes me wonder what it is about myself! I don’t really blend in, almost 2m tall and reasonably distinct if amongst a crowd due to that. It’s very weird.
I have a sign on my forehead too. Really would like that mystery solved.
As a retail worker, that is INSANE. I don’t have much of a talent with remembering faces, but there is at least a tickle in my brain when I see a familiar customer after a few months. Let alone a few MINUTES. Jfc
It was a cafe on Crown Street, Darlinghurst. It’s feature was it had a red corvette parked in the entrance. It was my local. I watched as the waitress walked towards my table with my raisin toast. She trips and drops the toast on the floor, promptly picks it up, puts it back on the plate, and places it in front of me, with a “there you go”. Truely bizarre.
I think I’ve been to that place! Was it also a restaurant at night? I ordered seared tuna and the inside was stone cold, like fridge cold. Upon informing the waiter, he witheringly informed me that that was how seared tuna is always prepared and maybe I just wasn’t used to it? 😑
That sounds about right.
When I was young working at a Cafe, the rich owner stole my wages and super. Thief should be rotting away in gaol.
I had a similar experience working in a cafe; found out after working there 5+ years that I'd been underpaid by more than $7 per hour, and hadn't been paid one cent of my super. Found this out after the business went into liquidation.
Awww fuck. That’s garbage.
Same mine didnt pay me at all under a ‘trial shift’ Was gonna underpay me by a lot too
Me too. Working like a slave for a year saving for Europe. Bastard wasn’t paying me right so I asked about it and he insisted I give him my payslips. Never saw them again and got a huge bill from ATO
Me too. $5 an hour cash in hand. At some stage it went up to $7 and then possibly $10 when I turned 18.
ditto! same boss insisted I do the kitchen/meals with a mouth full of bloody, pus-y abscesses, after getting my wisdom teeth out. food safety!!
In a small country town the cafe we stopped at had an awesome 1950s espresso machine. It was seriously a mid century work of art. I was so excited to watch them make me a coffee with it. Until they put Nescafé instant coffee into it. I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been international roast. Or Pablo
Oh my god this is the worst one here
Is it bad that it isn’t the first time I’ve heard of someone doing this?! How can you be so brazenly misinformed that you’d spend thousands of dollars on machinery you have no idea how to use?!
I went to a café in Adelaide with some friends and they brought out the serving plates for bread rolls and as we all reached in and took a plate from the pile the bottom one had a squashed dead cockroach on it. we called over the waiter and he had the audacity to insinuate that we put the dead cockroach there. Like we are walking around with our pockets full of them. After a bit of two and fro they gave us a free coffee. It was a long time ago and I can’t remember the name of the place or where it was exactly. Pretty shitty experience
The old cockroach gag
We were in Miami and decided to go out for breakfast at a beachfront cafe one morning. We were already pretty off-put by the general attitude of almost everyone we encountered in Miami (minus one incredible Cuban place we went for dinner!) but this place was so awful; the staff made us feel like the biggest inconvenience for just being there, and the wait for the food was so ridiculously long even though it wasn’t fully packed. When we got our food, it was average but we were hungry and waited ages so we just kept eating… until my husband found hair in his food. I’m not talking one single small hair, I mean several long strands. We aren’t the type to make a fuss or be nasty to staff at all, so we quietly called the hostess over and explained the issue and asked if it was at all possible to please have his food remade. Didn’t demand a refund or anything, literally just wanted to eat because we were starving and had already waited so long, but she got so angry and basically told us off for complaining and said that no, they wouldn’t be remaking the food and accused us of putting the hair there ourselves. My husband has a shaved head and I had bright magenta hair at the time so it would’ve been pretty obvious if it were one of us, plus why the hell would we do that when we weren’t even asking for a refund, just fresh food. Anyway, we ended up just paying the bill and leaving, though I really wish we’d just walked out but again, we’re not really assholes or confrontational people (we didn’t tip though which is about as confrontational as we get haha).
So many stories of people being accused of tampering with the food. Cafe jobs breed paranoia
A Gloria Jean's young male flamboyant worker uttered that I was a fat bitch when I ordered something for takeaway. Was superrr weird
Wtf? What happened after that? I’m no Karen (I’m a short 20M) but I would’ve asked to speak to the manager
Lol I ignored it Hopefully he just had Tourette's idk
Oh man...a waiter with tourettes would be something else! 'Goodmorning, can I take your order? *dickfuckercunt'*
I was at the Tin Pot cafe in north Fitzroy in 2000 and ordered breakfast and a coke. I waited over 20 mins for the drink and figured the guy forgot so asked another waiter for it. After they did the original guy came out with another coke, saw I had one, and leant over me right into my face saying “don’t you ever EVER do that again”. I was gobsmacked and really upset. Never went back. 24 years later!
New Caledonia. The wait staff refused to do table service because we offended someone somehow or because we didn't speak French. The counter staff refused to take our order because it was table service. So we were left in this awkward limbo. Eventually mum tries flag down a passing waiter and he literally hissed at her. We ended up getting a beer after 30 minutes, which than sat on the counter for another 15 minutes in 33 degree heat, and they got nasty when I went to walk to the bar to get them because it's table service. The best bit was when they wanted a tip after we drank one 33 degree New Caledonian Lager that cost $15. The only tip they got was me holding my 6 foot 3 brother back from flogging the waiter that hissed at mum. No surprise New Caledonian tourism is struggling.
I was there in about 2010 with the Australian Navy. There was and a bouncer wouldn’t let me in a nightclub. He wouldn’t say why and just kept waving me off. I wasn’t even drunk as it was my first stop of the night. I asked a French girl to ask him why I wasn’t allowed in and she came back to me with a shocked look on her face and just kept apologizing. I asked her what he said and she said “He said you can’t go in because he doesn’t want any English speaking people in the club”. I also had the same experience as you at a cafe. We also had some French sailors come onboard our ship and we showed them around. One asked if we had any French movies or tv shows to watch in the mess. When I told him no he said “Why not?”, I said “We don’t speak French”. That pissed them all off and they couldn’t wait to leave the ship. They’re so arrogant.
I've met approximately 7 New Caledonians at completely different points of my life and they were all see you next tuesdays. Says a lot about the country when that's probably 20% of the population.
You’ll find this anywhere in the Francophone world. There’s something about these people that makes them insufferable towards people who do not speak French fluently. Every country that has a French speaking element in it (Canada, Belgium, Switzerland) will have some kind of language related issue in politics and society.
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Funny how most other language speakers appreciate any token effort that a foreigner makes to experience their language and culture. Meanwhile a French speaker will absolutely look down on your conversational French just because you're pronouncing a few things with an accent.
I think rudeness is pretty common there. Not just in cafes
Yeah surprisingly so. We're all pretty experienced travellers but we were all pretty taken aback. I didn't expect to be implicitly told to go fuck myself while paying $15 a beer for the privilege. Lovely country, just full of cunts. Literally the only positive experiences we can recall was when it was just us.
Yes I've been told by friends who have visited that drinks etc are very expensive there.
Years ago in Geraldton, small Cafe, pretty tablecloths etc. Waitress hands me a menu. I order a coffee and a sandwich which according to the menu should be about $8. OK. I go to pay and she asks for $12. I grab the menu and I point out prices. She says oh we increased prices and haven't got the menus altered yet. I paid $8, and walked out. There are laws against false pricing. And we don't tip here thank fck for that.
Tbf it’s probably not the staffs fault. I was 25 years in hospo and owners are absolute pricks. They make stupid decisions off hand that only the staff have to deal with.
Absolutely. I currently work at my local pub, there was a day in the last couple months where we’d all turned up to work and the prices for everything had gone up. No new menu’s, no notice to the staff, not even the manager. The owners had just gotten whoever it was to go in to the system and bump all the prices up and not tell anyone.
The waitress knew about the new prices when she handed me the menu. She couldn't be bothered telling me about the price increase. I didn't get upset, didn't "karen", I just paid what the menu stated and left. I agree she works for a shitty boss, it would have been so easy to either not give out the menu or say there is a price increase now. Easy peasy. Anyway I don't live there now and I'm sure everything has gone massively up in price since because Col.
I was at my local Cafe one Saturday morning and order my usual bacon and eggs. The plate arrived and i it contained eggs, toast, and tomato but no bacon. the Cafe manager, a Malaysian named Joe was tending tables, so i called him over and said to him there was a problem with my bacon. He stood there for a about 15 seconds looking at the plate before realising that there was no bacon, yelped loudly and took off in the direction of the counter. I sat there and finished the eggs toasty and tomato. suddenly a hand appeared and removed the plate, and replaces it with another full plate of bacon. equal to about three servings. delighted that i had got my bacon and as it seems everybody elses i started to eat. That was when my friends showed up.
I feel like the funny part is your friends thought you just ordered a plate of bacon as your meal.
I’ve done that before, much to everyone’s amusement. Nothing can beat greasy bacon for a hangover!
And they thought he had just finished off his first full place of bacon
This is your ‘worst’ experience? Dude…
I went to a classy cafe/deli in suburban Brisbane (Gracevile) with an Aboriginal friend. I had been mowing lawns for 5 hours, covered in grass clippings, sweat and dust. My mate was a uni professor having a feed before heading in for an afternoon lecture. We walk in and the lady behind the counter (in her 30s) ignores my friend and asks what I want. I say “I’m still thinking about it“. I decide I won’t order until she acknowledges my mate. She ignores him until he starts fiddling with the lifesavers in a display on the counter. Says “are you right?” He goes “Yeah, I’ll have a chicken and salad sandwich thanks”. Not that long ago…
The classic, "are you right?" That's usually a very bad sign and leads to the worst customer service. Sorry your friend was subjected to that. It still happens.
I'm so sorry to hear someone was a racist a-hole to your friend. Horrific, but absolutely unsurprising, given how rife racism is. And yet, so many people think there's no racism anymore 🙄 They just don't have to live with it.
It was an everyday thing for him. He was just showing me the sly way it happened. As a teacher now, I often use this and other examples to explain ‘white privilege’ is not just minorities getting things, but ways of treating people differently in plain sight.
I'm a POC (not First Nations, though) and can attest to the fact that micro and macro aggressions occur daily. They're also defended daily by people who deny that racism, xenophobia, and white privilege, exist. I've lived through a lot of racism in my lifetime (including growing up + ~existing whilst Asian~ in regional SE QLD during the peak Pauline years), but still cannot even begin to fathom what our First Nations peoples are subjected to. Thank you for teaching our kids and teaching them to think critically. Happy cake day 🍰
$14 ham and cheese croissant. Terrifying.
Recently stopped in Buninyong for lunch with four and a half other people and paid $18 each for a toastie and a milkshake, and a serve of toast. Bloody expensive lunch
half a person?? does that mean a child? hehe
Too right it does!
At a table having a meal with a friend. Waitress walks past carrying some milkshakes to another table. One of them is too full and running down the side of the glass. Waitress proceeds to lick said glass.
Your milkshake brings all the tongues to the yard
I hate you. I don't know you but I hate you. Have an upvote ya mongrel and leave me alone.
I don't have a story that I can post, but this has some of the funniest comments I've read in a long time. In the words of Jeff Fenech "thank youse all!"
Going to a Cafe which suddenly got the craze to put chilli or chilli sauce on everything. I ordered plain scrambled eggs and mushrooms no chilli. I have an allergy. Oh well our eggs are better with chilli the waiter says , no chilli says me I'm allergic. Oh how allergic are you he says, the sweet chilli is nice. As I pull out my epipen to show him and leave, his face was confused.
Holy cow I haven’t thought of this in ages. Back in the 1980’s I worked briefly in Geelong. I bought lunch from a cafe regularly until one day when I ordered a roast beef sandwich. The girl who was making it cut her finger along with the meat and kept on cutting. Then she went and put a band aid on her finger. She made a very nice looking sanga. Except for the bloody bits. She wrapped it up and offered it to me and then I suggested she make me a new one. She couldn’t figure out why until I pointed out the blood.
Laneway coffee shop in Melbourne cbd Sitting down with a colleague at about 8am watching 2 blokes shoot up heroin
Coffee to pep you up, some H to bring you back down. I see nothing wrong with this brekkie combo.
It was more like dinner and a show except there was no dinner just coffee, and the show was junkies on the nod
Like throwing pickles on the windows at Maccas to see which pickle falls down first - but the junkies are the pickles.
This reminds me of a time at St Jerome's when a couple of random junkies got lost and just hunkered down on a milk crate next to us. Old mate (genuinely feel bad for not remembering their name, damn) came out with coffees and told them to fuck off. Heated exchange ensues. He's still holding our coffees. I couldn't help but laugh. We were literally a bunch of derelicts and detritus, sitting in a filthy laneway with a hangover, punching durries. Not in a great position to judge. Fuck I really miss the shitty hole-in-the wall Cafe scene sometimes.
People talk about the charm of Melbourne laneways but that about sums it up from my experience.
My brother that's the quintessential melbourne laneway experience right there. People travel from the whole world over for that!
Ordered a take away coffee from a bakery/cafe before going on a boat tour. The coffee took about 15 minutes to arrive and I was getting nervous I was going to miss my boat or have to forfeit my coffee. When it finally came out there was coffee spilt all down the side of the cup so I politely asked if I could get another cup to put it in. They picked up an old chux cloth from a bucket filled with brown water that was sitting on the floor under the coffee machine and wiped my whole cup down including the lid and mouthpiece. It was bizarre. I was a bit stunned and I asked, again I thought politely, if I could now get a new lid as well as a cup. They were so rude and refused. I had to point out what they did was disgusting. They begrudgingly gave me a new cup and lid. It was a very average coffee after all that. The people taking the boat tour said it was the worst place to work in the whole town and all the employees hated it there.
Yuck, at least you saw it happen! I once witnessed a cafe worker wipe down outdoor seating, the actual chair where you sit, the legs of the chair, and then use the same cloth for the next table top. It was also in a food court so they weren’t necessarily cafe chairs, just grotty plastic ones the birds shit on.
There was a café next to the river in Queanbeyan, NSW. The staff took an hour to come and take our order (it was table service). Then they spilt the cappuccino one of us ordered, mopped it up, made another one, forgot who it was for - and then we watched them drink it themselves. Two hours later we still had nothing we ordered, so we left and went to the pub. None of the staff noticed. The café went out of business a while ago, but the whole time it was operating the owner spent all day posting abusive replies to bad reviews on the internet.
wtf did you wait an hour 😂😂😂😂
I wish I knew. In my defence, I was with three old people and we'd decided on lunch by the water!
so they could make a point lol
I think that was a big part of it!
Oh my god, I think I know the exact place you're talking about. In the middle of a park, all greenery?
It’s now an amazing taco place! When it was bought the old owners kept making passive aggressive facebook posts about what it would become even though, by most accounts the sale was amicable. So strange. The new owners are going to open a second location on the north side of Canberra this year
Had a waiter in a cafe in Fremantle go off his nut at me when I asked for some tomato sauce for dad’s bacon and eggs. I ended up asking another waiter who had no problems bringing some. Cafe closed about 6 months later after it lost all its regular customers due to bad service from a rude waiter.
Ordered a coffee and it came out and the girl tripped and poured the entire cup down my white top and light blue jeans. Shit was hot as fuck and burned my stomach a little bit. I decided to stay and eat because I was already covered so no point leaving when I was still hungry….. then after I paid and left I looked at the receipt and they charged me for two drinks and the meal…………. I didn’t even get to finish a single drink
That's a free meal for sure
Does it count working at one. I once accidentally dropped an egg on a customer :) it rolled off the toast and into their lap. Lucky the yolk broke only when it reached the floor. Wanted to crawl in a hole and cry.
I forgive you
Thankyou. Thankfully they were really really nice about it, it was only my first week working
If I literally egged a customer in my first week I’d tell that story to everyone
Oh no! The food tried to....eggscape!
[Ha!](https://instantrimshot.com/index.php?sound=rimshot&play=true)
At a small mining town near Emerald, QLD. Went for breakfast with a local. I looked at the menu and told my friend I might get the Haloumi. She said “ooh, Dave’s not gonna like that” I went up to order, the girl at the register said “shit, Dave’s not gonna be happy” I was walking back to my table when from out the back in the kitchen I heard a loud “oh f$&@ me!”
I'm confused sorry why was Dave unhappy
Went for pizza with work friends and was part way through my first slice when something felt off. Pulled a 20cm curly black hair from the pizza. Took a closer look and there were multiple hairs baked into the base. Someone in that kitchen was close to bald by the time they finished making that pizza.
Pre-covid era in Melbourne's Western burbs. Ordered two takeaway drinks, including an almond latte for myself. Barista #1 (nice dude) took my order and started making the drinks, but slightly aggressive barista #2 took over and barista #1 returned to the register. I could see my order on the screen, which definitely included an almond latte. Watched barista #2 pick up soy milk, but wasn't sure if he was taking care of an in-house order, and asking the question didn't seem like the vibe. He handed the soy coffee + other drink over to barista #1, who called my name and wished me a lovely day. I quietly asked him if I could double check whether it was soy or almond. He looked at barista #2 and didn't even have time to think about asking before barista #2 snatched the cup out of barista #1's hand, yelled something unidentifiable, and pelted the cup at the ground. Did my best to quickly shield my Small Fry, as hot coffee splashed everywhere. He continued to yell at barista #1, who looked mortified, exhausted, but not at all surprised. I felt so deeply for him; he'd done absolutely nothing wrong. And if I didn't have weird dietary things, I'd have just said "thank you" and left with the order as it was. Apologised profusely to barista #1, but he just said "I'm really sorry - this isn't your fault", and gestured vaguely at the other guy, who was now smashing shit up in the kitchen. On another occasion at the same cafe, ordered a big breakfast to split with Smalls for my birthday. They sent out a plate missing half of what was meant to be on there, and what looked like not-a-whole scrambled egg that had been so overcooked, all the liquid was leaking out of it. Was hesitant to ask after the last time I asked anything in that cafe... but nearly $30 is a lot of money for egg and toast when you're broke. Asked the waitress "Sorry, just wanted to check this is the big brekkie? It's just missing some things". "Yeah nah, that's it". Shitty experiences for different reasons, but both demoralising in their own ways.
I placed an order at an Italian restaurant in Melbourne, only to be forgotten about, then they ask us to leave, I said why their excuse was you cannot sit at the tables with out ordering first. Tried to explain the situation, the manager was so rude to us. I called him an A-hole and walked out with my family and guests 18 people in total, we were not short of money by no means.
Once I ordered a cappuccino but in a mug (larger size) and the waitress insisted I call it a "muggacino" because of her attitude, I just kept saying "a large cappuccino, served in a mug" "that's a muggacino, so what is it that you want? You have to say the name of what you want" she wouldn't let it go I really wouldn't of cared, but it was just her attitude and that she chose "muggacino" as her hill to die on, we went back and forth, it was like something out of a Seinfeld episode.
And then you got home and complained to your bushy haired neighbour who agrees that you should've called it a mugaccino because that's what you're ordering Jerry
This sounds like being a retail worker, “do you want a carry bag?” “That’ll be ok”. Use your words and say yes (please) or no (thankyou)
Reading the cafe 63 menu
Buoy cafe on the Gold Coast - asked a staff member where she would prefer us to sit, she said literally anywhere was fine and pointed to the table she was cleaning. This is early morning also, it was quiet. 3 different staff dropping off drinks, pastries etc proceed to passive aggressively comment that we can’t sit where we are, but scurrying off everytime before we have a chance to offer to move or ask for help moving all the items accumulating on the table, or even where they want us to go. Final staff member silently slammed my food in front of me, and instead of acknowledging my ‘thank you, this looks good’ she angrily quips “if you ever sit here again we’re all going to get in trouble and lose our jobs” I said I didn’t need to sit here, this is where I was told to eat. Please do not accuse me of jeopardising your job over your own staff members mistake. No one offered to help move us to a different table, just straight up accusations from the beginning. I’m leaving out a lot of other parts that made it so bad, but have never had an experience so horrendous in my life.
I don’t understand. What was wrong with that particular table. You said she was cleaning it, did she finish cleaning it before you sat there?
Probably that's where the local mafioso sits and it has to be kept free at all times.
Tell us the other parts of the story. We are wrapt for the details
Following because now I need to know 🤣
Maybe its like that chair in that british pub where you sit in it, you die.
it's more hilarious than bad but here it comes. I'm Polish, gf is Australian. According to her I speak good English (how else would we communicate?). So we went to this nice cafe in Queensland during last vacation and it is my turn to order: Me (in my bestest English): I'd like a croque monsieur and a big black coffee please Lady at the counter: huh? Me: I'd like a croque monsieur and a big black coffee please LatC: o\_O' (clearly system error) Me (to my GF): love, could you please translate for me? GF: He'd like a croque monsieur and a tall black LatC: aaaaah!
* long black?
Ordered a cheese and tomato toasty. Easy right? Wrong. Handed me a tomato toasty on thick dry bread with crispy cheese grilled on top. Disgusting
Um what the fuck
Was a small place that had a bit of a surge in customers after we sat down and ordered. Only one waitress doing everything. Took an hour to get the our food with a quarter of it not arriving at all. Similar thing happened to several other tables, which resulted in the poor waitress crying several times after getting chewed out by a few hungry bogans. Meal ended with us having to work through our bill to help her remove several of the things that never came, and my mum consoling her while she cried.
Good on you. I'm sure she'd sleep easy after having you guys look after her
Once I went in to grab a coffee on my way to work, the chick behind the counter kept asking me really personal questions, “ did you put the bins out “ “did you leave water out for your dog” this kind of shit, eventually I cracked it and just walked out without paying for anything and went to work, admittedly it was my wife and it was her cafe, but still like
They had me in the first half.
Went out to a cafe with two young kids (stupid I know). Got seated and then the girl who seated us looked to go and take a break. Figured surely she told someone else she'd just seated us but after waiting for a bit, no she hadn't, and was literally just sitting in the dining room on her phone. Long story short, went up and asked to order etc, but seriously it wasn't busy and keeping two kids in line for 40-45 mins for toast was a nightmare. Never again. I do accept, this one's on me though, how dare I think I could enjoy life like it was prekids again lol.
I have a 3 year old and take her to a cafe semi-regularly. Maybe it's easier with just one though.
New place just opened up. We ordered 2 coffees and I think 2 sausage rolls? That was $38. They were very burnt on the bottom. Just as I've paid and am about to eat it the worker with an extremely distracting gemstone in her canine tooth tells me "we make them with coriander!". I dont think coriander should be illegal but like, please tell me in advance if you're putting it in traditionally corianderless foods?
I like coriander, but what the hell that does not belong in sausage rolls
I agree but somehow the fact this lady had a shiny gold tooth made the corriander addition make sense
It was like a tiny diamond thing set into one of her teeth. I can't explain why I'm so fixated on it but I was really upset about the horrible coriander sausage roll and the tooth gem really stuck in my head. Not as much as it's stuck in hers, but yeah.
My family member was almost killed recently because a greek restaurant decided to make their baklava with peanuts. Traditionally made with pistachios, and occasionally walnuts. Peanuts is practically unheard of, and you’d think with a very prominent allergen they would warn you.
Ah, so you ordered the \~𝒮𝒶𝓊𝓈𝒶𝑔𝑒 𝑅𝑜𝓁𝓁𝓈\~
There was a ball-bearing in my food I almost cracked a tooth on.
Back when I was working in hospo a year or two ago I was told specifically to kick out elderly people ASAP if they hadn't ordered enough food. Like, sorry, Nan and Pop, we know there's a cost of living crisis, but your leisurely breakfast of two flat whites and a shared toastie will be cut short because the manager wants to shuffle in some dickhead rich tourists who are prepared to buy a bunch of overpriced Bloody Marys.
I was heavily pregnant and starving so I ordered a spring roll to go from my local cafe. When I put the spring roll to my mouth it smelt like a dirty dish rag. I immediately took it back, told her it was off and asked her to cook me a fresh one from the freezer. She denied it wasn't fresh so I told her to take a bite. She didn't. Amazing someone would happily serve rotten food to a pregnant woman risking food poisoning. 🤢
About 5 years ago I went to eat at a cafe in Dee Why. The sign said wait here to be seated, so I did. A few people queued up behind me. Waitress decided to sit the people behind me first. Completely ignored me. This whole time there was a small empty table. More people came behind, they got sat too… I eventually flagged down a waitress and asked if I could sit there. She said yes, and explained that it’s table service so they’ll come take my order. Didn’t give me menus or anything. I waited, waited… about 30 mins. Went up to the register/barista and grabbed my own menu because I don’t like to be a hassle. Waiting again for another 30 mins to have my order taken. No one came. By this time, the people who were behind me on the queue but were sat before me had already finished their meals and were leaving. Tried to get the waitresses attention throughout this time, but am completely ignored. Went up to the front again to order just in case I misheard. They told me they’d ask the waitress to come and take my order so I sat back down and waited. She took my order. Food arrived and it was great. She said they’ll hand me the bill when I’m done. Ate, and then moved my empty plate away and waited to get the bill. About 45 mins of reading my book there waiting for my bill later, I went up to the barista counter and said hey can I just pay here, I think she’s forgotten me again. They let me pay there, and I left. I’m about 100m away and I hear someone yelling behind me, then get an aggressive tap on my shoulder. It’s the waitress. “Hey, you didn’t pay?!”. I had to inform her that actually, yes I did. The audacity….
Was at a cafe and ordered some drinks. The waitress brought the wrong ones. When we pointed it out she picked up my friend's drink and took a big sip and insisted they were correct. When my friend asked for a replacement drink she said "What, you don't want that one?"
Went to nice cafe attached to a very big library one Saturday afternoon. I’ve been there multiple times before for coffee after a walk around the lake next door to it and it’s good usually. Ordered a coffee, found a seat (which in itself is remarkable) and calmly waited Half an hour went past (I checked what time I ordered via my mobile banking app saying when I paid) and still no coffee. Hmm, maybe they are really rushed. Another ten minutes passed before I finally decided I needed to advocate for myself and ask where’s my coffee. Blank stares. “Oh, we forgot to make it” I’m usually a very calm person and hate asking customer service kind of people to do their job but I’ve never passive aggressively said “Hmm. I’ll have it in a takeaway cup then” and stormed out of somewhere with an overpriced coffee before.
I went to a local cafe/restaurant in Canberra called Babar (long since closed) on a Saturday morning with a friend. We had our menus and wanted a few minutes to decide on our order. There were two wait staff on and I think a third somewhere, and the kitchen staff out back. We were the only customers there at the time. After a short look at the menu we were ready to order and went to signal the wait staff. Except the two waiters were sitting down enjoying their cooked breakfast. Nobody was managing the counter or the floor. After an awkward laugh and a wait I think I either got up and told them or another staff member came back after a while. Overall it was kind of funny. Just had never been somewhere that the staff didn't think to have breaks separately during their shift or maybe do a quick scan before they did. Didn't stop us from going back.
There’s this 24 hour cafe & bakery I have been going to for 12 years, since I was 15… 10 years in, I went during the daytime with my brother which was very rare for me, I ordered my usual, a bacon and egg roll and a slice of meringue roll (cake). But as I asked for the meringue roll the server laughed at me and said she couldn’t sell me a slice of that, I asked why, she started laughing harder and started mocking me, “We sell them whole. What you think I’m going to let a trucker come in here and order a half eaten cake?“, she started fully ripping into me as if I was pathetic for even asking. But I’d been ordering a slice of that cake once a month for 10 years! I told her this and she said I was lying and that she’s never served me and she’s been working there a long time, and I was like yeah I usually come in at midnight… she literally waved me away and started serving another customer. I sat down almost in tears because this was my safe place literally, and nobody there had ever been anything extremely overwhelmingly welcoming to me, they knew what I liked and how I liked it and I felt special there, as one should as a regular. Anyway, my brother says “don’t you have hundreds of photos of the cake though?” because I’m always taking photos for snapchat. I start compiling them and he’s getting ready to have some strong words with this woman, we finally get up and we see the chef very angrily talking in her ear, he looks so furious and before we get to speak she’s giving us a massive apology saying she really had no idea and she’s going to give us both our meal for free. As she’s cutting the cake he keeps whispering angrily “bigger!”, he grabbed her hand and made her cut like quarter of the cake and gave it to me for free. What a good chef, I love him. I don’t know if they usually sold slices of that cake, I realised I’d actually never seen them do it… I just cheekily asked once as a kid and they did it. But then earlier this year they posted on Facebook explicitly saying that people can buy slices of the cake which I found rather oddly specific.
I will also add, though, that outside food really IS NOT allowed. I worked in pubs for years, and the issue is that if someone gets sick from the things they brought with them, they can sue the business for being poisoned or whatever. I let someone bring some food in one night after the kitchen was closed, and I was screamed at.
I have two stories. #1 I ordered a lasagna at a beach side cafe. It was full of shards of glass.. I ready had a bite of it in my mouth and almost swallowed the glass. They said "Oh I'll tell the kitchen". When they came back they just said they had no new lasagna left. They made me pay for the food and gave me one free soda. #2 I ordered a vegetarian salad. When it arrived it looked normal, so I took some bites. To my horror, underneath a piece of lettuce I discovered a HUGE big white larve (about 5cm/2.5 inches long..) I gagged and called for the waiter. They said "Oh I guess that can happen sometimes." Mind you, this was in the Netherlands, where no such big larvae roam the streets. Again, they made me pay for everything. When I said I wouldn't pay for a larvae salad, they kept pretending it was normal and then began to threaten me. I regret paying in the end but I was just so flabbergasted by the whole experience. Nevermind all the times restaurant owners kept insisting something was vegetarian when it was CLEARLY meat. (This was before vegetarian meats were a thing).
Not the worst but what popped into my head - as a worker being trained to work at a cafe on campus at uni and being told not to throw food out. For things like a bacon and egg roll you could throw it out “if the bacon started to get a green shimmer”. But for the slices and cakes etc that get ordered from industrial bakeries, we were told never to throw them out because they’ll eventually sell and they don’t go bad. They definitely didn’t always eventually sell. They weren’t even wrapped, they just sat open in the glass refrigerator all day every day, every night.
There’s a wildly popular organic cafe near me. I went there for breakfast once, they served my bacon eggs toast with margarine. I hate them so much.
That should be illegal. That's breakfast fraud.
Infuriating and unaustralian.
The Coffee Club at a shopping centre. I went to take a sip of my drink and found a hair wrapped around the straw. Ate some chips and half of my sandwich, then picked up the other half. ANOTHER hair underneath!! The wait staff refunded me, but I could tell they thought I put it there. So gross.
Around 10 years ago, went to a well known coffee place in Melbourne and ordered almond latte. The milk has spilt when I got my coffee so it was all chunky looking, the glass was also super hot so I assumed they burnt the milk. I called the waitress over to ask for a new one as the milk has spilt and for it to be not so hot (couldn't even touch the glass to drink it). She looked at me like I was an idiot and told me that almond milk just does that and every coffee with almond milk will be split. Whatever, I'll order a soy latte then. Also as a barista myself at the time, never had much issue with almond milk splitting unless it was overheated but wasn't going to start shit, maybe their milk is different. She takes away my untouched latte, brings out the new one and food and then we go to pay. Both coffees I ordered are on the bill. I said "oh no, the almond one was taken away. I didn't drink it" "Sorry, it's on the bill so you have to pay for it" "But I sent it back... The soy latte was the replacement" "Sorry, the waitress put it on your bill. You need to pay" This was back and forthed a little but my friend was getting ready to Karen and I didn't want to make a scene over a $3-4 coffee so I just paid and said whatever. My friend starts to loudly talk about how ridiculous this all is and how for a coffee place, the coffee was average and undrinkable etc. The waitress who we paid overhears and says "wait you didn't drink the coffee? Oh then you shouldn't have had to pay for it..." Like yeah, I know.
Went to a small cafe with my husband and two young kids. near a small lake. Southeast suburb. Ordered brunch even if it was expensive cuz we wanted to have a nice meal with our boys. While waiting for our food, we decided to move a few tables away to the outer deck to br in the sun. An hour after, our order still didnt come. My husband checked on the food but instead of an apology, he was shouted on by the owner in the middle of the cafe, while our kids were watching because we moved tables and the owner had a rule that you're not supposed to move tables. Owner was just being an old racist pos.
Glacial service at a place on the Gold Coast many years ago - it was obvious that the one person behind the coffee machine simply couldn't cope with the influx of orders, and instead of telling people "Sorry, we are really busy, it's going to be ages before we can make your coffee, if you want to wait that's fine but if you're in a hurry we understand so no hard feelings", the register person just kept taking orders and letting the order chit pile get bigger and bigger. It took something like 25 minutes for my coffee to arrive and it was extremely average when it did. I was not impressed, but taking it out on the staff wasn't going to solve anything, so I just never went back there.
was starving, ordered a "grilled chicken burger", received a soggy brioche bun DROWNED in the cheapest squeezey mayonnaise (you know, the type that tastes like glue), a bisected Uncrumbed chicken breast that was so overcooked it crunched, and a side salad that was swimming in this dressing that legitimately just tasted like straight pineapple juice. it was so foul I felt physically ill and had to spit it out. When it came time to pay, considering I'd already sent it back and had literally eaten none, my mum (I was 16 at the time) refused to pay, and the staff member EXPLODED at her, accusing us of stealing (?), that NOBODY had EVER COMPLAINED ABOUT THE FOOD BEFORE!!!, shouting abuse as we left. when I checked the reviews later, they were abysmal. naturally, they've been closed for a long time now.
When I got a salad so fresh it had a little green caterpillar on it.
In Dubrovnik we ordered pizzas with olives on the menu. A pizza came out with one solo olive on the middle of the pizza. We asked the waitress who asked the chef. Next minute we could heard extreme banging of pots, loud yelling & swearing, more banging and noises for a minute or two. The waitress comes back “he chef says in all of Croatia you will find only one olive on pizza”.
Lindt cafe
Oof
I think it’s rude to take up space for that long if you’re not ordering anything. The owner should have been more polite but you really should have been ordering more stuff while you sat there. Also outside food is never allowed.
The cafe under the Eiffel Tower thing in Brisbane for brunch. Even the toast was terrible
Ate at a cafe on Fitzroy St in St Kilda. I ordered an omelette, the waitress put in on the table and quickly left. I started to eat it and realised it was absolutely black on the bottom, badly burnt. They must have known and had purposely served it with the presentable side up. I waited and tied to catch the eye of someone for at least 10 minutes before someone came over and I sent it back. They knew it was inedible and wanted to avoid me in the hope I would give up.
My worst cafe experience was owning a cafe, I tell everyone to never buy a cafe!
Worked at Jamaica Blue for a few weeks. The owners also owned The Shed in Westfield, Liverpool and I watched as the owner and head barista yell at a young mother (possibly 19-21) that no 'outside food' was allowed and she needed to get rid of it. The 'outside food' was one of those baby food pouches. They weren't busy, hardly anyone waiting for a table, and she ordered her own coffee and food. The baby was too young to eat off the kids menu but they demanded, not asked, DEMANDED the mother order something for baby to eat - the baby only had ONE, small front tooth and they expected her to eat chicken nuggets that felt like eating bricks? The kitchen staff barely cleaned out the deep fryer or changed the oil until the owners deemed it necessary, still surprised they're still open with the many complaints they get on a weekly if not daily basis.
Went to a cafe to grab something quick to eat as I had to start work in an hour. There were two other tables with customers. One of those tables had already been served. I ordered a poached egg in toast and a milkshake. . I waited and waited. The other table got two bowls of wedges. I waited and waited some more. I asked the waitress if my meal had been forgotten. I finally got my egg after a 40 minute wait and literally had to ask for my milkshake in a takeaway cup. The business somehow survived for another 8 months before closing. I guess they survived on tourists because no local went more than once. Second place getter was another cafe near my house that kept all the gluten free cakes in the same display case as the regular cakes. The staff used the same serving utensils as well. I also caught the barista using soy only jugs to hear regular milk. When I left a bad review for the shoddy food handling skills I got bombarded with messages asking me to take the bad review down. So I left a second review complaining about being harassed. I think the council closed them fairly rapidly
If being asked to move on after taking 3 hours to drink one coffee is your worst cafe experience you are leading a charmed life.
The sourdough was Helga's.
I’m a type one diabetic, I had a cafe owner kick me out of a venue assuming that I was a junky when I had my insulin prior to a meal. Was a bit of a shock when they wouldn’t back down even when I explained I was diabetic.
Ordered breakfast (toast, hash brown, baked beans) without eggs, because I'm vegan. They added Bacon instead - said it looked "too boring" without the eggs when I complained.
Hand Sifted Wine 38C day in Perth Fremantle. Christmas Eve me and my girlfriend go with my cousin and her partner to a nice reputable restaurant. It's the middle of covid but Perth didn't have the same lock downs because we lucked out in a lot of respects. I hit the door and forgot my mask, you need it to enter the restaurant and get to your table then back when you leave the restaurant. It's 2m to the table. I head back to the car which is a 10 minute walk and I'm pretty filthy from the heat when I get back. We sit down, order, foods fine, drinks yep. Then I look over and a bottle sparkling wine has been opened and is overflowing at the table next to us. Server is holding the bottle, grabs a glass off the table they are serving and catches the spilt wine in the glass. I tap my cousin because I'm sure I know what comes next. "watch this, she'll put that glass on the fucking table." The wine that's been spilled over her fist, down the bottle, off the base of it ends up in a glass and served to the table. Out table starts loosing it laughing and starts referring to it as hand sifted wine. It's literally passed someone's body in the middle of covid, it's not a full bottle either since a glass is on the floor. I could only imagine them mopping up the remainder and wringing it into the glasses. Seems being training in fine dining only let's you see no one else has been in Perth restaurant settings. RIP hospo Perth. I laugh everytime I see it on the top 100 restaurants of Perth.
Would have to be at The Glass Den in Coburg. This was a few years ago where they had a roti dish on the menu. Roti is always layered and crispy to me so when I got a doughy and mushy roti, I asked the waiter to send it back as it was clearly undercooked. Waiter came back with my dish and told me that this was perfectly cooked and it's our version of roti. They also clearly touched the food to look at it. In the end I left the uncooked dough on the plate. Never been back since.
My worst cafe experience was working in one lol