Tales of Restaurant Ignorance

When you’ve worked in the restaurant industry as long as I have, you have the opportunity to meet hundreds of thousands of people. You can figure that I may have 16-20 tables a day, averaging 3 persons per table. That’s anywhere from 48-60 people a day. Not everyone I meet could classify themselves as a Rhodes Scholar. Some of the people that I’ve come across are probably not the sharpest tools in the shed. It’s rather disturbing to think that some of these people are even let out of the house. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to… Tales of Restaurant Ignorance! Da da daaaaaaa!

I suppose that’s in any sort of business, you deal with ignorant people. Unfortunately, some businesses actually see profit in ignorance. Car dealerships for example can benefit greatly from customers who know absolutely nothing about the car their buying. The unfortunate thing is that in the restaurant, you’re going to get fed no matter how stupid you are. People’s livelihoods are at stake here and ignorant people all over the world unknowingly enter that realm of paying your bills based on the gratuity of others.

I suppose I have some pretty funny stories that could easily make you laugh at your fellow man. Every waiter around the country has these stories. Some of them range just from the little chuckle of “oh, how stupid” to the “I can’t believe they said/did that!” I’ve had people come into my previous Italian restaurant and ask if we have buffalo wings, hamburgers, onion rings, and one customer actually argued with me because she believed that we offered free soup, salad, and breadstick refills, obviously mistaking my restaurant for Olive Garden. I had one customer argue with me, thinking that the restaurant had previously been tagged with “Bar & Grill” a couple years ago, when clearly there is a picture on the waiting room wall that shows the original restaurant building.

One of my favorite stories to tell at my current place of employment is our first….Tale of Restaurant Ignorance! Da da daaaaaa! This happened a couple months ago. At my restaurant, we have an area designated for outside seating. It’s a beautiful setting, with a giant tree with sprawling branches providing shade on even the hottest of days. This sizable group of maybe five or six people decide that since it’s such a beautiful day, they’re going to sit under this tree and enjoy their lunch. Once their food had arrived, out of nowhere a small fruit fly landed on this woman’s sandwich. Horrified, this woman demanded to her waiter that he take the sandwich back, make her a brand new one that had not be tainted by a fly, and bring it to her immediately. So, what did the waiter do? He handed it to my expediter, who then took the sandwich, swapped out the toothpicks holding the two halves together, put the sandwich on a different plate, and sent it back out to her. In essence, there was no way they were going to make her another sandwich. With a shit-eating grin on her face, she took a bite of the sandwich and said to my co-worker “oh, this is so much better, thank you”. Better than what? You’re still eating the fly-touched food. Lady, deal with it. You’re outside, these things happen. I mean, just yesterday a guy had a bird poo in his drink because he was out there, too.

One Sunday afternoon, I had a gentleman order from our menu our delicious Seared Tuna. Little did I know, this lovely afternoon would delve me into another….Tale of Restaurant Ignorance! Da da daaaaa! Now, this tuna is an absolute delight. The chef’s original recipe called for it to be flashed on the grill to a seared perfection. If you’ve never eaten restaurant-style tuna, you’ve got to try it. Once I had brought the tuna to him, told his table to enjoy their meal, I walked away to attend to other customers. He motioned me over a minute or two later, and said to me in a very matter-of-fact sort of way, “I was under the impression that you were going to cook this fish!” I said to him “yes, sir. It’s seared tuna. Seared rare. That’s how it’s prepared.” He replied, “oh no, that’s not what I want. I don’t eat raw fish.” This gentleman didn’t have the word “seared” in his vocabulary, unfortunately. So, instead of asking what “seared” meant, he expressed his ignorance of the proper preparation of tuna, opting for me to send it back to the kitchen, and have it burned to a rubbery chunk of fish that could easily be canned and sold to Jessica Simpson as chicken.

My last little Tale of Restaurant Igno- okay, okay, enough, I know. Anyway, this happened a couple months ago as well. It was a very busy lunch; we were on a 15-20 minute wait that day. Supplies were running low as the dishwasher had become backed up. Unfortunately, there was a table in the dining room that didn’t get silverware at the beginning of their meal. It was, indeed an unfortunate thing that their waiter wasn’t able to track down some clean silverware for this table. When one of the customers at the table decided to stand up and yell clear across the restaurant “We need some God damned SILVERWARE!”, a silent hush fell over the hungry mob. I mean, you could actually hear people’s eyes staring at him. Hearing sight. That’s pretty quiet. Anyway, the waiter returned to his table and brought him the silverware he so desperately needed. This guy with no hesitation was so embarrassed by the spectacle that he put on, he slunk back into his chair and watched his ice melt in his glass for the rest of the afternoon.

I could go on forever about ignorant stories, but you can imagine the types of stories I could tell just by going down the list of the Do’s and Dont’s from earlier posts. The only word of advice I have for you as a reader: don’t end up on the “Tales of Restaurant Ignorance: Part II”.