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It’s Hard To Believe These 29 People Are Truly This Dumb
Article created by: Viktorija Ošikaitė
You’ve got to give it to food and service industry professionals—many of them have the patience of saints! An unavoidable part of your job when you’re cooking and serving strangers food is having to deal with rude and entitled customers from time to time. It’s practically a rite of passage.
However, some people go beyond mere rudeness and go full delulu. In a thread on ‘Kitchen Confidential,’ the cooks and servers of Reddit spilled the tea about the dumbest things that customers have ever said or done. Whatever you think they did, we guarantee you, it’s much worse. Scroll down for some painfully relatable stories.
Bored Panda reached out to the author of the thread, u/BohemianJack, and they were kind enough to share their thoughts about interacting with nightmare customers. You'll find our interview with them below.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
August, 1973. A woman comes into our restaurant, is seated at a booth and presented a menu. She waves away the menu and orders tomato beef chow yuk. The waitress explained that she needed to get that next door, as we served Italian American cuisine. She insists we're wrong and she wants her order right now.
The boss heard it, and sent me out the back to next door with a five to get her what she wants. I get the order to go and the boss hands it to her in the bag from the place next door, with the tag still attached and charges her double. She howls about the price and the boss told her the upcharge was because he had to send one of his staff to the Chinese take out next door that she was too stupid to note and too arrogant to acknowledge, then 86'd her.
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#2
'My rare steak is cold in the middle'
'This salmon tastes like it came out of the ocean
'Crab should taste like crabs, not shellfish'
'Whats the difference between duck and lamb?'
Just a few of the winners.
#3
Well, I used to work for an All you can eat Buffet, one night a server tells me there is a guest complaining the soup is cold; I go to the soup container and lift the lid and the steam almost burn my hand and half of my face. I tell the server there is no way that the soup is cold and ask him to show me the table where the guest is at. Once i reach the table I greet everyone and ask if there was a problem with the food, one of them tells me the Soup was extremely cold; at the same time i'm scaning the table for the soup but i can't find it, I ask the guest if he throw it away; and this guy replies !! Is right there !!, pointing at the "ITALIAN DRESSING"...
#4
A woman entered our Mexican restaurant and proclaimed that she was deathly allergic to traces of legumes in the air, but wanted some quesadillas. She was deathly allergic to airborne bean particles, in a Mexican restaurant.
#5
Worked at a restaurant that cooked everything on charcoal grills. Part of the intro spiel was to tell them and brag on that fact. It was literally the entire point and theme of the restaurant.
“Do you have any pasta dishes?” Was entirely too common. I always answered by saying “No, we find that it always seems to fall through the grates on the grills”.
#6
I sold a girl a chicory coffee once. She asked “how do I drink it”
I was having a bad day and it almost broke me
She laughed and said “ sorry I mean do people take cream? I’ve never had one”
I giggled and said do whatever you want to it you bought it
We both got a good chuckle out of it.
#7
Served a man a steak and he went ballistic saying it was covered in shards of glass and how did we not notice when serving it. It was coarse sea salt.
#8
Don’t know if this counts, but we were redoing the floor. Signs an all doors that we are closed, online hours all correctly showing closed. The floor was ripped up, glue down and only half tiled. Lady comes to the front door, it’s locked. She walks to the back door in the alley way, which was open for the tile workers. She walks into the empty dining room, walking 20 feet on wet glue, into an empty dining room with all chairs and tables gone. She walks back out, and calls, and I answer. “Hey are you guys open?”….
#10
Whats a quickie?
me turning around trying to hold back laughing, looking at the menu.... ohh you mean the quiche!
#11
Not as a chef but when I was a butcher. Had a customer buying shrimp.
Customer: How should I cook this?
Me: I suggest a frogmore stew or low country boil.
Customer: Sounds great. How?
Me: Get some water with seasonings, throw in some potatoes, sausage(preferably hot), and corn. Let it boil for a bit until taters start to get soft. Drop the shrimp in and bring back to a boil. Strain out the water and serve.
Customer: Sounds good. How do I do that?
Me: Uh, what?
Customer: How do I boil it?
Me: ... With heat?
Customer: Huh?
I walked away after that and asked my boss to handle the rest.
#12
I own a bakery
-"So what's the difference between the apple pie slice and the flourless chocolate cake?"
-watched a kid pump simple syrup into his hand thinking it was hand sanitizer.
- "Ah I see you are sold out of the chicken salad and the BLT. Can I please just get the chicken salad on a croissant instead?" Ma'am we are sold out of those sandwiches regardless of the bread.
I wish I could remember more. I'm starting to block these from my memory.
#13
Had a guest order a Mojito but we were out of mint so we told them we couldn’t do it. They insisted we make it sans mint. So we did. After delivering the drink and checking back they tell the server they don’t like it and would like something else. When asked what the issue was they say “idk, I just feel like something’s missing” 😑😑😑.
#16
A review for my friend's restaurant that stated "I ordered the salmon but didn't like it as I hate fish and feel it wasn't properly explained to me that salmon is fish" Ma'am, this is a restaurant in the Bay Area every thing on the menu has an animal shape next it or a V for Vegan.
#17
In the US. A wimpy looking American white guy & his Thai wife came in at dinner time. Ordered cocktails, appetizers, salad, sandwiches with fries. They ordered extras of a lot of things, including 2 sides of avocado. When the bill came, Wimpy was “shocked” he’d been charged for all the extras, & demanded to speak to the manager (me).
Cue apx 30 minutes of him trying different arguments to get out of paying the bill. He said they’d been living in Thailand, where this would never happen, and didn’t we want our customers to be happy? He didn’t raise his voice but tried to wear me down. His wife was embarrassed & kept her eyes down the whole time.
I reasoned right back. Said we produced a quality product & felt our prices were a good value, etc etc. Other tables around us listened in, & one actually wrote to corporate praising my professionalism. Wimpy eventually paid, wincing as he did so. But, um, yeah. We are a business that sells food, sir.
#18
After introducing myself at the table and asking if anyone had any questions about the menu, a customer asked, "These baby back ribs... Are they fish ribs?".
#19
Customer: What’s a care-rot?
Me: Excuse me?
Customer: This right here..what’s this care-rot stuff?
Me: It’s pronounced carrot sir. It’s just carrots.
#20
Worked at a popular burrito chain. Had a customer call extremely mad that there was “a leaf. From outside” in their burrito bowl. They had never seen a bay leaf.
#22
I used to work at Boston market and would get “is a quarter or a half chicken more?” ALL the time.
#23
Customer: My seared tuna is cold!
Me: yes, you ordered it rare.
Him: I wanted it hot.
Me: I can’t do hot & rare.
Him: you obviously don’t know how to cook fish.
Me: you obviously don’t understand physics. 🤷♂️.
#24
Someone ordered a cold brew coffee and didn’t think it would be served cold. I guess she thought it was only brewed cold but we heated it up after or something.
#25
Served a Tofu Bahn Mi at my last place with a vegan peanut sauce. One of the customers sent a server back to ask if there was any dairy in the peanut sauce because they were vegan. Proceeded to order the sandwich subbed with pulled pork….
#26
This isn't food related.
Had an email come through that said someone had a aphylactic allergic reaction due to the wine she was drinking because.........
Dun Dun Dun.....
She was allergic to peaches.
A product made entirely from grapes (and some additives that they put into wine).
We had to explain that the peach notes in the wine aren't from actual peaches, but from the grapes. Similar to how a note of tobacco and leather isn't because of either of those items being in the wine.
#27
"What's cheddar" was the question I was asked as a server that drove me out of the industry.
#28
Someone once, sent back a salad because she was “deathly allergic” to cucumbers, “could not have food contact with” cucumbers (was the story)
…then, asked for multiple sides of pickles to eat with her burger.
#29
God so many.
I actually get asked this all the time where I work, but on our menu one appetizer option say “Toast or Biscuit, served with jam and ricotta” and people ALWAYS ASK TOTALLY DUMBFOUNDED “so…..do we choose between toast or biscuit?”
YES. TOAST ORRRRRR OR OR BISCUIT. Toast. OR. Biscuit.
I can’t 😭😭😭😭😭.
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