Also frigate birds

All this reminds me of is this bird called a Sage-Grouse.

ok. Not from a restaurant, but my sister, who lives in New Mexico, once had to order a very specific electronic part for work. The supplier refused to ship it because he was "only allowed to ship within the United States".

Okay, this was a long time ago, so the details are fuzzy, but here goes. I was 15 or so, working at a Roy Rogers fast-food place. I had been there for a while, so I knew what I was doing, but, on this day, I accidentally shut the register without handing a customer her change. She did the expected for someone a bit…

I had someone ask me once to fax them a sealed envelope, since they were using a public-ish fax machine and didn't want anyone reading the correspondence.

I had a customer put a paper napkin ring in the middle of her half-eaten salad and call me over. She didn't even bother to toss it so it would be soaked with dressing; she expected me to believe it had been buried under a mound of lettuce and ranch and yet remained perfectly dry and uncrumpled.

When I worked at Burger King, it was a struggle to have the kitchen understand that if someone ordered a burger or chicken sandwich, plain, they still wanted meat.

While I was working in a wine shop, as a fill in helper for the owner, I had a customer asking to sample the locally made wines. He complained about every wine, saying they all tasted the same and that they didn't even taste like good wine. As he continued to walk around the shop I noticed him occasionally snacking on…

By "cut the tomato," you meant "I don't want any tomato"? That would confuse me, too. I was trying to picture a salad containing tomato that wasn't cut, and that didn't make sense either.

was running drive thru long time ago, lady comes through and orders the number 2- $3.99. I tell her 'thank you, ma'm, that will be $41.19"

I used to work at a Spanish Tapas Bar in a very touristy area in Baltimore City. I easily spent at least two hours a shift explaining to people that no...you will not be getting chips and salsa with your meal nor do we serve chips and salsa.

When my wife grew up in the rural Appalacian foothills, they used to eat something called "fried mush". Her dad describes it aptly as "like a big hot Frito." It is sliced, fried in oil until crispy on the outside, and totally delicious.

If I was a big enough asshole to try to get a free meal by sticking a rock in it, I wouldn't try to claim said rock ended up in a SOLID PIECE OF MEAT.

We used to have an old guy on a mobility scooter come into one restaurant I worked in. He seemed harmless enough until I found myself trapped in conversation with him about his intention to stab a 'friend' of his who had upset him. That wasn't the weird part though - the thing that really freaked me out was that he…

I work as a server at a little family owned diner. Living in a small town, everyone knows everyone else, and everyone eats there. However we do have one couple that comes in 1-2 times a day, even though they live 45 minutes from the restaurant, and I've heard it's because they've been banned from several other places.…

When I lived in Belfast UK, I worked in a club with a huge staff of bouncers all of whom were MMA fighters back before MMA was very well established or professionalized (they would bring pictures to work from their cage matches from "underground" fighting leagues. They absolutely lived for situations like the third…

It's been 20 years now, but I had a girlfriend who worked at a mom and pop buffet restaurant, located in the Cincinnati suburbs, south of the city and over the river in Kentucky. It wasn't like this was hillbilly country. However, management regularly had to call the police to deal with patrons who were irate about…

"which is unfortunately 15 years out of date and still says 15%"

This comment is a perfect illustration of why I will NEVER do one of these from the customer's perspective. If you're really complaining about your server saying "no problem," you need to take a long, hard look in the goddamn mirror, because that is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

I think that it's key for people from other countries to realize that tipping isn;t just "customary" here it's actually taxed even if you don't get a tip (at about 8% I think) and most states actually pay lower than minimum wage to tipped servers so they make about $2.14/hour without tips though the law requires that…