I’ll never forget my family was at Christmas dinner at my upscale country club. My family has always been super friendly to the waitstaff, so our waitress admitted she was pretty tired, had been working all day on a holiday—so basically got to open up gifts with her kids then go right in to work. Anyway, she was…

The worst table I had was the wife of an NHL hockey player, came in with her 2 terror kids and a friend. The kids proceeded to wreak havoc in my section, act like little hellions and she didn’t bat an eye. This was early on in my serving “career” so I didn’t have the experience/balls to ask the woman to take control…

*fidgets uncomfortably, wonders how long I should wait to bust out the Truly Horrifying Restaurant Stories entry (which amazingly is different from the Stories of Restaurant Employees Losing Fingers entry which I somehow also have enough submissions for)*

Servers understand that kids are likely to be disasters, though. It’s not about how rambunctious your kid is, it’s about what you do as a parent in response to it. If you’re stopping the kid from running around the restaurant at top speed and/or covering the table in ketchup art (sugar packets are fine, we understand…

Flipside: one time a server spilled an entire pitcher of water on my Dad, and as the guy was freaking out, my Dad is finally just like, “IT’S OK. REALLY. IT’S OK JUST PLEASE BRING ME A TOWEL NOW THANK YOU.”

OH MY GOD IT’S SO FUCKING DUSTY IN HERE

This is incredible and I wish you’d e-mailed it to me.

I preached a sermon once where I talked about how embarrassed we should be that we go out to eat after an hour of church and think our generosity doesn’t extend to people working hard for $3/hr. (I’m a pastor at a mainline church) A waitress called two days later and thanked me because apparently a table of Sunday…

omg noooooooo my heart

That story about the woman who got doused with red wine? I had a similar experience and similarly laughed it off. As a server was setting a nice large martini (with a lemon twist, not an olive) in front of me his hand trembled for some reason and the whole thing went down the front of my shirt. The look of horror on…

This made me happy tear up (I’M SENSITIVE RIGHT NOW, OKAY?!). I love it when you do nice stories after a couple weeks of really shitty ones. MAYBE HUMANITY ISN’T AWFUL AFTER ALL.

“I did not bring bail money.”

Once, an 8-top of Christians left one of those “Here’s a Tip for You!” pamphlets on my table, in lieu of a cash tip. I was sort of used to this, so I didn’t remark much, just tossed it into the bus tub with the rest of the debris, and a glower.

EVERYTHING about that makes my cold little heart burst with joy and real tears come to my eyes, oh my god. All of the shit that couple has probably had to put up with for 40 years, the kindness from a stranger I wasn’t expecting kindness from (I’m an asshole), the special leis (because why the hell not!?)...you win…

Thank you BCO! As a single mom of a rambunctious 2 year old I know that 1) she’s just going to be an asshole in restaurants. period. and 2) the only way she’ll learn not to be an asshole in restaurants is if I take her to eat out and teach her the rules. I order her food first, bring my own sippy cup with milk so she…

I’m a little late but here goes. I worked in a Gay Dennys in Arizona and soon after gay marriage became legal, I had the most adorable elderly couple of men, one white, one black. They were seated at the counter and had on these beautiful leis. I asked if I could feel the real flowers and asked what the occasion was.…

I used to work at Starbucks, most often opening with a supervisor. One cold winter Canadian morning, I arrive to open and my supervisor is not there. I wait a little then call her, repeatedly, with no answer. Now I only live about 3 blocks away, so I could walk home, but I don’t want to be accused of leaving or not…

Karen here, it was a Ruth’s Chris and the guys stiffed me on the bill, but luckily since it’s a chain and the managers are great, they didn’t expect me to pay for the meal, and let me keep the money as tip.

I once had a customer who ordered a cheeseburger with Swiss but got cheddar. When the mistake was realized, I apologized and offered her a free cookie. She replied, “Honey, if this is the worse thing to happen to be today, then I’ve got a pretty good life.” After getting bitched at by stuck up college kids and…

The woman in Valerie’s story has a brilliant idea. Nobody would turn down an apology pizza. An apology pizza could end wars.