Restaurant escapades

Item to bring up if there's a  lull in the conversation  (or, space for blog comments, I suppose): What's the worst (or funniest) thing that ever happened to you in a restaurant? Everybody's got a story; they either laugh or cry.

There's even a Web site devoted to the subject -- www.dinnersfromhell.com. Both patrons and servers contribute and some of what they say is funny, some is disgusting, some just  plain  dumb. Sadly, there's plenty of whining  too.

Well no wonder. After many years of eating out and/or talking to other people who eat out often, I've experienced or heard about some doozeys. The time a couple, who happened to be my parents, were waiting for their dinners in a small, now defunct place when the cook walked out of the kitchen and marched through the dining room yelling, "I quit!" Or the time when a reader was on what must have been his zillionth cup of coffee when the boss called the cops to get him out of there. Or the time when my lobster fell to the floor during service in a  restaurant in Mexico and it was whisked back to the kitchen and appeared on a different dish about two minutes later. (I recognized a claw.)

Which brings me to my point, or The Question. See Paragraph One.

Comments

[stu]

About 10 years ago my parents and I were driving through Jamestown on the way back to Buffalo, and decided to stop there for dinner. We chose a small restaurant that seemed quite busy in downtown Jamestown. There was a BIG special board stating that Spaghetti was tonight’s special. That was fine for us so we ordered 3 specials. The food was served, and we looked at it with suspicion as it appeared to be a very watery sauce. We dug in, and within a split second we were all thinking the same thing. I started to laugh, and cough and cry, as some “sauce” sprayed out my nose. My mother was doubled over shaking violently with laughter. My fathers face was beat red. The other customers where staring at us wondering if we were insane or if we needed help. We certainly did not behave as a normal Jamestown family would behave. We finally settled down, and a waiter came to the table to ask us if everything was alright. That was all it took, and we were shaking and snorting and crying in laughter again. We had to leave the restaurant without eating. We left money on the table. We drove back to Buffalo without eating, every 10 or 15 miles busting out into quick fits of laughter. What made us laugh so hard you ask? Well, what we all realized immediately after taking a bite of the spaghetti was that the “sauce” was not a sauce; it was simply Campbell’s Tomato Soup from a can. Having grown up on this specific soup it is very easy to detect. It was also funny that there had been not attempt to spice it up, or thicken it up in any way. It was pure Campbell’s Tomato Soup. We also found it funny that they thought so highly of it as to offer it as the “Special of the Night”. It certainly is a special memory, and to this day there are still little after shocks of laughter everything I taste Campbell’s Tomato soup.

[Dr Nic]

I remember one time, several years ago, I was eating at a restaurant my family frequented on a regular basis. I had ordered my usual (a sandwich that is in a piece of pita and comes half wrapped in paper) and noticed upon first bite that they had forgotten to leave off the onions. I called the waitress over and she apologized and took my plate into the kitchen. She returned rather quickly with a new sandwich. I opened the wrapping to make sure there were no onions and found a surprise. A part of my sandwich had a bite mark in it (in the section wrapped in paper). Apparently, whoever was in the kitchen had decided to just scrape off the onions and re-wrap the sandwich. We called the owner over and showed him. He said something to the effect of "My idiot brother, what a cheapskate, I'm going to kill him". He apologized profusely, took the sandwich, and brought me a freshly made new one (and didn't charge me for it). The incident has now become a running joke with us, and when I order the sandwich now he asks me if there are any bites in it.

[maxine]

Some years ago, a group of friends and I stopped at a restaurant in the Summit Park Mall (I think it's gone now). The sign said to let the server seat you, so we waited a good 20-30 minutes because, they said, they had no clean tables; off to the side we could see a whole section of at least 6-8 tables, unoccupied, looking perfectly clean and usable. Finally someone came and seated us. They apologized fore the delay and said they had several people out, so the bartender had to double as cook or server, I forget which; the server started to take our orders and that's when the fun really began. One of my friends asked for tea with honey; they were out of honey. I wanted tea with lemon; they were out of lemon. Several others things we asked for, they were either out of or the items didn't show up when the food came. To top it off, the poor server had spilled hot water over her hand and burned it, you could see how red it was and it was obviously painful, yet there she was, probably afraid to make a big deal out of it with so many other things going wrong that day. The servers were all very pleasant and very apologetic, obviously embarrassed about the goof-ups. We really couldn't get upset with them, we had obviously stumbled into "one of those days" at this place.

[Mike ??????]

True story based on actual observations ........ about 15 years ago, a cook (who shall remain nameless) would squezze his man juices within people's food at the Lancaster Country Club. This guy felt this is the way he could get even for bring poor. Poor Thurman Thomas!

[BobbyCat]

Years ago, my sister in law was a waitress in a very busy Orlando steak house where the chef-owner was an ego maniac not unlike that psycho chef on TV.

On occasion, when somebody sent their steak back for whatever reason, the Chef would through it on the floor, stomp on it, throw it back on the grill then back to the diner.

She said that she saw it often.