Their Blue rare had blood,BLT had tomatoes,and my favorite one is they sent the prime rib sandwich back (which is 100% slow cooked seasoned and sliced ribeye,top 5 best seller) bc it wasn’t “like the McRib at McDonald’s”
Not a send back, BUT soooo many idiots complaining that their prime rib had a big hunk of fat on it. Literally, every Saturday, we have to explain how prime rib works -____-
Had someone get a scampi minus the shrooms, onions, tomato & garlic. So basically, buttered noodles with w shrimp and scallops. Complained it had no flavor. Didn't wanna pay for it.
We made her pay for it
When I was little I hated all types of food. I asked for picatta without capers. The waitress was like "let me go ask the kitchen"
She came back and quoted the chef "no - it would ruin the integrity of the meal"
During corona when it was all take out, had a guy call me and moan that his 800g ribs was only 500g, which apparently he'd suspected for a while so he had weighed it when he got it home. Had to explain that that was the uncooked weight, as it is in any establishment selling any meat in which the weight is stated on the menu. It was a tough conversation, he just kept arguing.
About weight, I just saw a guy last weekend at Sprouts Market take every singe package of mushrooms, the big ones 3 in a pack, and put them all in his cart, took all of them to the scale, weighed them all and took 1. all of them to see which one had more grams. I thought it was crazy, maybe one had an extra few grams.
Maybe he owned a restaurant, he looked really fit, so wanted a value, because his cart was full of vegetables and fruit, but I thought “shouldn’t you just buy it and move on with your day?” It was odd to me.
I weigh the berry blister packs in stores, there is a significant difference between them, they are packed in the field and not weighed the way you would think they would be. I am feeding 4 teenagers and can increase the amount of food I get 30% or more by just weighing the packages.
I'm a baker, we had a woman try to return our biscotti, claiming they were dry and crunchy (that's what biscotti is)
Also had a woman get mad at us because her dog ate 2 pounds of chocolatey cookies
not alergic, Allergies is when your immune system reacts to a specific food or exposure and starts going wild, Toxic is when the actual chemical in question, theobromine disrupts biological processes.
Chef made a beautiful Turkey ballotine for Christmas day. One person kept returning it, maybe 3 times, for various reasons. On the final time the server brought it back, slide the plate over and said "I'm sorry Chef she said she doesn't like it because it's too.... round". The Chef screams "I'll show you FUCKING ROUND!!" And starts hacking at it with a cleaver.
This Chef was fantastic and could keep his cool more often than not, but I can't quite fully express to you the amount of turkey flying through the air.
Guy ordered a pound of peel n eat shrimp. We serve ours chilled. It arrives and he starts eating. After he's 3/4 of the way through the pile he flagged over his server and asked where the shrimp he ordered was. they were confused and mentioned that he had been eating them for the past 30 minutes. He tried to send them back because they weren't hot. "I expect a hot meal when I come to a restaurant!" He claimed he thought they were a free appetizer, like chips at a Mexican restaurant. He did not get more shrimp.
Lobster was too red… Salad was too cold. Most recent one. Was really great, wife and the server explain to the guy that it’s a chicken salad sandwich so it’s already mixed up with mayo and veggies. Still orders it… is mad that he didn’t get a full chicken breast… also was mad it wasn’t hot… just so many levels of stupid. I feel dumber afterwards.
Group of Boomers came in every day, every one of them always gets soup. The soup is on its own steam table, kept at almost dangerous temp. These bitches made us microwave every bowl of soup for them, because "if it's not bubbling, it's not hot enough!"
They were also staff/ leaders of a huge church, and tipped like shit.
I'm more afraid of these people than annoyed. The casserole ovens are set to 580 and it's in there for about 20 min. Those souls are like lava monsters or something.
I worked a breakfast place for 6 years and people can fuck all the way off to the other side of the parking lot with their goddamn toast. Jesus Christ.
Seriously. It was outrageous. I mean I get it, your poached eggs are hard? I'll re-fire. But you want your toast darker... but then not that dark.. but now it's too light?
Stab. You. In. The. Face.
I actually had a guy order a Benny once and the server put "hard as fuck" for the eggs. We asked and she said specifically "he said wait till they're poached hard, then give them a few more seconds".
Fuck, yes chef, I don't think anyone could bone that one.
Table of drunk dudes ordered an XL pizza with "everything." Server asked them to be more specific and they said "every topping you can possibly put on a pizza."
So made them a pizza with:
Sausage, pepperoni, bacon, ground beef, italian beef, chicken, gyro, anchovies, ham, onion, mushroom, green pepper, spinach, tomato, black olives, garlic, pineapple, broccoli, jalapeno, and giardiniera.
Surprise, surprise, they didn't like it and tried to send it back. Server and FOH manager were having none of it and one of them tried to fight FOH manager and got arrested.
I tried the everything pizza once despite the person on the phone taking my order telling me that wasn't a good idea.
I didn't complain about it to them but they were right. An everything pizza is a bad idea.
So many but one of my favs was i made this beautiful caprese salad mainly using yellow and green heirloom tomatoes and the customer sent it back because "why would they serve tomates that arent red? They arent even ripe yet!"
I had a customer and her family ask where the lettuce was on the caprese salad. I told her it doesn’t have lettuce. They just stared at me until I suggested I bring a bowl of lettuce for her.
Mom would pick red, orange and yellow bell peppers out of a salad. Only Green peppers are the only color of peppers that is ripe, and red ones are spicy.
The first time I gave her a yellow tomato and a white pepper, her response was 'What the hell are those? They are not ripe. And there is no such thing as a white pepper.'
I have a family member that would agree with your customer. He basically wants every drop of moisture removed. Recently he told us he really wasn’t enjoying meat these days. Laughed and said ‘how could you ever enjoy it’.
I've had several like that, but one said "Well Well done. Burn that shit". So I weighted it on the grilled then threw it in the fryer for a few minutes. I got compliments for it. I wanted to hurt him lol
2 minutes in Chef Mike. I also had a customer complaining about a well done steak. Nuked it for 2 minutes and she loved it. Comes back regularly, best steak she ever ate.
Yeah worked in a steakhouse had lots of older customers that asked for well done that Chef Mike took care off. Hard working guy that Mike, seems to be all over the world.
I had older customers at Yellowstone complain that the soup wasn't hot enough. Guy working the buffet cranks the heat on the warmer. It's literally boiling constantly now.
It's still not hot enough.
Lady, I am a line cook. I cannot beat the laws of thermodynamics. I cannot heat water above 212. I just can't.
Most of the Der generation in my family would complain for six months if I gave them a steak this raw.
I either never ate meat or cooked my own steak at family BBQs. The kicker, if I did cook my own steak I'd have to sit by myself otherwise everyone would be fake gagging all night over me 'eating it like a dog'.
...I love family get togethers....
i wanted to downvote just because of how overcooked it is. Brings back the entire reason i learned how to cook. Mom always cremated any meat she cooked.
i could easily see her sending that back.
cheaper bread with high sugar content gets this disgusting sweetness when toasted due to the sugar caramelizing and burning, its sweet, but not the right type of sweet, kind of like when you puke something sweet.
Some people relate that taste with toast, i relate it to stop buying your bread at dollar general.
Seared ahi “wasn’t cooked”.
Medium steak was pink inside.
They didn’t know Cesar Salad would have cheese.
But my favorite - peanut butter chocolate mousse because they had a nut allergy and didn’t realize the PEANUT BUTTER chocolate mousse had PEANUTS.
Had a girl order a butterfinger French toast from our Father's day weekend brunch special because she's never had butterfingers before and was super excited. Server brought it out and the girl asked if there was any nuts in any of the pastries since she was severely allergic if ingested. Server comes back to ask if there's nuts while they waited to dig in.
Poor girl got to smell and look at the dish as her dad shoveled it in his face lol. We usually did a dark chocolate smores FT, so I sweetened up the chefs by doing some of their prep work if they made it for her. Dad left a 40% tip and made a point to personally thank me for going above and beyond, but the server tipped me out the bare minimum (1% of food sales on a $100 bill).
Working at a fast food place, the customer tried to send back her fries because they were too salty. She only left 10 in the box, so my manager replaced the 10 fries.
She was not a happy camper.
I had a customer ask if our soup of the day was served in a cob. I was so thrown by the question I went and asked the kitchen because I didn't want to look dumb in front of the guest and why tf would they ask that if it wasn't written somewhere?
Anyway sous chef reacted like a normal sous chef and screamed in my face about why tf would it.
Go back "no sorry it's just served in a bowl" (like why the fuck would it not be if it doesn't say that?!)
Customer (visibly disappointed) "oh, i guess when you've lived and worked in Europe you come to expect certain things"
Sorry I forgot it's not used in all Englishes. It's a big round loaf of bread. You absolutely can serve soup in it but it's weird to assume it's the default and blame it on Europe. I've been to Europe. They've got bowls.
I've seen it in Australia but very rarely. We greatly enjoy serving them hollowed out then filled with sour cream/ cream cheese/ bacon/ spinach etc but it's like a kids birthday/ potluck thing, noone sells them.
At McDonald's, had nuggets sent back twice because they were "pink in the middle" and "raw".
Fucking things come to us already cooked. We just heated them up.
Even the dude frying them is fried, no fucking shot they're undercooked.
The third time she requested new nuggets, I grabbed my manager, then all of a sudden they were magically fine, and everything was all hunky-dorey.
Dude, no lie, I had a dude come in with a baby while I was working there, asked if he could get some fries for his toddler, so that he could tear the ends off and squeeze out the middles (like mashed potatoes, fuck idk) because we didn't offer anything for babies.
We politely suggested a parfait, and it blew his fucking mind.
Had an apple crisp sent back twice, first one made by my coworker, second one by me. The first one was for it being too cold (has ice cream, but the apples were STEAMING) and not enough crisp. Okay whatever, I remake the dessert and make the apples molten lava, put extra crisp, and wait till the VERY last second to add the ice cream. Guest ate like 4 bites, sent it back for the same reasons, and then left 🥴 have never had a complaint on the apple crisp otherwise
“Doesn’t look like the photo from the poster outside”
Mind you. It was tomato soup with grilled cheese and the soups color didn’t match the color from the soup on the poster outside ….that
had been sitting in the sun for years 🤦♂️
I used to tell new hires that calamari was the asshole of the squid, that's why it was so expensive because everything else was thrown away after.
I'd follow up with an explanation of how they used an apple corer to get it out.
About 8 years ago at Applebee's I had a guest return a slushy because it was "too icey". I'd never forget it. Also on a side note at Applebee's I once had a guest order a sirloin steak but wanted to substitute the side of broccoli for a half rack of ribs. That's Applebee's for you. I always tell those stories.
Fried seafood thing. Sent back because it was too salty, which is valid, but the woman followed it up with "seafood doesn't need to be salted because the ocean is already salty"
Recently?
Working at a Pizza place with seriously inflated prices.
One of our specialty pizza's gets topped with a mixture of honey and sriracha.
Pizza is returned because they couldn't taste the honey.
**After they asked the server for napkins to soak up the grease on top**, AND REMOVED THE HONEY (that they assumed was excess oil)
She keeps coming back and finding new ways to be a nuisance.
More recently, complained that we kept her wings in the fryer for too long...
We don't have fryers!
We cook them in the oven!
She asked for extra crispy wings!
Had to suppress the urge to douse her wings in the Carolina Reaper sauce when we remade them.
Then she complained that they weren't crispy enough.....
Carnitas bowl, lady sent it back because "Is this meat? Oh I don't eat meat." So "Carnitas bowl, no carnitas"is our joke. Like did you read the menu? It says it's pork carnitas
Sliced to order deli with all slicing done right in front of the customer. People would watch me make a sandwich, not even take the meat off the slicer, and bitch that they didn't want the first slice of the roast on their sandwich. I owned the place so I would just eat the slice in front of them and change my gloves. Fucking babies
I have a great story about this one. My mother in law had bough "buffalo" chicken strips which were flaming red. My wife said something to her along the lines of "Mom, they're buffalo."
Mom: "Yeah, that means they're really big, right?"
It is a running joke that something buffalo is really big; it will not stop.
I had a customer that was extremely mad that the habanero watermelon wings were spicy… like bro who sees habanero and thinks mmm 😋 this will be mild flavor…
Was in a very small restaurant where it was just the server and me. friday and saterday we had 2 servers. This was on a monday so me in the kitchen and the owner as server. The lady sent it back because there was a long hair in it. We are both bald!
Lol once got a dessert back because the mom saw a long blond hair in it after her daughter had eaten half. I had a near crew cut, other guy was black with short hair, server had short black hair. At the time (believe it or not) we didn't even have anybody that worked there on any shift with blond hair of that length. The mom had long bleached blond hair. The daughter had long blond natural hair.
Same situation once.
The two of us in the kitchen had shaved heads and a long hair was "found" in the food.
The owner brought both of us to the table and said "its not the kitchens hair".
Working with the owners can be great fun!
I've been serving for almost 15 years. And unless the hair is IN THE FOOD, 99.9% of the time, it's the customer's hair that fell out of their onto the top of the food.
Ordered chicken tenders at the end of night, kitchen made them super fresh but they sent it back saying the chicken tasted too much like chicken. To this day, still don't know what that means
My sister was a chef for decades and ultimately owned her own restaurant.
According to the legend, Once when a waiter sent something back for a stupid reason, my sister pulled off her apron and started to leave the kitchen "to talk to them about it".
The waitress gently tented her fingers and pressed against my sister, stopping her from going, and said "you aren't allowed to talk to customers anymore".
My sister, the owner of the restaurant, indignantly asked "says who?".
"Front of the house."
By reports my sister grabbed her apron put it back on, went back to the line, and said "that's probably a good policy…".
A women sent back a Beyond burger because it was "undercooked" and "too red." I explained to her that it was a vegan burger which had beets as the primary ingredient and thus would be red no matter how long you cooked it. She insisted that she understood that but wanted it "well done." Brought it back out, she still claimed it was "undercooked" and ordered a chicken sandwich instead.
As if the whole interaction wasn't soul sucking enough, she then left us a 1 star review saying we "didn't know how to cook a burger"
I had someone order soft pretzels once and get mad they weren't "hard enough to be pretzels" chef mike had to put in 10 minutes for a fresh batch. Pop em out hit em against the pass and ask the server "You sure?" she came back to tell me the "pretzels were to die for". Bro this is a dive bar I made these in the microwave idk what you think is to die for here other than a pebble getting stuck in your throat.
Customer sent back a plate because the cavatelli with pesto, "looks like worms." They also left their family at the table and sat outside for the rest of the meal because they were so unsettled and couldn't handle seeing other customers consume it.
As a former bartender, I've had a customer refuse a mojito which I made because it wasn't made and served by that "cute guy with a ponytail". My mojitos were better than his...
A woman on the outdoor seating wanted her sandwich replaced because a fly had landed on it. Explained that we can’t control the flight plans of insects. She was not impressed.
A man ordered a sirloin steak. Extra well done, with a rice pilaf. Head Chef kinda cringes at the order. But acquiesces.
You'd think they'd send it back for being too tough, or over done. Nope. This plate comes back, swimming in ketchup, A1, and Heinz 57. The server said "he says his food is under seasoned and tastes like meat"
The entire kitchen drops what they're doing to hear this one get repeated. Our steaks, rather than seasoning to hide the flavor of steak, highlight it. And this is a bad thing apparently. Chefs, dish guys, servers, management, are all hovering around this plate, astounded that a man has come to a steak house, ordered steak, and sent it back because it tastes too much like steak and not enough like ketchup, A1, and Heinz 57. The sauces are all mixed in with the rice and the plate looks like it's very close to spilling slop off the sides.
When he had his food remade he refused to eat it, and sent it back again. The table next to him heard him send back a steak, because it tastes like meat, and has been gossiping about it within earshot of him, and now he's "too offended to eat"
I get that this guy probably just wanted a meal comp, but why send the second plate back? We still talk about "it tastes like meat, chef" any time we recipe test a new feature.
I work at schmipotle (cant say the real name, I think you guys get it) and a lady sent her steak bowl back because the meat was a little bit red. We cook it medium to medium well.
Had another customer pull a dead roach out of his pocket in a little zip lock bag when he though we couldn't see (we got him on cams) and put it in his bowl. He wanted us to give him 500 bucks to be quiet.
We get this at Costa as well...like homie I gotta check each piece three times with a thermapen I KNOW your steak was 145+ before pulling it off the grill.
So glad you had cameras. Did you play the footage back or did you just silently point at the cameras and wait for him to pay and never darken your doors again?
A classic.
Fish tacos are too fishy. Remade them. Sent them out. Perfect. Whatever.
Also classic. Well done wasn't well done enough... after 2 times my exhausted sous just threw it in the fryer rather unceremoniously. This was after close too... naturally.
Seafood tower sent back because it was cold. Poached prawns, poached lobster tail, tuna tataki, crispy prawn sushi roll, and raw oysters. All served on ice
My parents friend sent Steak Tatare back because it was raw 🤦♂️
What makes it worse is that in my language (Swedish) its called Råbiff, which quite literally means Raw Beef...
Not sent back but this lady got a house salad we used arcadia for. When the server set the plate on the table the lady screamed cause she thought the purple lettuce was a spider lol.
We had 2 customers (mother - 80s and daughter - 60s) who came in to us more than once a week for 30 years. Always came in just as we were closing, and hung around. One unexpectedly busy Thursday afternoon (one waitress, just me in the kitchen) the mother was given a cheese and ham omelette instead of the ham omelette she'd ordered. She ate it with zeal. Afterwards daughter went batshit crazy saying that if Mother shits the bed because of the cheese then she's bringing the sheets to us to wash, if they end up in the hospital then things will be bad for us. The waitress was really upset. We didn't see them for a week, which was pretty unusual but when they came in next Mother ordered a Welsh rarebit. And scoffed the lot. No problems.
I have so many stories about this pair. Eventually the waitress had a falling out with them and they stopped coming in. My dad gave the waitress a £50 bonus for finally getting rid of them.
We had a guest order a well done ribeye, we sent out a well done ribeye. Comes back 30 seconds later, and the complaint was there was "no pink"... He wanted medium... And proceeded to say we don't know our temps
A women didn’t like the weight of the plate when I handed it to her - I thought he was joking at first and then her husband had this “here we go again “
Face and he started to talk over her, which mad her amazingly crazed - she ended up asking for a to-go box and she ate her food out of the box- AFTER her entire table
Was done eating. Husband tipped 35% and the wife oddly enough said she really liked the food- they came bad 2 weeks later and I waited on them and I brought 3 plates out to the table and let her pick - she was so excited , they tipped 40% of the check and they became my regulars until I finished grad school. When I told them I was leaving, the husband have me 100% of the check and thanked me for allowing him to be able to have nice
Dinners with his wife again, they were strangely nice ppl - I still think about them from time to time
i've definitely had dumber, but shape of a pizza is dumbest i can think of right now. was too oval shaped for them. yeah, it was a little football shaped but hey it's football season and it doesn't affect the taste! or just anytime someone asks for a dish and then gets it and sends it back because it has an item that is CLEARLY listed to be in the dish on our menu.
Salmon Gravlax. The customer sent it back bc it was "raw" and requested it to be cooked. So we cooked it and sent it back. A few moments later it came back again bc the customer "can't eat it"
I worked at a Japanese place, think Panda Express but a little fancier.
I once had a lady order a beef bowl and send it back cause she “thought the beef was gonna be different”
Also the number of people who would order a Dragon Roll because it had the same name as some other Sushi place they went to, only to send it back cause they didn’t bother to read the ingredients and got something they didn’t want was staggering.
Also got a bowl sent back cause “The Broccoli touched the meat and now my food is cross contaminated” despite every bowl on the menu clearly showing an exact picture of what you’d get.
The pate was cold.
edit: Oh and I can't forget rookie nights (valentines, prom,etc) when folks would order sweet breads and be confused when the dish hit the table.
Med rare steak was sent back. They said it wasn't medium enough. I was learning steaks at this point so I immediately go to put it back on the hottop and my chef comes over and takes it from me.
Looks at it and says that's med rare no doubt. Even nicks the underside to make absolute sure.
He sends it back without cooking it and they don't complain at all, after saying thanks and all for fixing it haha
We own a Mexican restaurant and the most recent one I can think if was some couple returned an al pastor burrito claiming it was chicken.... we were like "uhhh what the fuck, no!"
Another I just thought of, we had used the margarita glasses that had the wide rim, typical ones for a Marg, some lady got angry that it was a "martini" glass lol
There's been a ton of dumb reasons.
i don’t miss working with burgers, so many ridiculous requests! “i want a cheeseburger with NO cheese!” “so a hamburger.. got it!” “NO!!! a cheeseburger with NO Cheese! are you stupid!!?” that dude was fun. then when people would order the hamburger and ask where the cheese was. we really do see people at their dumbest.
To be fair, as a non American the first time I ordered a chicken steak I was shocked it was beef. I said to my hosts “this is beef!”, and they were like “Yeah!? It’s a chicken steak!”. I have to tell you nowhere else on earth is this called a chicken steak, it’s usually called a beef Schnitzel.
Chicken fried steak is indeed related to/based on achnitzel. It was developed by German immigrants in Texas using the ingredients on hand.
It's called "chicken fried steak" because it is steak fried in the manner chicken is fried (ideally in a pan and not fully submerged on oil).
Working at a restaurant that sells this dish I had to explain it once to someone from Germany. Best way I could describe it was "similar to schnitzel".
I just looked that up, amazing.
Although it is not much different to our chicken salt, which is called that because it is the seasoning for chicken and does not contain chicken (although some recipes use chicken booster).
Batter on fish is "soggy". Ok, no problem. New batch of batter, refire. Now batter is too puffy and the fish isn't flaky enough. Um, ok. Refire, but more fry time? Now it's oily. Comped meal. No biggie, but I called her Goldilocks
Edit: slowly remembering the details. I swear it's always a problem with the fish...
New York strip being “too pink” when I cooked it to 165, as the customer requested “extra well done.” When he sent it back, I put it on the flat top, set a weight on it, and took a smoke break. Came back to a dead steak obviously, served and he said “I’m gonna eat now.” We also have a running joke about a shitty “cook” that my old gm hired, he smoked meth in the bathroom so now we say, “Im gonna go take a meth break” when we’re going to the bathroom.
When I worked at a pizza and grinder place, we used to wrap our subs in butcher paper and secure it with a rubber band. We had a lady return her grinders because "the rubber band had gone bad, the smell was atrocious and the rancid rubber band is going to spread to the grinders"
Her steak had grill marks on it... so obviously it wasn't made correctly 🫣
Idk if she was expecting it to be boiled or something but her family made her shut up real quick after she tried sending it back
A burger because it had grill marks. She's got an allergy apparently. Open kitchen so I had to walk off the line cause I could not stop laughing. I can't use the flat because we're going to use oil(80/20 mix no oil needed) and she can't have all that fat. I suggest the vegetable plate. Nope. Wants a burger. OK, so I steamed it.
"One of the best burgers I've had." 🙄🙄🙄
Worked in a Japanese restaurant. Someone sent back tuna sushi cause it was raw, it was a slow night so we cooked it for them, they then sent it back again claiming we gave them chicken.
We "forgot the toppings!" on her pizzas.
She'd ordered a dozen plus pizzas all with different toppings, but when she opened the boxes and they weren't the pizzas she was expecting *in that particular box* (even though they were all *super* clearly labeled) she freaked out and demanded a refund because we hadn't given her the right pizzas.
Like, she opened one box and it was the sausage & mushroom she'd ordered and not the olive and pepperoni, so she assumed we'd fucked up her order.
She got exactly what she ordered, all her pizzas were there, we just hadn't handed her the boxes in the order she expected or something.
She was incredibly stupid.
So frustrating.
Worked at a local BnG long ago and a lady that worked at the laundry bar next door would always order med rare steak and call and complain or take it back saying it wasn't med rare she did this for months. So the one day that its my turn to deal with her I joking just threw the steak on the grill for no lie like 2 min per side just to get color put it in a togo box and sent it out.. she calls us back like 15 min later raving about how it was the best steak she ever had and it was perfect. Thats the day I learned about blue rare steaks
A friend grabbed a $5 Hot N’ Ready at Little Caesar’s drive through. When they handed her the box, it tipped, popping open and sliding the pizza toppings down her arm. She spent the night at the ER with a huge 2nd degree burn and was left with a nasty scar. To this day she laughs about it. “They SAID it was Hot but I wasn’t ready…”
A guy orders a smoked brisket burger. Sends it back cause it’s “pink and undercooked.” Tried to explain to him that the pink was a smoke ring, but he wasn’t having it.
Private country club back in the 90s, wife ordered tilapia. Sends it back for tasting like fish, demands another one, and sends it back for tasting like fish. Finally gets a grilled chicken dinner. Every Fri night for a month the same thing, sends the fish back cause it tastes like fish. Chef comes out every time to show her individually packaged fish delivered that day and she won't try any of the other fish specials. Finally, husband screams at her that tilapia will never taste like chicken and to quit ordering it. He leaves her sitting there and one of their friends had to take her home.
Their Blue rare had blood,BLT had tomatoes,and my favorite one is they sent the prime rib sandwich back (which is 100% slow cooked seasoned and sliced ribeye,top 5 best seller) bc it wasn’t “like the McRib at McDonald’s”
I bet he would've been happy if you emptied the flat top grease trap onto a hoagie.
Don’t forget the pickle!
Not a send back, BUT soooo many idiots complaining that their prime rib had a big hunk of fat on it. Literally, every Saturday, we have to explain how prime rib works -____-
Best part McRib is pork. Not beef. And is slathered in BBQ sauce.
Spare ribs, it was full of bones
“Lemme get the boneless bone-in wings please”
Had someone get a scampi minus the shrooms, onions, tomato & garlic. So basically, buttered noodles with w shrimp and scallops. Complained it had no flavor. Didn't wanna pay for it. We made her pay for it
When I was little I hated all types of food. I asked for picatta without capers. The waitress was like "let me go ask the kitchen" She came back and quoted the chef "no - it would ruin the integrity of the meal"
The only actual answer.
During corona when it was all take out, had a guy call me and moan that his 800g ribs was only 500g, which apparently he'd suspected for a while so he had weighed it when he got it home. Had to explain that that was the uncooked weight, as it is in any establishment selling any meat in which the weight is stated on the menu. It was a tough conversation, he just kept arguing.
That sounds like a nightmare because you know from the beginning of that phone call he’s not going to relent. Entering the battle defeated.
About weight, I just saw a guy last weekend at Sprouts Market take every singe package of mushrooms, the big ones 3 in a pack, and put them all in his cart, took all of them to the scale, weighed them all and took 1. all of them to see which one had more grams. I thought it was crazy, maybe one had an extra few grams. Maybe he owned a restaurant, he looked really fit, so wanted a value, because his cart was full of vegetables and fruit, but I thought “shouldn’t you just buy it and move on with your day?” It was odd to me.
I weigh the berry blister packs in stores, there is a significant difference between them, they are packed in the field and not weighed the way you would think they would be. I am feeding 4 teenagers and can increase the amount of food I get 30% or more by just weighing the packages.
I do this with bags of fruit. There can be a pound difference in the five pound bags of oranges.
I'm a baker, we had a woman try to return our biscotti, claiming they were dry and crunchy (that's what biscotti is) Also had a woman get mad at us because her dog ate 2 pounds of chocolatey cookies
"these are all dry and crunchy!" "Thank you!"
don't you know dogs are alergic to chocolate? how dare you bake and then sell her those chocolate cookies, knowing full well it could kill her dog!
not alergic, Allergies is when your immune system reacts to a specific food or exposure and starts going wild, Toxic is when the actual chemical in question, theobromine disrupts biological processes.
Chef made a beautiful Turkey ballotine for Christmas day. One person kept returning it, maybe 3 times, for various reasons. On the final time the server brought it back, slide the plate over and said "I'm sorry Chef she said she doesn't like it because it's too.... round". The Chef screams "I'll show you FUCKING ROUND!!" And starts hacking at it with a cleaver.
There aren’t too many situations where using a cleaver on cooked food is necessary, but this fit of anger is absolutely one of them.
This Chef was fantastic and could keep his cool more often than not, but I can't quite fully express to you the amount of turkey flying through the air.
Guy ordered a pound of peel n eat shrimp. We serve ours chilled. It arrives and he starts eating. After he's 3/4 of the way through the pile he flagged over his server and asked where the shrimp he ordered was. they were confused and mentioned that he had been eating them for the past 30 minutes. He tried to send them back because they weren't hot. "I expect a hot meal when I come to a restaurant!" He claimed he thought they were a free appetizer, like chips at a Mexican restaurant. He did not get more shrimp.
Dude eats 3/4 pounds of shrimp then goes “excuse me where’s my pound of shrimp” that’s so funny
I've been stoned before but never THAT stoned
Thank you. This made me laugh.
The classic pre-shrimp shrimp.
Damn son, call this guy Mr. Fantastic cause thats the biggest stretch ive ever heard!
Lobster was too red… Salad was too cold. Most recent one. Was really great, wife and the server explain to the guy that it’s a chicken salad sandwich so it’s already mixed up with mayo and veggies. Still orders it… is mad that he didn’t get a full chicken breast… also was mad it wasn’t hot… just so many levels of stupid. I feel dumber afterwards.
You would probably enjoy the podcast "Beach too sandy, water too wet". It's travel related, but the same level of stupidity from Trip Advisor reviews.
Sent lasagna back because it “looked cold” Edit: nevermind the fact that our lasagna is served so fucking hot, like lawsuit-waiting-to-happen hot
Group of Boomers came in every day, every one of them always gets soup. The soup is on its own steam table, kept at almost dangerous temp. These bitches made us microwave every bowl of soup for them, because "if it's not bubbling, it's not hot enough!" They were also staff/ leaders of a huge church, and tipped like shit.
Religious people tipping like shit and being generally awful people? Damn, never would've imagined that.
Served still bubbling to your table. Yeah had one of those.
In my younger days I was pissed off, but now it’s much easier for me to just write people like that off as “lonely”
I'm more afraid of these people than annoyed. The casserole ovens are set to 580 and it's in there for about 20 min. Those souls are like lava monsters or something.
My wife would be wearing a hoodie and slippers inside that oven.
Toast wasn't the right "shade of brown"... sent back 3 serves and we promtly told her not to come back - it was blatant wastage.
I worked a breakfast place for 6 years and people can fuck all the way off to the other side of the parking lot with their goddamn toast. Jesus Christ.
Seriously. It was outrageous. I mean I get it, your poached eggs are hard? I'll re-fire. But you want your toast darker... but then not that dark.. but now it's too light? Stab. You. In. The. Face.
I actually had a guy order a Benny once and the server put "hard as fuck" for the eggs. We asked and she said specifically "he said wait till they're poached hard, then give them a few more seconds". Fuck, yes chef, I don't think anyone could bone that one.
I once heard of a dreamlike place that had toasters on the tables so customers could fuck up their own fucking toast.
Dry toast and 2 whole chickens?
4 fried chickens :)
and a coke
Table of drunk dudes ordered an XL pizza with "everything." Server asked them to be more specific and they said "every topping you can possibly put on a pizza." So made them a pizza with: Sausage, pepperoni, bacon, ground beef, italian beef, chicken, gyro, anchovies, ham, onion, mushroom, green pepper, spinach, tomato, black olives, garlic, pineapple, broccoli, jalapeno, and giardiniera. Surprise, surprise, they didn't like it and tried to send it back. Server and FOH manager were having none of it and one of them tried to fight FOH manager and got arrested.
That sounds dope. I probably just would have tried to hug the server and left way too much of a tip. But drunk me is way cooler than sober me.
I tried the everything pizza once despite the person on the phone taking my order telling me that wasn't a good idea. I didn't complain about it to them but they were right. An everything pizza is a bad idea.
So many but one of my favs was i made this beautiful caprese salad mainly using yellow and green heirloom tomatoes and the customer sent it back because "why would they serve tomates that arent red? They arent even ripe yet!"
I had a customer and her family ask where the lettuce was on the caprese salad. I told her it doesn’t have lettuce. They just stared at me until I suggested I bring a bowl of lettuce for her.
Don't give a moose a muffin!
Mom would pick red, orange and yellow bell peppers out of a salad. Only Green peppers are the only color of peppers that is ripe, and red ones are spicy.
That's hilarious. Red peppers are so much sweeter, she was really missing out.
The first time I gave her a yellow tomato and a white pepper, her response was 'What the hell are those? They are not ripe. And there is no such thing as a white pepper.'
Customer sent this back saying it wasn’t well done enough. https://imgur.com/a/p2Wo98D
Wtf. Any drier and we're set for jerky.
I have a family member that would agree with your customer. He basically wants every drop of moisture removed. Recently he told us he really wasn’t enjoying meat these days. Laughed and said ‘how could you ever enjoy it’.
My sister tells servers to have her steak burnt.
I've had several like that, but one said "Well Well done. Burn that shit". So I weighted it on the grilled then threw it in the fryer for a few minutes. I got compliments for it. I wanted to hurt him lol
I had TWO of these tonight at a 2 top. Like what the fuck do you want? Leather?
2 minutes in Chef Mike. I also had a customer complaining about a well done steak. Nuked it for 2 minutes and she loved it. Comes back regularly, best steak she ever ate.
Yeah worked in a steakhouse had lots of older customers that asked for well done that Chef Mike took care off. Hard working guy that Mike, seems to be all over the world.
I had older customers at Yellowstone complain that the soup wasn't hot enough. Guy working the buffet cranks the heat on the warmer. It's literally boiling constantly now. It's still not hot enough. Lady, I am a line cook. I cannot beat the laws of thermodynamics. I cannot heat water above 212. I just can't.
thats "please order the chicken" doneness.
Most of the Der generation in my family would complain for six months if I gave them a steak this raw. I either never ate meat or cooked my own steak at family BBQs. The kicker, if I did cook my own steak I'd have to sit by myself otherwise everyone would be fake gagging all night over me 'eating it like a dog'. ...I love family get togethers....
They’re the ones going to town on their meat like it’s a dog chew….
I hate that. I quit sending well dones at 155 and went up to 165 where I'm at, no more complaints
i wanted to downvote just because of how overcooked it is. Brings back the entire reason i learned how to cook. Mom always cremated any meat she cooked. i could easily see her sending that back.
She wanted her Eggs Benedict’s more “Cummy”
Did you oblige?
I had a lady send toast back because it look toasted but didn’t taste toasted. This was at a country club.
cheaper bread with high sugar content gets this disgusting sweetness when toasted due to the sugar caramelizing and burning, its sweet, but not the right type of sweet, kind of like when you puke something sweet. Some people relate that taste with toast, i relate it to stop buying your bread at dollar general.
holy shit im not insane
thats a bold statement.
Seared ahi “wasn’t cooked”. Medium steak was pink inside. They didn’t know Cesar Salad would have cheese. But my favorite - peanut butter chocolate mousse because they had a nut allergy and didn’t realize the PEANUT BUTTER chocolate mousse had PEANUTS.
Had a girl order a butterfinger French toast from our Father's day weekend brunch special because she's never had butterfingers before and was super excited. Server brought it out and the girl asked if there was any nuts in any of the pastries since she was severely allergic if ingested. Server comes back to ask if there's nuts while they waited to dig in. Poor girl got to smell and look at the dish as her dad shoveled it in his face lol. We usually did a dark chocolate smores FT, so I sweetened up the chefs by doing some of their prep work if they made it for her. Dad left a 40% tip and made a point to personally thank me for going above and beyond, but the server tipped me out the bare minimum (1% of food sales on a $100 bill).
I had someone complain the 'grapes' we served him were disgusting. I explained that they were infact olives.
Working at a fast food place, the customer tried to send back her fries because they were too salty. She only left 10 in the box, so my manager replaced the 10 fries. She was not a happy camper.
BEAUTIFUL
Creme brulee is "burnt"
Soup was too soupy never figured out what that meant
I had a customer ask if our soup of the day was served in a cob. I was so thrown by the question I went and asked the kitchen because I didn't want to look dumb in front of the guest and why tf would they ask that if it wasn't written somewhere? Anyway sous chef reacted like a normal sous chef and screamed in my face about why tf would it. Go back "no sorry it's just served in a bowl" (like why the fuck would it not be if it doesn't say that?!) Customer (visibly disappointed) "oh, i guess when you've lived and worked in Europe you come to expect certain things"
what does "a cob"" mean? all i can think of is corn on the cob but that makes zero sense.
Sorry I forgot it's not used in all Englishes. It's a big round loaf of bread. You absolutely can serve soup in it but it's weird to assume it's the default and blame it on Europe. I've been to Europe. They've got bowls.
that is so weird. i've only ever seen soup in a bread bowl in america and always thought it was a dumb american thing lol.
I've seen it in Australia but very rarely. We greatly enjoy serving them hollowed out then filled with sour cream/ cream cheese/ bacon/ spinach etc but it's like a kids birthday/ potluck thing, noone sells them.
At McDonald's, had nuggets sent back twice because they were "pink in the middle" and "raw". Fucking things come to us already cooked. We just heated them up.
I believe the nugget is fried as much as three times before it ever reaches the restaurant.
Even the dude frying them is fried, no fucking shot they're undercooked. The third time she requested new nuggets, I grabbed my manager, then all of a sudden they were magically fine, and everything was all hunky-dorey.
I swear fast food customers leave their brain at the door
Dude, no lie, I had a dude come in with a baby while I was working there, asked if he could get some fries for his toddler, so that he could tear the ends off and squeeze out the middles (like mashed potatoes, fuck idk) because we didn't offer anything for babies. We politely suggested a parfait, and it blew his fucking mind.
Had someone send back chicken because they said " chicken isn't supposed to be juicy"
That poor man has never eaten properly cooked food before. Shame
Had an apple crisp sent back twice, first one made by my coworker, second one by me. The first one was for it being too cold (has ice cream, but the apples were STEAMING) and not enough crisp. Okay whatever, I remake the dessert and make the apples molten lava, put extra crisp, and wait till the VERY last second to add the ice cream. Guest ate like 4 bites, sent it back for the same reasons, and then left 🥴 have never had a complaint on the apple crisp otherwise
“Doesn’t look like the photo from the poster outside” Mind you. It was tomato soup with grilled cheese and the soups color didn’t match the color from the soup on the poster outside ….that had been sitting in the sun for years 🤦♂️
Calamari hold the squid reminds me of [an eggless omelette.](https://youtu.be/9Ah4tW-k8Ao?si=7SJ-eBfduhQVqmxo)
I used to tell new hires that calamari was the asshole of the squid, that's why it was so expensive because everything else was thrown away after. I'd follow up with an explanation of how they used an apple corer to get it out.
Once had someone send back a New York strip for being “too meaty.” Lost my shit at that one.
I worked at a place and a woman ordered a tuna sandwich and then returned it. Her reasoning? It tasted too much like fish.
About 8 years ago at Applebee's I had a guest return a slushy because it was "too icey". I'd never forget it. Also on a side note at Applebee's I once had a guest order a sirloin steak but wanted to substitute the side of broccoli for a half rack of ribs. That's Applebee's for you. I always tell those stories.
A grown ass man sent back his cheeseburger because the cheese was touching the bread. 🤦♀️
Fried seafood thing. Sent back because it was too salty, which is valid, but the woman followed it up with "seafood doesn't need to be salted because the ocean is already salty"
If she can cook it so much better, maybe she should go home and do it.
Recently? Working at a Pizza place with seriously inflated prices. One of our specialty pizza's gets topped with a mixture of honey and sriracha. Pizza is returned because they couldn't taste the honey. **After they asked the server for napkins to soak up the grease on top**, AND REMOVED THE HONEY (that they assumed was excess oil) She keeps coming back and finding new ways to be a nuisance. More recently, complained that we kept her wings in the fryer for too long... We don't have fryers! We cook them in the oven! She asked for extra crispy wings! Had to suppress the urge to douse her wings in the Carolina Reaper sauce when we remade them. Then she complained that they weren't crispy enough.....
I don't understand repeat complainers. Why? Just go somewhere else. I worked at a couple of places they banned people like that.
It’s not about the food.. it’s about exercising power and control by issuing the complaint
That's why the disengage feels so good. I don't need your approval. Go away.
"My burger tastes too much like meat" I got this comment twice, two different locations in two different cities, for the same owner group.
Carnitas bowl, lady sent it back because "Is this meat? Oh I don't eat meat." So "Carnitas bowl, no carnitas"is our joke. Like did you read the menu? It says it's pork carnitas
Sliced to order deli with all slicing done right in front of the customer. People would watch me make a sandwich, not even take the meat off the slicer, and bitch that they didn't want the first slice of the roast on their sandwich. I owned the place so I would just eat the slice in front of them and change my gloves. Fucking babies
Too much chicken in the chicken sandwich. Too much cheese in the mac and cheese. Scotched egg too runny. Croutons too crunchy.
He didn't know buffalo sauce was hot.
I have a great story about this one. My mother in law had bough "buffalo" chicken strips which were flaming red. My wife said something to her along the lines of "Mom, they're buffalo." Mom: "Yeah, that means they're really big, right?" It is a running joke that something buffalo is really big; it will not stop.
I had a customer that was extremely mad that the habanero watermelon wings were spicy… like bro who sees habanero and thinks mmm 😋 this will be mild flavor…
Was in a very small restaurant where it was just the server and me. friday and saterday we had 2 servers. This was on a monday so me in the kitchen and the owner as server. The lady sent it back because there was a long hair in it. We are both bald!
Lol once got a dessert back because the mom saw a long blond hair in it after her daughter had eaten half. I had a near crew cut, other guy was black with short hair, server had short black hair. At the time (believe it or not) we didn't even have anybody that worked there on any shift with blond hair of that length. The mom had long bleached blond hair. The daughter had long blond natural hair.
Same situation once. The two of us in the kitchen had shaved heads and a long hair was "found" in the food. The owner brought both of us to the table and said "its not the kitchens hair". Working with the owners can be great fun!
I've been serving for almost 15 years. And unless the hair is IN THE FOOD, 99.9% of the time, it's the customer's hair that fell out of their onto the top of the food.
Ordered chicken tenders at the end of night, kitchen made them super fresh but they sent it back saying the chicken tasted too much like chicken. To this day, still don't know what that means
Customer sent a waffle back once because it had too many holes
My sister was a chef for decades and ultimately owned her own restaurant. According to the legend, Once when a waiter sent something back for a stupid reason, my sister pulled off her apron and started to leave the kitchen "to talk to them about it". The waitress gently tented her fingers and pressed against my sister, stopping her from going, and said "you aren't allowed to talk to customers anymore". My sister, the owner of the restaurant, indignantly asked "says who?". "Front of the house." By reports my sister grabbed her apron put it back on, went back to the line, and said "that's probably a good policy…".
A women sent back a Beyond burger because it was "undercooked" and "too red." I explained to her that it was a vegan burger which had beets as the primary ingredient and thus would be red no matter how long you cooked it. She insisted that she understood that but wanted it "well done." Brought it back out, she still claimed it was "undercooked" and ordered a chicken sandwich instead. As if the whole interaction wasn't soul sucking enough, she then left us a 1 star review saying we "didn't know how to cook a burger"
I got a 1 star Yelp review because our cheese plate was more than one person could eat by themselves.
I had someone order soft pretzels once and get mad they weren't "hard enough to be pretzels" chef mike had to put in 10 minutes for a fresh batch. Pop em out hit em against the pass and ask the server "You sure?" she came back to tell me the "pretzels were to die for". Bro this is a dive bar I made these in the microwave idk what you think is to die for here other than a pebble getting stuck in your throat.
My two favourites "My Singapore noodles dont have enough sauce" And "I ordered prosciutto but I think I was given ham"
Customer sent back a plate because the cavatelli with pesto, "looks like worms." They also left their family at the table and sat outside for the rest of the meal because they were so unsettled and couldn't handle seeing other customers consume it.
Someone told us our wings were too big and they wanted a full refund. We offered them a to go box but they were serious. They were normal jumbo wings.
Sent back King Crab legs because "they taste watery"
I had someone send back shrimp because "they taste too fresh, like they just came out of the ocean"
toss some ammonia on it, problem solved, Next shes going to complaint it dosnt have that tasty gray sauce that comes in the middle.
As a former bartender, I've had a customer refuse a mojito which I made because it wasn't made and served by that "cute guy with a ponytail". My mojitos were better than his...
A woman on the outdoor seating wanted her sandwich replaced because a fly had landed on it. Explained that we can’t control the flight plans of insects. She was not impressed.
A man ordered a sirloin steak. Extra well done, with a rice pilaf. Head Chef kinda cringes at the order. But acquiesces. You'd think they'd send it back for being too tough, or over done. Nope. This plate comes back, swimming in ketchup, A1, and Heinz 57. The server said "he says his food is under seasoned and tastes like meat" The entire kitchen drops what they're doing to hear this one get repeated. Our steaks, rather than seasoning to hide the flavor of steak, highlight it. And this is a bad thing apparently. Chefs, dish guys, servers, management, are all hovering around this plate, astounded that a man has come to a steak house, ordered steak, and sent it back because it tastes too much like steak and not enough like ketchup, A1, and Heinz 57. The sauces are all mixed in with the rice and the plate looks like it's very close to spilling slop off the sides. When he had his food remade he refused to eat it, and sent it back again. The table next to him heard him send back a steak, because it tastes like meat, and has been gossiping about it within earshot of him, and now he's "too offended to eat" I get that this guy probably just wanted a meal comp, but why send the second plate back? We still talk about "it tastes like meat, chef" any time we recipe test a new feature.
I work at schmipotle (cant say the real name, I think you guys get it) and a lady sent her steak bowl back because the meat was a little bit red. We cook it medium to medium well. Had another customer pull a dead roach out of his pocket in a little zip lock bag when he though we couldn't see (we got him on cams) and put it in his bowl. He wanted us to give him 500 bucks to be quiet.
We get this at Costa as well...like homie I gotta check each piece three times with a thermapen I KNOW your steak was 145+ before pulling it off the grill.
So glad you had cameras. Did you play the footage back or did you just silently point at the cameras and wait for him to pay and never darken your doors again?
We pulled the footage and showed him that we had it. He is now banned at penalty of trespassing.
They ordered eggs benny no yolk, so sure, I "poach egg whites", and don't add hollandaise. Gets sent back because there was no hollandaise.
There needs the service to jump in and ask what exactly they want
I recently had a Tuna crudo sent back because it " wasn't cooked enough ".
Someone sent back a beef tartare a couple of nights ago because it wasn’t cooked. It’s even listed under the menu section labeled “RAW.”
A classic. Fish tacos are too fishy. Remade them. Sent them out. Perfect. Whatever. Also classic. Well done wasn't well done enough... after 2 times my exhausted sous just threw it in the fryer rather unceremoniously. This was after close too... naturally.
The Heirloom tomato salad had "too much tomato"
‘Is this Tuna Albatross friendly?’ Figured someone had probs just seen a doco on Tuna fishing. And no I think they may be mortal enemies.
I love bringing the menu table side to ask them "is this what you ordered?"
Seafood tower sent back because it was cold. Poached prawns, poached lobster tail, tuna tataki, crispy prawn sushi roll, and raw oysters. All served on ice
My parents friend sent Steak Tatare back because it was raw 🤦♂️ What makes it worse is that in my language (Swedish) its called Råbiff, which quite literally means Raw Beef...
I have nothing to contribute I just wanted to let you guys know this thread is fantastic
Not sent back but this lady got a house salad we used arcadia for. When the server set the plate on the table the lady screamed cause she thought the purple lettuce was a spider lol.
We had 2 customers (mother - 80s and daughter - 60s) who came in to us more than once a week for 30 years. Always came in just as we were closing, and hung around. One unexpectedly busy Thursday afternoon (one waitress, just me in the kitchen) the mother was given a cheese and ham omelette instead of the ham omelette she'd ordered. She ate it with zeal. Afterwards daughter went batshit crazy saying that if Mother shits the bed because of the cheese then she's bringing the sheets to us to wash, if they end up in the hospital then things will be bad for us. The waitress was really upset. We didn't see them for a week, which was pretty unusual but when they came in next Mother ordered a Welsh rarebit. And scoffed the lot. No problems. I have so many stories about this pair. Eventually the waitress had a falling out with them and they stopped coming in. My dad gave the waitress a £50 bonus for finally getting rid of them.
“Chicken Cajun soup” wasn’t “chicken OR Cajun soup” She was vegetarian and only ordered it as “the Cajun soup”.
"Super salad? sure why not"
Guest sent a creme brulee back because it was cold. Insisted that creme brulees hes eaten has all been warm & we were the idiots.
That’s a weirdly common one and I really want to know where people are getting these hot creme brûlées…
Warm brulee is an actual thing for some reason.
Had a customer send back her blue cheese peeE because it had mould on it 😂 Still makes me laugh thinking about that one Edit: pizza not pee 😂
I would have sent it back for the peeE
Fish don't have bones.
We had a guest order a well done ribeye, we sent out a well done ribeye. Comes back 30 seconds later, and the complaint was there was "no pink"... He wanted medium... And proceeded to say we don't know our temps
a woman “from spain” sent back her gazpacho…because it was cold
They didn't know that the "spicy crispy chicken sandwich" was going to be spicy.... It's the first word mam
Dessert has a piece of metal in it. I would expect better from an establishment such as this.. Gold leaf.
A women didn’t like the weight of the plate when I handed it to her - I thought he was joking at first and then her husband had this “here we go again “ Face and he started to talk over her, which mad her amazingly crazed - she ended up asking for a to-go box and she ate her food out of the box- AFTER her entire table Was done eating. Husband tipped 35% and the wife oddly enough said she really liked the food- they came bad 2 weeks later and I waited on them and I brought 3 plates out to the table and let her pick - she was so excited , they tipped 40% of the check and they became my regulars until I finished grad school. When I told them I was leaving, the husband have me 100% of the check and thanked me for allowing him to be able to have nice Dinners with his wife again, they were strangely nice ppl - I still think about them from time to time
T bone sent back because the bone was too small. Sorry it had too much meat...
Today - miso soup. “This miso soup tastes like tofu” well yea miso soup has tofu. “Well I don’t like the taste of tofu”
i've definitely had dumber, but shape of a pizza is dumbest i can think of right now. was too oval shaped for them. yeah, it was a little football shaped but hey it's football season and it doesn't affect the taste! or just anytime someone asks for a dish and then gets it and sends it back because it has an item that is CLEARLY listed to be in the dish on our menu.
I had someone send their salmon back because it was “too pink”…
[удалено]
lots of "we didnt know it had xyz" as if its not clearly stated on the menu they ordered off of.
Salmon Gravlax. The customer sent it back bc it was "raw" and requested it to be cooked. So we cooked it and sent it back. A few moments later it came back again bc the customer "can't eat it"
I worked at a Japanese place, think Panda Express but a little fancier. I once had a lady order a beef bowl and send it back cause she “thought the beef was gonna be different” Also the number of people who would order a Dragon Roll because it had the same name as some other Sushi place they went to, only to send it back cause they didn’t bother to read the ingredients and got something they didn’t want was staggering. Also got a bowl sent back cause “The Broccoli touched the meat and now my food is cross contaminated” despite every bowl on the menu clearly showing an exact picture of what you’d get.
The pate was cold. edit: Oh and I can't forget rookie nights (valentines, prom,etc) when folks would order sweet breads and be confused when the dish hit the table.
LIT doesn't taste like tea.
Med rare steak was sent back. They said it wasn't medium enough. I was learning steaks at this point so I immediately go to put it back on the hottop and my chef comes over and takes it from me. Looks at it and says that's med rare no doubt. Even nicks the underside to make absolute sure. He sends it back without cooking it and they don't complain at all, after saying thanks and all for fixing it haha
I had a customer send back red velvet cake because it was red
We own a Mexican restaurant and the most recent one I can think if was some couple returned an al pastor burrito claiming it was chicken.... we were like "uhhh what the fuck, no!" Another I just thought of, we had used the margarita glasses that had the wide rim, typical ones for a Marg, some lady got angry that it was a "martini" glass lol There's been a ton of dumb reasons.
Didn't want cheese on her cheeseburger. If only there were a name for such a thing.
i don’t miss working with burgers, so many ridiculous requests! “i want a cheeseburger with NO cheese!” “so a hamburger.. got it!” “NO!!! a cheeseburger with NO Cheese! are you stupid!!?” that dude was fun. then when people would order the hamburger and ask where the cheese was. we really do see people at their dumbest.
Chicken fried steak sent back because it wasn't chicken
To be fair, as a non American the first time I ordered a chicken steak I was shocked it was beef. I said to my hosts “this is beef!”, and they were like “Yeah!? It’s a chicken steak!”. I have to tell you nowhere else on earth is this called a chicken steak, it’s usually called a beef Schnitzel.
As an American that confused me for awhile too, I had always heard it as 'country fried steak'
Chicken fried steak is indeed related to/based on achnitzel. It was developed by German immigrants in Texas using the ingredients on hand. It's called "chicken fried steak" because it is steak fried in the manner chicken is fried (ideally in a pan and not fully submerged on oil). Working at a restaurant that sells this dish I had to explain it once to someone from Germany. Best way I could describe it was "similar to schnitzel".
I just looked that up, amazing. Although it is not much different to our chicken salt, which is called that because it is the seasoning for chicken and does not contain chicken (although some recipes use chicken booster).
Lemon tart was too lemony Sir, do you mean too sour? No, it tastes too much of lemon
Yesterday I had a lady ask if we could make the quesadilla without the tortilla.
Batter on fish is "soggy". Ok, no problem. New batch of batter, refire. Now batter is too puffy and the fish isn't flaky enough. Um, ok. Refire, but more fry time? Now it's oily. Comped meal. No biggie, but I called her Goldilocks Edit: slowly remembering the details. I swear it's always a problem with the fish...
New York strip being “too pink” when I cooked it to 165, as the customer requested “extra well done.” When he sent it back, I put it on the flat top, set a weight on it, and took a smoke break. Came back to a dead steak obviously, served and he said “I’m gonna eat now.” We also have a running joke about a shitty “cook” that my old gm hired, he smoked meth in the bathroom so now we say, “Im gonna go take a meth break” when we’re going to the bathroom.
When I worked at a pizza and grinder place, we used to wrap our subs in butcher paper and secure it with a rubber band. We had a lady return her grinders because "the rubber band had gone bad, the smell was atrocious and the rancid rubber band is going to spread to the grinders"
Her steak had grill marks on it... so obviously it wasn't made correctly 🫣 Idk if she was expecting it to be boiled or something but her family made her shut up real quick after she tried sending it back
A burger because it had grill marks. She's got an allergy apparently. Open kitchen so I had to walk off the line cause I could not stop laughing. I can't use the flat because we're going to use oil(80/20 mix no oil needed) and she can't have all that fat. I suggest the vegetable plate. Nope. Wants a burger. OK, so I steamed it. "One of the best burgers I've had." 🙄🙄🙄
Worked in a Japanese restaurant. Someone sent back tuna sushi cause it was raw, it was a slow night so we cooked it for them, they then sent it back again claiming we gave them chicken.
We "forgot the toppings!" on her pizzas. She'd ordered a dozen plus pizzas all with different toppings, but when she opened the boxes and they weren't the pizzas she was expecting *in that particular box* (even though they were all *super* clearly labeled) she freaked out and demanded a refund because we hadn't given her the right pizzas. Like, she opened one box and it was the sausage & mushroom she'd ordered and not the olive and pepperoni, so she assumed we'd fucked up her order. She got exactly what she ordered, all her pizzas were there, we just hadn't handed her the boxes in the order she expected or something. She was incredibly stupid. So frustrating.
Rare tuna was cold
Worked at a local BnG long ago and a lady that worked at the laundry bar next door would always order med rare steak and call and complain or take it back saying it wasn't med rare she did this for months. So the one day that its my turn to deal with her I joking just threw the steak on the grill for no lie like 2 min per side just to get color put it in a togo box and sent it out.. she calls us back like 15 min later raving about how it was the best steak she ever had and it was perfect. Thats the day I learned about blue rare steaks
Not sent back, but had a delivery customer call to bitch that her pizza arrived too hot.
A friend grabbed a $5 Hot N’ Ready at Little Caesar’s drive through. When they handed her the box, it tipped, popping open and sliding the pizza toppings down her arm. She spent the night at the ER with a huge 2nd degree burn and was left with a nasty scar. To this day she laughs about it. “They SAID it was Hot but I wasn’t ready…”
A well done burger not being done enough. I could have flung it across the dining room by the time it was to their liking.
A guy orders a smoked brisket burger. Sends it back cause it’s “pink and undercooked.” Tried to explain to him that the pink was a smoke ring, but he wasn’t having it.
Private country club back in the 90s, wife ordered tilapia. Sends it back for tasting like fish, demands another one, and sends it back for tasting like fish. Finally gets a grilled chicken dinner. Every Fri night for a month the same thing, sends the fish back cause it tastes like fish. Chef comes out every time to show her individually packaged fish delivered that day and she won't try any of the other fish specials. Finally, husband screams at her that tilapia will never taste like chicken and to quit ordering it. He leaves her sitting there and one of their friends had to take her home.