Servers put up with a lot of unsavory situations. From people who refuse to tip, to messy customers, to unsympathetic supervisors, we all owe them a great debt just for being patient and kind even when we don’t deserve it.
Once in a while though, people also order some strange things. One Redditor asked how they deal with ridiculous orders and some of the stories are kinda wild.
Let’s check them out!
15. This One Is Actually Sweet
“I worked at a national pizza chain for a while as a manager.
We used to get this guy who would order all the time. He was lactose intolerant so couldn’t have cheese, and had severe heart burn when he ate red sauce. He would order an XL Supreme with no sauce and no cheese. I told the guy if i did that, the toppings would just fly all over the box but he didn’t care.
We ended up just baking the dough separate from the toppings and put the toppings in a small wing box on the side for him. Guy said no other pizza place would do that for him and he turned out to be a great repeat customer who always tipped well.”
14. She Enjoyed Burnt Food
“Not a waiter but a cook.
Had a lady order her tofu scramble burnt. So I cooked it hard. She sent it back because it wasn’t burnt enough. So I cooked it harder. She sent it back again and the waiter said she really wants it burnt. So I got a wok super hot, put too much oil in and proceeded to burn the crap out of it. My chef came by and lost his shit.
I explained it to him and he watched me burn just ruin the thing. It was black and smelled like a tire fire. She ate all of it and said we were the only place to get it right. She came back every weekend for it and we had to train new cooks how to burn the living fuck out of her food for her.
I still can’t comprehend why she would eat that.”
13. A Customer Wanted a Dish That Doesn’t Exist
“I once had a guy place his order, and then say ‘And give me one of those spaghetti appetizers.’
I had been working there for a couple months, and we had no pasta dishes whatsoever on the menu. I politely tried to clarify this, but he wasn’t having it. He just kept getting more irate. He insisted that he eats here all the time, and he always gets the spaghetti appetizer.
Eventually, he gets up from his table, storms over to another one, and points at what he wants on another diner’s table. He was pointing at their cole slaw. And yes, as far as he was concerned, I was still the asshole for not knowing what he was talking about.”
12. 22 Sweet ‘N’ Lows
“The strangest request! When I worked for Starbucks, I helped open the first drive thru store in the area so it was a learning process for some customers.
A lady orders in the drive thru lane an iced venti vanilla latte with 22 sweet n lows.
Me: 22 sweet n lows, like two two??
Customer: sigh yes 22 sweet n lows.
Me: OK, please pull up.
Now at the drive thru we put the extra milk and sugar in the drinks for the customers, when in a cafe they would add it on their own. So, the person working the bar looks at me like for real this lady wants 22 packs of sweet n low in her latte? That’s what she said so that’s what we made her.
They lady pulls up and pays for her drink. I hand it over and tell her to have a nice day. She stops and says “oh, can I get those sweet n lows now?” I just looked at her and said that they were already in her drink, boy was she pissed!!
She wanted us to hand her 22 packs of sweet n low in the drive thru so that she could take them home.”
11. Breakfast Good Always Hits The Spot
“When I worked at a hibachi/sushi/Japanese place this family came in with an adult son who had some kind of mental disability and only wanted to eat breakfast food. The mom asked if we had bread, we didn’t, she went to the gas station next door and bought bread, and came back and asked me to toast it.
Now, there is no toaster in the restaurant, and I had to explain to the 100% Chinese barely English-speaking kitchen to cook three eggs rare on one side (sunny side up) and bread medium rare (toast)….
It worked out and everybody was happy, chefs were super confused as to why anyone would want that.”
10. Nothing is Free!
“Customer asked for a spaghetti with a side of more noodles and extra sauce because they were going to share.
So, I said “you’d like one spaghetti and then an additional order of spaghetti?” They told me I wasn’t getting it and they just wanted extra noodles and some sauce on the side. I told them we would have to charge for extra noodles, and they ended up not wanting it.
They somehow thought free spaghetti was a reasonable request.”
9. She Thought a Filet Mignon Was a Potato
“Had a lady order our filet mignon, when it was brought out to her she said with disgust that she had ordered the filet, not a steak.
She proceeded to argue that a filet mignon was a type of baked potato rather than a steak.
8. She Wanted It A Very Specific Shade of Pink
“I worked at as a server at a ritzy country club on cape cod and this women once brought in a paint chip and told me she wanted her cosmopolitan to be the exact same color as her pink paint chip.”
7. He Knows What He Wants
“Oh how I miss my old regular.
We are not a fine dining establishment, it’s a small family style Italian restaurant.
This lovely gray haired gentleman would call ahead so that we could put a salad bowl in the freezer for him. After that I would go to his spot at the bar (or the closest one open to it) and set a large dinner napkin down (that he placed his salad/meal on). I would then place an empty wine glass with a napkin over it (per his request), just in case the dinner napkin didn’t specify that the seat was taken.
Once he got there I would go to the back and make his specific salad: Very little lettuce, extra mushroom, extra tomato, extra onion, no shredded cabbage, and no cucumber.
That would be after I get him two ice cold beer glasses for his 70/30 sweet/unsweet tea mixture with an extra glass of ice.
He would then attempt to engage in a 5-10 minute conversation about our specials for the evening, and how he could alter them.
The guy came in between 3-6 nights a week and always tipped fairly. He was the kind of nice old guy that would get you and your wife birthday cards because that stuff was important to him.
He then moved 45 minutes away and we never see him anymore. Miss the hell out of that old man though.”
6. The Chef Left
“One couple in particular made the chef rage so hard she just walked out.
Wife orders some meal and makes a ton of changes to it. She gets the plate takes one bite and sends it back because she doesn’t like it. Husband orders $60 lobster plate. The lobster tail comes with pepper sprinkled on top. The husband sends it back and wants a whole new one with no pepper on top.
Apparently his wife wanted to try one piece but doesn’t like pepper.”
5. Third Time Isn’t The Charm
“I worked as a waitress when my mom was a cook.
There was one lady who ordered a medium rare steak and the first time it came out she cut a very small piece off the edge. Of course it was not rare enough so she sent it back. My mom makes another one and again the lady sent it back after cutting into the very edge. The third one that was sent back my mom grabbed it off the plate with her bare hands, walked out to the lady and ripped the steak in half screaming “this is what medium rare looks like in the middle!” And then basically said gtfo.
My mom is pretty awesome but not some one you wanna piss off.”
4. They Wanted Dolphins, Now!
“As a waiter at a coastal restaurant, we occasionally had dolphins come in the harbor right to where people would eat.
These two old ladies came in and before they placed their orders, demanded I release the dolphins for their amusement. It took a good 10 seconds of silence before I realized they were serious.
I passed this request onto my manager and then continued to eat free jumbo shrimp.”
3. He Wanted What?!
“It wasn’t so much the order that was disturbing, but the post order request.
He asked me to chew up the food and put it back onto his plate. No medical reason. No missing teeth. Not old. Just creepy as fuck. He got very upset when I declined.”
2. An Extra Onion, Indeed
“I had a 4 top once that one of the gentlemen was ordering and asked for extra onion, and he made extreme emphasis on EXTRA ONION.
So I go to put the order in and I have to talk to the chef to make sure he understands EXTRA ONION. So when the order comes out, I get a side plate of a cut WHOLE ONION.
I giggle and take the order to the table. I put the orders of food in front of all the other guests and leave onion man for last. I set his plate of food and extra onion down, he looks up at me and starts laughing. The whole table is now laughing. Im like daf**k?
Apparently wherever they go, no matter what he always has to ask for MORE onion, and this time my snarky chef nailed it.”
1. Garlic Juice
“I used to work at Whole Foods as a juicer and this one guy would come in everyday and order 12 ounces of garlic juice to go (which is like 20 dollars btw).
After a couple weeks of seeing him order the same thing I asked him to drink it in front of me because I didn’t believe it was humanly possible to ingest that much garlic. He downed it all in front of me and said this “along with much garlic comes much loneliness” i laughed and he said “no seriously I work from home.”
Oh my! Some of these stories show that some people can be terribly entitled to servers.
Are you a server? What are some of the most ridiculous things people expected from you?
Our comments section is ready for your stories.
