Welcome to the Reddit Restaurant! (2 Hour Compilation of Waiters/Restaurant Stories)

waiters what's the saddest i'm waiting for someone you have experienced god's at a party of 15 to 20 inches for a woman's bridal shower her mom decorated the table and chairs in the whole corner for the party everyone in the restaurant could see there was going to be a party there on a busy friday night four people showed off the possible 20 that includes the future bride and mom i didn't even care about the money i was missing out on four tables of my section gone on a busy weekend shift i just felt so bad for her you know it's bad when you're not even worried about your tips hug this one was tough i worked at a pretty fancy steakhouse in town and we had a private dining room that could set up to 32 at a single long table to book the room we charge a 1 500 deposit which we then use to cover part of the bill it was a deposit not a room charge anyways this girl books it for 26 people puts the deposit on her card she shows up with her sister and then after about 20 minutes two of their friends show up and sit at the opposite end of this giant table from the birthday girl and her sister nobody else came they waited an hour the birthday girl was sobbing the other two just awkwardly left it was awful i'm grateful to my manager who in a moment of compassion refunded the whole deposit back onto the poor girl's card i felt terrible for her that's horrible it must have meant so much to her since she is willing to splurge i haven't bartended in a million years but the saddest one was a guy in his thirties he had a top asked for a bottle of top shelf champagne candles lit all that told me they were celebrating no one showed guy looked morose it had an appetizer poured a glass of champagne for the person who wasn't there then asked for the bill i felt bad he obviously got stood up so i brought him a desert in the house he smiled and told me it was his anniversary my face must have showed my sadness for him so he clarified his wife died of cancer a few months ago it may have been the saddest thing i've seen the guys had something horrible happen to him and still decided to go out and attempt to remember the good times not dwell on the bad you were nice to him and that probably meant a lot his day probably sucked but it sucked less than it could have done not a waiter but worked at a coffee shop for several years and made friends with tons of regulars one of the regulars we'll call him jay was working on his phd in art history or something to that effect at the university near us he came in one day got his usual tea and asked if i could charge him for a latte did make it later no big deal i was bussing tables and asked who the latter was for and very excitedly expressed that he was meeting a lady and it was kind of a date he was an awkward kind of guy but very interesting and incredibly friendly one hour passes no show two no show finally three he's looking despondent and starts collecting his things and leaves she showed up 20 minutes later asking about jay apparently they got their times completely mixed up he comes in the next day and i mention that she came in looking for him and he looked so excited i found out a week or so later from him that she basically blew him off a second time he was so crestfallen it broke my heart that one was almost going well and then no my poor heart not exactly a waiter but i was working at a bar a few years back and there often was this girl in her early 20s maybe who sometimes used to meet her mother at the bar maybe about every two or three months the thing is more often than not the mother either came extremely late one or two hours at least op didn't came at all when she came there often was a huge tension between the two it was obvious that they had some unresolved issues watching the girl wait for hours even if it was clear that the mother wouldn't come on that day always broke my heart as a bar keeper and since she was a regular i tried my best to engage a conversation with her to distract her a little but there's only so much you can do fun fact years after i stopped working at that bar i met her at a random party and we had a great evening night together she told me that she broke up with her mother though it sucks being the child and trying to resolve issues with your parents because you want them to be a part of your life but then they refuse to do any work on their part ugh this gentleman in his mid 40s came to my restaurant frequently and would not order his drink until his wife got there he would wait for a few minutes then pull out a framed picture of a woman set it on the table and proceed to order his food and drink he would talk to the framed picture and have dinner with her about once a week i noticed him doing this often and told my co-worker i thought it was cute he was having dinner with his late wife and she replied oh no that's not his wife he found that picture at goodwill and has been a relationship with it ever since he told me that a long time ago what did i expect from working right off the freeway in crack town very true story no lie they had us in the first half not gonna lie i was actually a hostess at the time and i was asked to take the table for a server an old man came in asking for a table of six and he asked for six waters i set up his table and i put his order in he said it was his birthday he was there for about an hour or two and nobody showed up it was really sad he ended up tipping me like thirty dollars and he said sorry for the trouble i still think about that guy i hope he's doing okay ugh i have no idea why i clicked on this thread it's just making me super depressed i hope that man is doing okay too guy was dressed really nice says his date should be there soon and goes ahead and is seated he orders a drink and 30 minutes pass by then an hour and another drink later he started fidgeting with something and i noticed it was a ring after an hour and a half he asked for his check and muttered something about their ghost two years wasted and down the drain he tipped two exes bill poor guy was working an evening shift and a relatively younger guy came in and waited for his date she showed up and not even 10 minutes later he got up and left and she sat there crying patrons that are there to break up are also hard to witness a woman came in four nights in a row just in case she got the day wrong she'd sit at the bar wearing the same flowery dress every night and would hopefully look out the door every single time it opened left in tears the first two nights when we closed the third and fourth nights she just stared vacantly at the door until we had to make sure she left i never saw her again i don't think any other staff did either but we all felt really bad for her she got a couple free drinks and apps we didn't even care if it was a scam cause she seemed so broken about it a woman came in four nights in a row just in case she got the day wrong i feel bad for her but this is not normal behavior i wonder if she's okay i was a server for five years and the most heartbreaking experience i had was an older woman probably in her 60s was waiting for her grandson to come meet her for lunch when i greeted her at the table she was very excited as i assumed she didn't see him much as time went by no one showed up so she decided to order towards the end of a meal no had shown up so it being a slow shift me and my gf we worked together at the same restaurant and which is where we met decided to just talk with her for a little bit and give her some company we both felt so sad for this sweet old lady but we could tell that simple act of kindness made her day shame on that grandson anyone who stands up their own grandma as an ungrateful punk place i used to work at had a man come in every night for a week wait for a few hours order food and drinks then leave with no one showing up later learned he was just trying to cope with his wife's death believing that she'd arrive to greet him at the restaurant where they had their first date in a strange and not so sad way that location may have allowed him to feel close to her and that was good enough not a waiter but to cheer this thread up i waited an hour and a half for my dates to show once i ended up sitting texting my friends fed up they kept telling myself five more minutes five more minutes just as i was about to give up she showed she explained she was a nurse on a mental health ward and one of her young people had gone into crisis she'd been stressing the whole time anyway we've been married 10 years in february sometimes it's worth the wait i'm not a waiter but i set up a joint party for my son and my nephew who have the same birthday his stepmom decided not to bring him to his own party the boys were born on the same day three years apart i set up a pizza party with family and joined friends his dad was working and the step-mom just decided not to bring him long before cell phones not the wait staff but the waiter i had set an okay cupid date at this nice coffee shop in brooklyn i get there and i know the barista from college i'm the only person in the shop at the time so we talk a little awkwardly gradually other customers arrive so she attends to them and i attend to my phone it gets to the point where my date is 20 minutes late and hasn't been responding to my messages asking about an eta i'm sweating profusely i'm so embarrassed that i'm probably being stood up in front of someone who i had several classes with years prior and knows most of my friends i feel so humiliated then my date walks in stands there for a moment and walks right back out the door barista was that her me yup barista what in butthole that comment made things slightly better what why that's evil not a waiter but was out with my girlfriend and we were seated next to a date guy was clearly trying to engage with the girl but the girl kept looking at her phone disinterested guy initiated all the conversations only to be met with one word answers he ordered a lot of food it's a dessert place so a lot of small meals and then the girl suddenly took her bag and left he banged the table after about paying and just left with the food and touched everyone in the vicinity including the waiters were visibly shocked i felt so bad for the guy she sounds like an awful person i used to work birthdays at a science museum so one weekend the birthday family arrives i escort them back to their room as usual and start talking with the mom about how she wants things to go setting up the room etc she mentions that they just moved here and her son doesn't have many friends yet so they invited one cousin about their son's age and then just invited the kids entire second grade maybe class to the party an hour goes by and the little cousin has shown up but nobody else the little dude invited every kid in his class and not one of them showed up now to be honest the birthday boy himself didn't seem that concerned he and his cousin were happily playing with each other the whole time i just don't think he was really that warmed up to the kids in his class to begin with but the mom was heartbroken she had set this party up for her son had bought a birthday package that included a private room general admission for all guests and me taking a tour of liquid nitrogen to the room and making ice cream for the party she had high hopes for this and nobody showed and she was in tears and she asked me to go out the museum and just invite random kids into her son's birthday party just so that there would be at least some other kids for him to play with and this is the part that i'll never forget we found a half dozen kids who were interested in coming to the party and the mom was very grateful to them but word also got out to the staff and the staff absolutely rallied around this kid other employees showed up to sing him happy birthday some staffers went to the gift shop to buy him gifts one of my managers got the family vouchers for future admission we have a mascot a robot who will walk around and play with guests and he showed up to the party with some gifts from our gift shop i brought down the materials for making a couple of different types of homemade slime and made slime with the kids one of my co-workers one of the smartest and kindest people i've ever met spoke with the mom about the sun's interests and discovers the birthday boy is a fan of the avengers so he goes back to where we have a laser etcher on display and comes back with a wood burning that is a picture of the avengers wishing the sun happy birthday by the end of the party the mom was in tears again but for a very different reason a few days later she she sent us the sweetest letter about how much it all meant to her i worked three to five birthdays a weekend every weekend for about five years and they were always fun but that was the absolute best day at work i've ever had once at my shift i saw a really shy guy you could see that he is on a budget bit omg he was so trying so hard and looked so exited about upcoming date he brought one rose and asked what he can purchase on 10 euros to make this evening beautiful my heart melted so much that i offered him for free two glasses of wine and a dessert i was a manager we put on a table some candles and so he was sitting there and with the big smile waiting for his dates to come but she never came he waited like two hours nervously checking on his phone when he left he gave this rose to me and thanked for kindness towards him he was so broke so was my heart about this situation ngl this almost made me cry see we had a 21st birthday party booked for 20 the family showed up early with a few friends they had a few drinks and let the staff know some of the party were running late half an hour in when the late people were supposed to arrive two friends left an hour went by and the birthday group ordered got their starters told the service staff some more people were coming about two hours and the mother said just bring the mains out it was so sad i felt so bad for them being stood up by 14 people and the two friend who did show up didn't even eat years ago when i was bartending a man showed up in the early afternoon and told me that he was waiting on someone and when i asked he told me that it was his ex-wife and that they were celebrating that day now that was something that i wasn't about to dig into so i just went on with my work but once she arrived they seemed remarkably friendly with each other and started ordering the works steaks expensive drinks appetizers they only took a bite or two of and multiple desserts towards the end of the meal while chatting with the two of them i made the mistake of asking what they were celebrating they told me that it was the birthday of their son who passed away and every year they get together despite their divorce to celebrate him order all his favorite food and drink all his favorite drinks they got a bit misty-eyed but this seemed like a therapeutic experience for them i on the other hand had to take five in the walk-in freezer to have a little cry afterwards not a way to but a patron at the restaurant my girlfriend had taken me out to this local niche type restaurant one of the ones that was the type where you could get vintage old game and stuff to play while you got your food as we get in and seated young man around my age at the time think 18 20ish comes in holding a nice bunch of flowers and he is dressed really nice with the hair done up and everything it clearly took him a lot of preparation so me and my girlfriend order nd talk and enjoy the evening and we realize that this guy is still alone after an hour we have our food and our eating but he's still sitting there drinking a soda and checking his phone then the door then his phone every five minutes this went on for the whole two-ish hours we were there it became obvious by his increasing anxiety and glum look that he must have known he was stood up but either couldn't accept it yet or was still desperately holding out hope me and my girlfriend felt so bad for him that when we paid our bill we gave the waitress extra money to send him a cheesecake waitress ended up giving him two just because she felt bad as well to this day it still sticks with me seeing that poor kid go through that and it boggles my mind because the guy wasn't bad looking there wasn't anything apparently wrong with him not that it would justify it if there was it just adds to the confusion people can't really be crappy sometimes we gave the waitress extra money to send him a cheesecake that's nice waitress ended up giving him two that's just rubbing salt into the wounds have a cheesecake on the house and one for your date oh crap right a few years ago i took myself to a movie and dinner it was the weekend before valentine's day at the time i had a warehouse gig and that day my step counter was at 7.9 kilometers being exhausted i just sort of plopped down ordered quietly sipped a beer and derped around on my phone i must have looked like i was on the verge of tears in reality i'd been rear-ended at a red light the week before and just hurt all over server camped my cheesecake smiled politely and quietly remarked honey it is going to be okay until that point i wasn't sad to be alone but after that i was fighting tears all the way home a six-year-old boy came every day with his older brother at lunchtime and for almost a month they ordered three plates of food and always left one when i attended to them the boy told his older brother to ask his mother for lunch because she was already arriving but their mother never came the boy's older brother asked me to give the food to someone who needed it when they left and he told me that his mother had died and that he did not know how to explain to his little brother that his mother was not coming back but that this cafeteria it was the last place where she had taken her little brother to eat and that is why the boy believed that she would return for the dinner that's enough redid for today i was the sad schmuck on the 23rd of december 2019 i had set up a date with an amazing girl from tinder we had a lot in common very attractive and she lived close by we agreed over snapchat to meet at a red robins in the area for our first date even though she would be a little late i got to the restaurant on time because i had no idea what a little late meant and got a table with a view of the door and started waiting the first 15 minutes passed with me excitedly telling the waitress i was expecting someone and wouldn't be ordering yet the next 15 minutes passed with me openly staring at the door sitting up whenever someone would walk in but after 45 minutes the waitress asked if i wanted anything and i told her i was still waiting while i watched the door anxiously at one hour i was planning on leaving soon and swinging by target on my way home i realized i hadn't given this girl my number and i didn't have data so we had no way of communicating fifteen minutes later i was about to muster up the courage to leave when two waitresses that had stopped by previously came to tell me they felt so sad and wanted to buy me a milkshake i thanked them but told them i had lost my appetite and half-heartedly joked that this wouldn't even be the worst thing that happened to me today my childhood dog had been put down earlier that morning and i had spent the hours before the date digging her grave i told one of the waitresses jc whose kindness i will always remember that i had no way of communicating with my date without wi-fi to which she responded by giving me her hotspot password i connected as fast as i could and opened snapchat to find dozens of messages from my date explaining how her only good pants were locked in the dryer and if i minded that she showed up in sweats i sent her my number and told her i would be glad if she showed up at all a few minutes later she walked in and explained that she had been in the parking lot for the past 15 minutes not getting a response from me thinking that i had stood her up and was about to leave when she got my text we're still grateful to the waitress jc for helping us get together gotta get that data plan bro mint sim is like 300 for a year i had a regular who would always come in with his wife one day he sat in my section and i noticed his wife wasn't with him i asked where's your wife today he replied she's in heaven waiting for me immediately i died inside i think i would have gone white flopped on the bench and started crying all those deep breaths you take when you want to cry but you try to get yourself together at the same time ducking heck i would have been a wreck not a waiter here on my 18th birthday this girl invited me out to drink with her friends because all of mine were too young to drink i said no at first but they insisted so i went along got there when they said they would ended up waiting at the bar two hours before they showed up had a short introduction and then they went off to the bathroom one of her friends came back out and told me that she wanted me to leave it really hurt but i didn't see the point of arguing worst part was when i got home i found out she was spreading lies that i had stalked her to the bar and told all our mutual friends one heck of an 18th birthday not a waiter but this happened to me i went speed dating turned up to the venue to find it very quiet barely anyone was there the event was on the second floor so i got a pint for the time being and sat down and waited for people to turn up i tried to go up to the second floor only to find that it had been closed off noticing my confusion the bar man asked if i was there for speed dating i said yes he told me it was cancelled i didn't get an email about this nothing so i sat there dressed up and alone i finished my pint and went home dressed up and alone i finished my pint and went home that for some reason hits hard i'm not a waiter but once my friend and i were out at a restaurant celebrating our new apartment there were some people sitting next to us that were in a tinder date the girl kept asking the guy questions about what was apparently on his profile and he kept saying he didn't do that or just put that on there to get someone to like him she seemed so defeated at one point he got up without saying anything and when she asked where he was going he ignored her came back about five minutes later when this girl looks like she's on the verge of tears she asks where he went and he just said bathroom and went back to eating it was awkward to witness frick that dude im not a waiter but i got one heck of a story i was going for a friend's party at a restaurant and when i got there there was a kid sitting by the door he was also coming to the party when i told the waiters i was there for the party as well they called my friend and he identified me immediately but had never seen the kid before as it turned out his friend who invited him to the party had the party days before and gave him the wrong date we felt bad for the kid so we let him join our party that day i made a new friend reminds me of an event a group my friend was in held they skied and held a single skiing event they put up flyers and sent notices out one of the people who showed up that morning was a 13 year old kid who wanted to try skiing he said everyone was nice to the kid and they all made sure he had a good day his first time on the mountain happened to my friend she was a hostess at a restaurant and sat this old lady at a table while she was waiting for her friend she stayed there for a few hours asking every now and then if her friend had showed up my friend was heartbroken and told this to her co-worker who was working the other side of the restaurant turns out her co-worker also had an old lady alone at a table who had been waiting patiently for her friend the ladies got a chance to chat a bit before they left so it was a happy ending at least thank god for at least one happy ending in this thread not a server anymore or at a time but i still remember this one like 20 years later my dnd group was currently that week without a place to game so we went to the local dentist we told the waitress that we would be there for about six hours yes we tipped her very well for camping that long anyway about an hour into our session this guy comes in and sits at a two top in clear view of me he sets a single rose on the table and sits down when the waitress took his drink order he was all smiles nothing really dramatic happens but over the next four hours or so i just watch his body language change he checks his phone like every two or three minutes never gets a call never seems to get or send a text finally after the four hours he just gets up leaves a 20 on the table he only ordered a soft drink as far as i could tell and just walks out no idea why but that image of the table a single drink the tip and the abandoned rose stayed with me all my life for your own sanity you never wait more than 20 minutes if she isn't responding to calls or messages okay this story did not happen to me but to my friend my friend was a manager still is at a pretty fancy restaurant she was working during valentine's day a guy walking pretty nicely dressed but not too nicely kind of nervous he's walked to a table for two since it was valentine the restaurant did its best to give off a romantic atmosphere roses on the table love themed dessert etc the guy order a water and start to wait when the waiter tries to take his order he tells he is waiting for someone he waits for an hour's the two and then three each time sending checking his phone trying to call someone after a while my friend goes to talk to him this guy had lost his girlfriend of six years he was 24 at the time two years ago and it was his first date ever since after that she talked to him a bit more about him how life is etc etc turns out they had quite a bit in common so they exchanged contact a lot happened afterward but they've been happily married for two years now he is now 30 she is 28. he was in it for the long con of free desserts not my story but my sister there was a boy in my niece's class think third fourth grade kinda chubby quiet kid he invited people to his birthday party my sister made my niece go to be polite luckily she did cause only my niece went from the classroom his mother was so happy she went my sister felt so bad for him but i think he was just happy one person came to his party so when my niece had her birthday party at a skating rink she invited him too he was ecstatic i met the boy very good kid and he had a blast at her party i think some of the kids wanted to go to his party but the parents were just too lazy seriously parents imagine if that was your kid's party i make my son go to every birthday party and all the kids including my son love it my mom was embarrassed to be poor and didn't have money for other kids gifts but instead of being creative or offering to help she just said i wasn't allowed to go to other kids birthday parties luckily had a number of other things to keep me from becoming a weird male adjusted kid adult not a waiter but i witnessed a sad experience in a ny restaurant worth sharing here on ask reddit a lady sitting by herself at the table next to me just stared straight ahead and with tears in her eyes when i asked her if she was okay she told me that her husband had recently died and this was her first time out to her restaurant on her own she said she had a pair of concert tickets for a performance at lincoln center they had planned to attend bill would now be going alone another first since her husband passed when i told her that i was a musician she asked if i'd like her extra ticket so we went together and had a great time after the concert we even went out for dessert and a night cap she was delightful i'll forever be grateful for the opportunity in that crowded restaurant to speak to someone who needed companionship and understanding had a lady probably in her late 70s early 80s come in with her daughter for a birthday dinner they got there early and set up some small decorations on the table a bouquet or two some balloons they waited for over an hour and a half before they told me that they guessed no one was coming and they'd go ahead and order they had invited over a dozen people and no one even called i told the lady that the people she invited were missing out and we chatted for a bit i tried to make sure that i checked in on her a lot made small talk cracked a few dad jokes and while she was very sweet you could tell she was disappointed i mean at her age who knows how many birthdays you have left at that point in your life i feel like family and friends would be the most important thing to you they finished thanked me left a tip and departed later that evening about five hours later two young men about 2025 showed up and asked if the such and such birthday party had been seated yet i told them they'd missed a fun dinner and that it had ended hours ago they didn't seem to care and just ambled out later that evening about five hours later two young men about 20 25 showed up and asked if the such and such birthday party had been seated yet i told them they'd missed a fun dinner and that it had ended hours ago they didn't seem to care and just ambled out that kinda sounds like they honestly got the time they were supposed to show up wrong they had a reservation for 12 people it was the girl's 17th birthday and she arrives first with her boyfriend her dad comes a few minutes later the three of them wait about 45 minutes and decide to just order they eat and are about to leave when the rest of her family shows up drunk they make a scene about how they weren't hungry and had to show up so nobody would be mad at them for not coming eat her cake and leave the birthday girl was crying and her dad and boyfriend were trying to console her they sound like my pose-in-laws this happened years ago when i was a bartender i worked at a fairly high-end restaurant dress code but not too uptight an older gentleman who i had seen multiple times before sits down at the end of the bar and he tells me what he's drinking and then also orders a second drink for his wife who is supposed to be meeting him there 30 minutes go by and he's on his second drink while his wife still hasn't arrived he's looking around behind his shoulder at the door and calling on his phone to no avail another 45 minutes passes and he finishes his wife's drink for her then closes the tab a couple weeks go by and this man comes into the restaurant again he has a bunch of people with him who range from old age to teens they all look sad and are all dressed up in black his wife wasn't in the group with them he orders a drink for himself and another for his wife he closes the tab then walks back to the front of the restaurant by the hostess stand with his drink but left his wife's drink behind i was kinda busy at the time so i didn't think much of it in the moment i later found out through one of the hostesses no idea how she found out that he and his family were there after the funeral of a family member who had died a couple weeks prior i did the mental calculations and it seemed to fall in the exact time frame that he had been sitting at the bar alone waiting for his wife now i know that funerals usually don't take weeks to complete once a person dies so this could have all been coincidental but it seemed a little too perfect of a coincidence it depends sometimes especially when there is a cremation the memorial service may be some time later i worked at tim hortons over 25 years ago one day an old man came in by himself and requested a cake for a birthday he asked that we ride happy birthday angel on it when it was ready he came to the counter to pay for it flashed a huge smile and said it's my birthday i'm angel i will never forget angel buying himself a birthday cake my co-workers just told me this story last week and i cried i work at a semi-classy seafood restaurant in south east michigan and the host who has been working there for a long time said she had the sweetest old man who came with a single rose and vars set it up himself and ordered a bottle of champagne sitting by the tate eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight eight for a date that never showed literally cried when she told me this another one they had was the guy who set up the reservation called to cancel at the day of and asked the host to please inform his date they told him they obviously didn't have her number and he just hung up the woman showed up dressed to the nine and was stunning apparently his loss i had a really bad fight with my ex following a meal at a semi-classy seafood restaurant in southeast michigan several years ago and i would have rather had that fight than be that poor guy who gets stood up not my story happened to my roommate he worked at an old diner that had a fair amount of veterans as regulars there was one group that came in and shared a meal every three months and caught up with each other's lives been doing it since they got back from serving together in the korean war over the years the group had gotten smaller as some passed on by the time my roommates started working there the group was down to three then down to two by the end of that year the last two kept coming back for over a year until one day the last guy came in and after a few cups of coffee said i guess i'm all that's left he never did come back as far as my roommate remembers ugh this happened to a good friend he's one of just two left of his company of 20 they served in iraq together they're all only 40 44 if they were still alive one of them only passed two weeks ago it's devastating this is similar a man in his eight is used to come in on his own every night without fail always ordered the same thing was genuinely lovely to the staff it turned out his wife had died a few years previously and coming to the restaurant and talking to waiters was the only social interaction he had all day we ended up giving him free meals every day just so he could keep coming i had a dude at my bar waiting for a tinder date it had been like 15 minutes and a girl walks in he perked up and smiled he then proceeded to watch her i can only assume very drunk self go over to another guy of a completely different race and seem so excited to meet him she realized her mistake and quickly looked around to see her actual date most awkward tinder date i've ever served i was in a nightclub famous for having girl sex workers and there was this guy with two women one in each of his sides then his wife came and dressed as a h got herself a glass cup and shattered it in his head i never saw that much blood and yelling but the guy was okay kinda it was like a big mexican soap opera he kind of deserved it though english is not my first language so sorry if i sound offensive the waiter here this was at my first job when i was maybe 16 or 17 and didn't have many friends i had been asked by co-workers to go bowling one afternoon i was excited to go as i didn't really get to go hang out with anyone very much and my crush was the one who asked me to go i got the details from my crush via text and got to the bowling alley a little early to make sure i had the right place i headed in and realized i was the first one there over the next hour i called reach person who had said they were going and each one sent me to voicemail i'm pretty sure the alley staff thought i was being sketchy as heck too i ended up going home and just never brought it up at work even though i know my manager would have gone off on the stuff for doing that to me dude had a soft spot for me and told me i was like the kid he never had he was a really kind man server here as many stories have said a mom made a reservation for 20 i believe for her kids birthday the mom arrived an hour early and we gave her the entire back section so she could decorate it however she wanted she did a lot like she really went all out for her kid which me and my co-workers thought was the sweetest thing ever come party time at 2 p.m and no one comes more time goes by and nothing by 3 p.m nothing the mom waits until 4 and comes to us crying that no one showed up obviously heartbroken my manager says to them you guys order as much as you want and we will make you the biggest birthday dessert for your son they had a giant feast and while they were doing this me and my co-workers made him a custom birthday card with all our names on it we had an artist that worked there so she drew him a bunch of disney things on the card and laminated it the most interesting part about this happened after with me the kid was kinda quiet and he had a switch that his mom gave to him as a present something about this kid reminded me of me as a kid so i went up to their table and asked them how everything was they were both in a better mood and spirits and i started talking to the kid about video games and stuff for like 20 minutes i found out later that he loves anime more specifically naruto so we started talking about that and i'm not sure if he knew anyone else that liked naruto but this kid lit up like i was the first person he's talked to about the show it was the most heartwarming thing to ever happen to me the whole entire time the mom was like you actually understand what he says about the show so obviously the kid talked to his mom about it but she had no idea what he was talking about at some point the mother started crying because she was so happy that her kid had someone to talk to about his interests as they were leaving i went to my locker and got my car keys because i had a naruto keychain on them i took it off and i gave it to him and i said happy birthday and this kid says this was the best birthday ever to his mom and he said that he wanted to come back and eat at my restaurant soon most heartwarming thing to ever happen to me in my entire life i don't know what happened to me after they left but i just started crying from being overwhelmed with what happened it still brings a tear to my eye anytime i think about it tldr mom reserved party of 24 sons birthday no one showed my manager gave them a giant feast i talked to the kid about video games and naruto and his day was made not me but my mom so basically there's this sweet old man that comes down to the restaurant that my mom works at as a waitress and it's usually him and his wife and sometimes their grandson but anyways one day the man came in with his daughter and they told my mom that the wife had passed away then a couple of days later the daughter had started to show up regularly with the old man and the daughter one day before they ate had told my mom that the old man had alzheimer's and was starting to forget stuff here and there but still remembered the important things but he forgot about the wife's passing so whenever they eat he would wait for his wife to come if the daughter would remind him that she wasn't feeling good so every day they come they eat their food and have a good time but at the end of it he would ask for the cake of the day whenever there's lemon cake because she loved the lemon cake i don't know how my mom does it but it must be hard to do all this without crying wait as i've read it what freaked up crap have you overheard while waiting tables i was delivering food to a large table that looked like they were on a family reunion vacation when i overheard a grandpa asking one of the younger 12 or 13 grandchildren if he they had fun that day the kid responded with frick you grandpa i can't wait until you die i almost dropped all the plates in shock in a witherspoons and there was a slight lull in the friday night noise and a buddy and i overheard a girl say well technically he isn't my brother so i shagged him to which her friend replied but you have the same dad well it's all relative i overheard a customer talking about someone coming and being so much fun i assumed she was pregnant because she seemed to be showing a bit i decided midway through the dinner to congratulate her on being pregnant to my horror she said i am not pregnant i felt horrible i told my manager who camped their meals and i hid in the back for the rest of their dinner push comes to shove she refused to let the manager comp a meal and left me a 20 tip with a note that said i was kidding i'm due in july that is freaking hilarious what a good sport on her part had a guy confessed to banging his soul sister when i brought their drinks to them it was an anniversary i guess he thought it would be the least likely place for her to cause a scene she caused a scene aha if i break this news to her in public she can't get upset my wife and i keep bees as a hobby pretty much the grossest thing you need to do as part of this is occasionally you need to scrape cells off a frame particularly drone cells basically you take a scraper and scrape the wax but the lava pupa plus juices etc just squirt out everywhere they're thick white and disgusting i was holding the frame and my wife was scraping and it sprayed all over her face and right into her mouth she was describing the experience to me when the waitress walked over and definitely got a very different interpretation about thick white stuff right in my face and mouth i was busting this table and i can hear these two guys speaking in vietnamese to each other one asks the other what they think about me the guy responds and said i'm cute but i have a flat chest also in my defense we had to wear these oversized unisex shirts that was not flattering but anyways i just keep doing what i'm doing and continue on when they came to the register to pay one ask me what nationality i was and i smiled and said i'm vietnamese they looked shocked then asked me if i spoke it which i responded i did then he asked me in vietnamese if i'm understanding him right now and i responded back and yet that yes i do they didn't say anything else and left we had a couple who would come in regularly and always asked to be seated in my co-workers section they were probably in their 60s and were always really affectionate and cute with each other my co-worker would joke around with them all the time one day the man came in with a different woman than usual and my co-worker jokingly told him ooh you're in trouble i'm going to tell your wife you were here with another woman woman said excuse me i am his wife who the frick has he been coming here with dead awkward silence while she death glares at her extremely uncomfortable looking husband my co-worker just turned around and walked away middle-aged couple on what seemed like an early-ish date hand them the machine to pay at the end she takes it the machine gives her the option to tap a card or insert it she puts on a voice and looks at him oh wow it's asking me if i want to tap or insert should i tap or insert he smiles and i'm just standing there i can't even pretend not to be paying attention i'm a foot away and was just talking to them i guess i'll just tap but i really would rather insert she finally hands the machine back to me it takes about three weeks to print out the dang receipt and i'll leave with her thanks for coming in havigreed90e thanks bye older couple at bob evans i just wish i could die already i no dear i am a server at a small hall that runs a restaurant bar out of the basement in a small rural community one night after almost all of the patrons had left an old man shuffles up to the serving area looks left and right leans in and says all old people have aids he pauses then says hearing aids band-aids and roll aids he cackles then shuffles away our grander jokes when i was a waiter people often pretended that i wasn't there the stories they told were crazy and personal one woman at a table of six lunching ladies told the story of how her husband was recently prescribed vidogra he took it like a vitamin one pill every morning he kept having erections at work and didn't understand why i'd like to see what this man's secretary looks like i like my women like i like my whiskey 15 years old with just a little bit of coke two random dudes at the bar i'm not saying you can't date him i just don't want you freaking some negro in my house dad talking to his daughter with the rest of the family present and i had a table of nurses who were describing in detail epinectomy they had to perform on an 85 year old man i overheard a guy on a date at the table next to ours trying to impress the girl by saying that he loves swing dancing and that maybe they should check out that swinging richard's place sometime their waitress was in earshot and quickly explained to him that swinging richards was not that kind of dance club it's of the male nudity variety a couple used to come into my work probably mid-50s they would request to sit somewhere private so she could proceed to jerk him off under the table and have him come in a glass we obviously didn't allow this nor realize it until we actually saw the glass they were already gone by then the next time they came in we didn't realize it as them and got hit again finally the third time we knew set them in the bar area where you're pretty much on a display for 50-300 people they requested to sit somewhere more private and we point blank told them absolutely not they stopped returning after that i used to be a manager at a pizza hut big extended redneck family comes in with parents and kids standard visit and they stood up to leave when two of the guys started yelling at each other their wives gfs got in on it and turned it up a notch by getting in a vicious lap fight best part both of the women were holding babies at the time i used to wait tables at a waffle house one morning around 6am i had an older gentleman come in and sit i came up to take his drink order like usual asking how he was and such his response was with tear-filled eyes i just buried my wife i had to pause for a second to collect myself because it kinda hit me hard not a waiter but a barista i once overheard two teenage girls waiting on their drinks talking about whether or not they think that charges would be pressed against them for beating up a developmentally disabled girl apparently they think they won't because she deserved it i work in a pretty big tourist beach town an older couple comes in one night super nice they were there for a while pretty much until close i come by to ask if they need anything actually my wife and i were talking and since it's our last night here we wanted to know if you would be interested in joining us back at our hotel room i smiled told them thanks but no thanks but have a nice rest of your trip they left me a hefty tip and went on their way never hurts to ask semicolon a little girls couldn't be older than 10 dad's drunk girlfriend calling her fat piece of crap not pretty enough etc when they ordered she asked for a baked potato and the girlfriend said really do you really need that potato hayley the little girl was holding back tears all night i messed up her order and brought her the potato then i brought her a free dessert to make up for the mistake just to pee off the drunk girlfriend that's freaking awful poor kid girlfriend sounds jealous of the daughter emo not a waiter but was sitting next to a booth of people at a restaurant having the most awkward exchange of words imagine two very italian older guys with the most stereotypical south philadelphian accent possible guy one accidentally spills iced tea on table guy two ah it's all over me guy one i'm sorry it was an accident ah i'm sorry guy too but it's all over me guy one i said i'm sorry it was an accident guy two waitress comes over to help guy two napkins please butterfingers over here spilled this all over me guy one you're embarrassing me guy two you're embarrassing me guy too i'm embarrassing you you will not take this outside they stand up guy one know you're like a brother to me guy two guy two come here they shake hands and hug i literally could not help but to keep looking over and my uncle was begging me to stop starring because he thought they were actually going to escalate into a fight it was so weird i'll never forget it over equals over tried emphasizing how hard the accents were edit spelling you saw some of the last of the dying kind of the colorful italian mobsters to top at a pretty restaurant on the lake married couple obviously on the rocks the guy quite obviously wanted to stay together and she was having none of it hushed arguing at the table the entire meal as i am dropping the check he asks what about the baby she replies you don't have to worry about that it's not yours and storms off poor guy was weeping when i returned with the credit card slips late one night i had this couple who were maybe in their late 30s the guy looked a little like a roid head and had a lot of tattoos tough looking guy from the moment they came in the woman was crying the whole time not like a little bit crying but straight up balling she hadn't talked to me the entire time but the guy was very chatty he explained to me how he had just found out that he only had a few months left to live and how she his angel was gonna take care of his boy for him and all this crap anyway i felt pretty genuinely bad cause that's a pretty freaked up thing to hear then i saw them coming again over a year and a half later acting totally normal they didn't remember me but how do you forget the face of someone that told you they were dying my theory is that he was abusive and was making up some cover story as to why she was crying that night either that or he miraculously survived without looking sickly at all which in that case good on him this isn't really fricked up but it's definitely the time i said wtf the hardest couple at the table i greet them get drinks everything is normal lady's voice is a little horse but not too bad like maybe she's a teacher and she was lecturing all day i don't know so they're ready to order food and the conversation goes like this keep in mind that i can hear every word that both of them said girl are you going to order for me guy oh um what do you want girl big sigh the house salad guy to me i'm sure have the house salad girl no egg guy to me no egg me to both of them because i'm so confused what kind of dressing for the salad guy looks a girl girl big sigh ranch on the side guy to me ranch on the side he ordered normally and i finished out the table with no other notable incidents i think about this all the time why did she make him be the middle man when i could hear everything she said was this a first date did it last i love that he was just as confused as i was ex waiter i'm walking down a long hallway carrying a tray of food a kid comes running from a perpendicular hallway and run face first into the wall without putting his hands up he starts crying the dad walks behind him very calmly and kneels down and says buddy you just can't go running into walls i muffled my immediate laugh with my hand it brought tears to my eyes sound advice there although the calmness of the situation maybe implies it's not the first time something like this has happened all right babe let's get out of here this dong ain't gonna suck itself says attractive early 30s woman to sow i have said this to my husband before when leaving a restaurant if someone heard it i hope they got a good laugh out of it a really douchy 15 year old guy was sitting at a booth with two similarly aged girls i think he was trying to show off to them he was being extremely loud obnoxious shouting inappropriate stuff across the restaurant and it was a fairly slow knife so everyone could hear everything he was saying he had a justin bieber haircut and was basically behaving like one of those spoiled full of themselves little crap heads you see on youtube while sitting in the booth next to them was a young couple in their mid-20s they were really nice and polite i remember talking to them the guy was in the military and was having a nice romantic dinner with his wife i mentioned to the manager that the kid was being very inappropriate and causing disruptions but he wouldn't do anything about it so about 15 minutes after that little crap head and his two girlfriends sit down the military dude gets up leans down at the kid's table and tells him i'm paraphrasing we are trying to celebrate our anniversary at the booth next to you you need to quiet down and learned some manners or i'm gonna take you outside and beat the crap out of you kid went so red in the face and didn't make a peep the rest of the night i thanked the military guy for putting the kid in his place before they left i've been waiting tables for a little over a decade now and i definitely have some favorites i once had to wait on a table where the mother and father were trying to calmly explain that they were getting a divorce to their 8-10 year old son they started the conversation before the appetizers even hit the table crying by the time the entrees came and still stayed for dessert the little boy kept asking if he did anything wrong so uncomfortable i used to work at a nice bar in a really nice part of town so a bunch of stories there i was propositioned by a woman and her husband definitely old enough to buy my parents more than once one table had two couples negotiating a swinger's contract overheard a couple discussing pricing for the evening which wasn't surprising she was stunning and he was about 40 years older than her the worst though is waiting on a table where you just know some kind of abuse is regularly occurring i listened to this 20-something guy tell his girlfriend that because she didn't want to order what he told her to she was a selfish bee and he would fix her attitude later i told my managers what i overheard but because he didn't do anything while in the restaurant there really wasn't much we could do my girlfriend waits tables one time a creepy man said to her when i have intercourse with my wife i think of you instead the wife sitting at the table didn't seem bothered by this fact i also bought my girlfriend pepper spray and a taser soon after not really freaked up but by far the best conversation i have ever overheard was a table of three a russian woman and two gay men they happened to be seated at the table closest to the serving station allowing me to hear everything between taking care of my other tables one of the men was introducing his fiance to his ex-wife who he had mail-ordered apparently he found out into this first serious relationship with a woman that he he was gay they parted amicably after she was awarded citizenship he began to date men and she started a career moreover what the frick moment than a fricked up one an american tale natalia moves west not a waiter but overhead on the table across from mine in the strongest welsh accent you can imagine what do you mean i don't loves you i fricks you and i buys you a chips seems like love to me while bartending a man once told me he was going to kill his boss because an accident at the cement plant killed his friend and nothing was done to fix the problem i also had a guy come to the bar order a bottle of odour's non-alcoholic beer and a shot of vodka he did this several times and would stand between the bar and his table and pour the vodka in the beer then go back to his table was curious about the second so i tried it i work for an a b distributor so what owls and vodka are always around absolutely disgusting you really have to be an alcoholic to buy that i was waiting a table a couple days ago for a group of older ladies while i was walking back to the kitchen i overheard one of them say you don't know what it's like to be married to such a freaking ugly man and then said something about waiting for him to die so she'll gain his money it shook me up inside people are inherently me know when it impresses others ice at a table of three a mum her daughter and grandma after sitting grandma left toward a spaghetti at the italian place next door mum seemed to be having an existential crisis i asked her what she wanted to drink i don't know she said can i get you some water i asked i don't know do you want me to come back later i'm not sure the daughter who was getting impatient stood up on her chair hey she said i'll have you know i want apples but first i have to get you something to drink would you like some water i want apples grandma ate italian food in silence while mom stared at the menu for an hour and a half and the daughter ate apples when they finished mom paid and they left she tipped well considering all they bought was fifty dollars worth of apple slices this is the weirdest thing i've ever heard honestly waiters waitresses on reddit be honest how do you treat single diners differently i always treat single diners better than groups they're always more friendly sometimes if i single man and a single woman come in i try to sit them near each other in case they make eye contact fall in love and don't have to eat alone anymore when i worked as a waiter i would prefer single patrons they would be there to order food eat and leave which resulted in a much higher turnaround and at the end of the day more total tips in my pocket this is it right here single diners take a lot less time and tend to order more food per cover they usually tended to be a lot less hassle as well fewer complaints or if there were problems were far more accommodating to problems high turnaround low maintenance and high tip yield i travel frequently and not always to places i know people in i've had nothing but positive experiences dining alone my personal favorite was in nice france where the waitress picked up the menu it was on a chalkboard sat it up on the table sat opposite me and walked me through the menu other than that i've never been treated differently when dining alone i would lose my crap if i went to red lobster and was not allowed cheddar bay biscuits they are 75 percent of the reason i'm there in the first goddang place when i'm on the road i usually get dinner alone but i sit in the bar it's easier to dine alone if people just think you're an alcoholic sit in the regular section and people will be like a ww sad man with nobody to dine out with common aww sad man with nobody to dine out with i say all my friends died the other day in a horrible fire omg i'm so sorry don't be i started the fire it's very dependent on how the single diner is giving off body language if they're wrapped up in a laptop and doing what appears to be business work or something of that nature i typically shorten up my sales pitches and try to make sure that meal is as complete as can be without coming off as being overbearing or interrupting their work if it's a single diner who comes in just reading a paper or toying around on a smartphone and they do not appear to be in any rush whatsoever i like to ask more personal questions like why they came in what they're in town for where they work etc etc this is something i normally don't get into too much when there is a party of two plus because that's something that they're probably already talking about to one another i've worked as a server for the past six years and i can say i never truly treat any two tables the same it's all about reading body language and adapting to how the guests react to whatever i'm doing for them some people when they come in to dine want to just get a meal be treated nicely and have everything go smoothly others are very open to entertainment and small talk and generally like getting personal or sharing stories the biggest thing about being a server is giving exceptional service regardless of what someone looks like smells like acts like etc just because at one crappy table you had came in and gave you an awful tip doesn't mean they didn't enjoy themselves i like to think about it like maybe that's all they could afford due to medical bills or something going awful in their life sometimes people in those situations go out to eat to get away from everything else and maybe they have an amazing time and only tip you five ten percent but they tell their rich friend john c money swarth and he comes in requests you because his friend said you were great orders a super expensive bottle of wine off the reserve list and leaves you a 20 plus tip i like to think karma works heavily in the waiting world tl doctor i treat just about every table differently regardless of table size i like the optimism it makes me feel happy about the world that waitress was dumb i prefer single patrons most of the time there aren't enough people that eat by themselves i end up talking to them a little bit longer than most people if it's not too busy and if they want to have a conversation it's also easier to remember one food and drink order and i can usually run their food out myself since it may be just one plate and clean up isn't a problem either i never did i was happy that most likely all their choices would take less time but you give 100 at all times even if they are b kill them with kindness i prefer single diners while i less maintenance easy to joke around with and establish rapport sure the tips might not be as big since it's a smaller check but i'd rather have one patron than a family with four kids or even one kid tl dr i hate kids but my special snowflakes would be the exceptions to your rule nope actually i never even thought of my customers as single versus not single until just now to me a customer is a customer when i was a waitress and an old person came in i was always so sad and thought their spouse had died and they were lonely one man came in two days a week or did the same thing every week i always felt so bad for him until i found out his wife just didn't like breakfast lol i'm a customer i recently moved to my home country for college and this one cashier at a cafe that i go to on a daily basis knows that i do not speak the native language very well i guess a single thing counts since i have absolutely no friends here you guys may think she's being nice because it's her job but let me specify this is an internet cafe all the cashiers have to do is make sure customers are not damaging the computers or if customers order snacks or drinks they deliver it to the customer and of course man the cash register this girl would greet me and at some points come up to me while i'm playing a game with my friends abroad and chat with me at one point she asked me if i wanted some of her dinner although she's a complete stranger to me i thought it was nice of her to offer me food sure i may be a loser or a loner it makes me feel better that i can talk to someone despite the fact that i'm really shy and there's already a communication barrier with everyone else in this country if it's a lunch shift i'll spend more time at the table and chat with single diners especially if they're older or bring in a book to read sounds counter-intuitive but a simple oh i love that author have you read blah blah really works refill the coffee nice and often boom extra friendliness equals awesome tip at night ain't nobody got time for that crap i treat them like everyone else okay here's your food you doing all right all right cool i got a screaming kid at table three who really needs his mac and cheese i gotta go yell at the kitchen again uh whoa i'm not in the same boat as you john green apparently i'll bring a book with me when i eat lunch out did this a lot last summer as most of my friends were out of town and i love it when people ask me about the book i'm reading we may end up having something awesome in common and i love making new friends i treat them like any other customer my boss loves lone diners he says they come to your place not to socialize but because they really want the food i think he's a little out of touch i always went out alone because i don't know how to cook but okay sometimes i'll be a little chattier if they would like to chat be christ i've had some people keep me at their table for a conversation when i have about a million other things to do anyone can do that though my boss loves lone diners he says they come to your place not to socialize but because they really want the food i think he's a little out of touch i always went out alone because i don't know how to cook but okay you are both right as a single diner i just want to point out how differently i experience my meal depending on whether i'm greeting with table four one versus just you tonight i like lone diners they are easy and don't run you around plus sometimes you get to solve crossword puzzles together which is fun i'm always extra nice to loan diners and usually try and have a chat with them if they want to i know some people just want wanna be alone there's a man who always comes into our place of a weekend he's always on his own and i always have a chat with him i found out he hasn't been in the country long he seems to appreciate having someone to chat with for five minutes this will almost surely get lost somewhere and it's a bit off topic but i would dine out by myself regularly during the summer of 2008 while i was taking a night class between my high school and my first semester of college once a week after my monday or wednesday class i would go to a particular steak shake and grab a burger shake or whatever i was in the mood for it was almost always quiet and there was almost always the same way to there i became a regular he would guess my orders and we'd banter back and forth as he worked one night right after midterms i came into sns nearly in tears because of the three-hour long combined sa multiple choice test had just been subjected to i was 18 and i'd never taken a college class before i was mentally exhausted and terrified that i might have failed the test something that i was sure would set the tone for my whole college experience on top of all of that my hand was cramping and my head hurt badly enough to make me feel sick this waiter whose name i can't remember went to the back room and got some tylenol and a glass of water made me a strawberry milkshake and brought out one of my usual orders before i could even ask him for anything then he sat down across from me and asked me about my day later when i went to check out i found out that he'd given me his discount and i just left a 20 on the table for him because it was the only money i had he really deserved so much more because at that point in time that was the single nicest thing anyone had ever done for me i'm really glad that i was dining alone all those times i went to sns because i wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to get to know that waiter like i did he was a really cool guy single diners where i work are always marked as swanye that is vip they get served an amuse bush on the house the chef greets them etc we take extra care to ensure that their visit is perfect why because single diners in high-end restaurants are often reviewers and as much as our chef denies it he wants awards and a claim and he wants them bad i prefer lone diners it's much easier to connect with them and they generally seem willing to be friendly and sociable as opposed to groups which often forget that servers are humans this is also why i like eating alone too it's a great chance to have a conversation with a total stranger and not feel like a total stranger doing it the last time i went to my favorite restaurant alone the waitress asked me what was wrong and why my gf wasn't with me i then overheard her talking to the other waitress gesturing at me and saying something to the effects of it must be bad he looks really upset i just wanted a fish sandwich as a shy person i make a point to force myself to eat out alone once a week the servers are always nice to me always and i always tip 20 plus people come into restaurants alone for a lot of reasons sometimes they're traveling on business sometimes they want a quiet table to sit and read while they eat maybe they're lonely or just hungry and in a rush whatever the case i have to assume that those people chose to dine out instead of ordering food and eating at home or in their hotel because they wanted some sort of human connection this is the highlight of a server's career a lot of guests have bad habits of forgetting that their servers are people too not just food bringing robots so it's always nice to know that someone came in specifically to engage you and maybe make a friend i always give my single diners extra attention because whether you're in a group or alone restaurant dining is about making a connection over food a lot of single diners have the best stories to tell and no one to tell them to that old man who comes in every wednesday afternoon this may have been he and his wife's favorite restaurant for years and years that young woman who looks a little lost she just decided to move to a brand new town on a whim many servers grown over single diners because they generally make less money off of them but all it takes is a little more diligence to figure out how to make a worthwhile connection some of the best tips i've gotten were from single diners because our interactions were more intimate one of my favorite memories as a server was when through talking to a man who came in alone i discovered that he was alone in a foreign city on his birthday we gave him free dessert a chef's hat that part standard and another table saw the celebration going on and called him over to their table they ended up chatting a bit too and the man hugged me at the end of his meal single diners are one of my favorite parts about working in a restaurant because they are the ones who understand more than anyone that servers are fellow human beings worth engaging and befriending honestly you should have called a manager over i treat my one tops like unicorns because if they are happy with the experience they will want to bring someone back with them it happened so much where i work any server that would treat you like that is a lazy idiot that doesn't deserve the job i work at a japanese sushi boat restaurant in san francisco and i always try to sit singles next to each other the way the restaurant is laid out is a sushi bar surrounded by chairs in a circular manner we can only fit about 30 people in at a time therefore it's nearly impossible to not have a conversation with the persons next to you i've definitely seen relationships start there that's just a dong maneuver the only way i ever treated solo eaters differently was offering them a newspaper or magazine if they didn't have anything else to do i worked chiefly in hotels though so more often than not they'd be on a computer of some description also waiters and waitresses please stop asking just one when i walk in i travel a lot and this question is asked 50 of the times i come to eat nobody ever says just two or just 18. the just part in it kind of implies you're surprised that anybody wants to dine alone maybe i'm reading this wrong but that's the impression i get each customer is different when i had tables of one i would try to read them just like tables of two or three if they were chatty or wanted to talk i would spend some time there just like bigger tables if they brought a book and glasses i would do more of a quick raffle drop by service making money waiting as a male is all about reading people and giving them what they want if you cannot do this you won't make any money making money as a female is about being attractive not fair but that is how life works i think if you're an attractive female men will tip better i am a female server and i don't think i'm the best looking and could stand to lose a few lbs but i give great service and i think people respond to kindness and promptness of service more than looks you could be super hot but if you freak up my order and i sit with an empty cup for 20 minutes i'm not giving you a full tip when i see the longing for company in their eyes i treat them real nice so that they know some good can still come from this world i always give a single diner maybe a little extra attention to make sure they have a nice time since they don't have people with them to entertain i will strike up small conversations why would anybody treat a person who is alone any different sometimes those are the people who leave the best tips especially if you give good attention i don't know if it was because i was a teenager at the time or alone but the waitress at this one place seemed to want me out as quick as possible never refilled my drink either i didn't leave that great other tip self-fulfilling prophecy right there when i used to get single customers i would be a little more chatty than usual with them idk why maybe because in the back of my head in a skewed way i thought they wanted the company i've personally never been treated differently as a loan diner i was in a job for some five years that was 100 out of state travel judging from what other servers here have said it seems like i was the ideal customer i would sit down make a quick decision on what i was going to eat i would try to minimize my mess so they wouldn't have to clean up after me and there were times where i would ask to be seated at the bar or a smaller table so i wasn't taking up a four plus person booth although i did wonder if other people thought that as a lone diner if i was lonely or whatever i'm both a waiter and someone who genuinely enjoys having meals alone not all the time but sometimes it's nice probably echoing a lot of what has been said generally they tip well don't linger and you're not worried about timing visits so that they aren't mid conversation overall they're awesome and single patrons probably get better service on average than couples or groups i usually had better conversations with single diners couples or groups want to talk to each other but with one person there's better chance of friendly banter and therefore a bigger tip i feel like i'm actually kinder and more friendlier to single diners i never know their circumstances so i try to be as friendly and genuine as possible although they may just be passing through on business i'd like to think that if they are just lonely etc that my sincerity and smile added something to their day that's extremely weird that she didn't want to give you biscuits when i worked there there was a huge heating tower thing that holds 15 pounds with at least 30 biscuits each we snacked on them when we were hungry and there was always more than enough for customers the restaurant that i work at in los angeles has a very neighborhood-wide vibe aka we have a lot of regulars and a lot of those regulars mostly come and solo so i tend to hang around their table and chat catch up with them which results in other single diners at nearby tables chiming in on the conversation and making everyone feel welcome and friendly now i'll admit that every once in a while you'll get that bitter and angry solo guest that hates the world and is going to take it out on their server but those are pretty uncommon at least in my experiences in short i feel that i typically give my solo guests more attention than i give an individual in a large group wait as an expensive restaurant what are the best high-class smoothie people insult you've received i worked valet for about a year at a really classy hotel downtown we routinely had mercedes bmws range rovers football players candy-colored cars porsches etc pretty much any kind of high-end non-sports car i drove one time a guy pulled up in a decent mercedes not an amg or anything super high dollar he seemed cool at first but after i gave him the valet claim ticket he casually went to his back seat and retrieved the newspaper as i still holding the driver's door open he starts disassembling the newspaper like he was about to clean up cat pee off the hardwood floor once he had four or five single sheets of newspaper he began setting the newspaper on his driver's seat as to protect it from my apparently dirty butt he didn't even have to say anything and it was the rudest insult i had ever received jokes on him newspaper print rubs off really easily all you had to do was wiggle was working a catering job for a fourth of july party at an exclusive yacht club went about my business and was clearing used plates from tables after stacking as many plates as humanly possible i turn and start walking back to the kitchen next thing i know i feel something hit me in the back of the head a chicken bone a grown man who was watching me the entire time with his four-year-old son at his side nonetheless decided he didn't want to wait the five minutes it would take for someone else to come by and clear again so he chucked it at my head and then cracked up while pointing at me calmly set down my tray and just walked on out without saying a word once i had a job as cocktail waitress at a bar in hollywood it was very a-list lots of movie stars and celebrities in there all the time one very busy thursday night i'm running drinks back and forth from the bar to tables one of my tables had about five women that looked like a girl's night out they were probably in their late 20s obviously had money i could tell by the purses shoes and snotty attitudes i put their order in for their second round of drinks and i'm rushing by their table holding a tray full of drinks including martinez going to another table the one girl decides she wants to change her drink order so as i pass by her she turns and grabs the back of my dress to stop me so she can change her order of course my tray tips when i'm jerked back and the drinks crash to the floor i turn and give her a withering look and she just says instead of a cosmo i want a grey goose on ice then turns back to her friends like nothing happened i was mortified and furious i hope you added the drinks she dumped onto her bill brought waters and menus did the welcome speech and asked if they'd like to order drinks right away the man glared at me and told me that i'd have to do better than that if i expected a tip he wanted the best service i was a little befuddled smiled and said that i'd do my best to make his visit an enjoyable one do you know w-h-o-i-a-m when i admitted that i did not he was really offended he then informed me that he was a professor at the community college the next town over seriously the community college his wife was shushing him and face palming like crazy poor woman few years back i used to work in a thai restaurant pretty fancy one it was a slow night on a tuesday two girls with herms bags came in and ordered a bottle of riesling i went to their table to check on them and they wanted me to take their pictures as i was about to grab her phone she said that 55 iphone case worth more than what you make in a month so be careful 55 monogram daymir trinkets are for people who want to look wealthy nothing superior or impressive about overpaying for a phone case everyone will assume is fake anyways even as a poor person i'm not even slightly impressed a girl i know got screamed at for not opening the mustard she served she works in a relatively posh place and the mustard comes in this little individual glass pot i think coleman's or whatever she hadn't opened the mustard for them and was yelled at i work for local paper they will be hearing about this i've never been so offended disgusting behavior she just stood there aghast and like did you want me to open the mustard now more yelling used to work in a high-end tea room and we had this regular who was an absolute back i was on my knees cleaning up a drink that another customer had spilled in the bee needed to get past me i said sorry i'm almost done and she said in the most condescending way possible that's quite all right i like having people at my feet i used to bartend at a high-end golf club this one really stands out for some reason customer did you go to public school me yes customer yeah i can tell dude was a dong i worked at a country club in texas for four months i asked a customer who was fairly drunk if needed anything else besides his next apple whiskey drink he said somewhere that lacks the stink of welfare i work at a pretty high class seafood restaurant in rhode island and one evening i had a table of people that i assume were not from around there considering their accents i went to clear their table all of them had some form of a lobster dish and one of the men complained that the lobster was not fresh and was frozen i politely informed him that the lobster was never frozen he was very adamant that he was the correct one so i said sorry and walked off and i passed my manager and mentioned it to him and he said go back to that table and tell them we have 250 pounds of fresh freaking lobster every day so i went back and told them again politely and once again the gentleman was still convinced the lobster was frozen one more time i told my boss and he just stormed off to come back five minutes later with a cardboard box full of live lobster and said go show those suckers one last time i walked out to them and set down a box full of ten or so lobsters and said see afresh and the guy's dumb struck face was so satisfying tip not so satisfying this lamb isn't properly but to flight you're [ __ ] i love the transition from the subtlety of the complaint itself which is relatively petty to the abject bluntness of the end it's all tied together by disproportionate outrage which is the lifeblood of this kind of thing a plus plus a very wealthy couple i was friends with some years ago offered to take me to a legendary top star italian restaurant in the city with my best friend and her husband they offered to foot the whole bill since there's no way i know my friends could afford that not poor but solidly middle class with tons of debt i would have never guessed that my best friend would be so affected by the experience she turned into a different person she told the waiter she didn't understand why she needed a menu when they should just intuitively design her food experience for her i thought i would die of embarrassment gotta hand it to the waiter though he said very well mom took the menu and came back with a plate of spaghetti and meatballs for her we all laughed our asses off i work in a snooty people grocery store so hopefully this counts once when i was ringing a rich lady's groceries she took a look at my name tag i've got a fairly normal name but it's spelt creatively commer and she said it's surprising you could get a job at all with a name like that i know i've got to strip a name it wasn't my choice i'm surprised you were able to get a rich husband with a face like that cater waiter in a very elite wedding in manhattan a young boy asks his grandfather why someone might choose to be a waiter as a job old man explains that some people choose not to get an education beyond high school and so they can only get jobs like these they were both fully staring at me less than a 20 featuring away it's like these people don't know there are people who work to pay for their college worked a banquet hall at a wedding as my first job and a guy once called me an imperious [ __ ] to this day i'm trying to think of a better insult nothing yet yeah well the jerk store called not a restaurant situation but i think it applies i empire little league baseball and was calling a game between a couple of pretty snooty leagues after i called strike three on a kid the mom yells from the stands don't worry honey he's just some fat loser with nothing better to do i looked back to see who said it and saw that she was a young hot mom about 35 who clearly prided herself on how she looked considering she was pretty dolled up for her kids game between innings i leaned back against the fence and said to her mom these are children i'd expect a woman in her 50s to have a little more class than that that is beautiful father of a friend i grew up with is a department chair in a prestigious field at the nearby university it's publicly available that he makes over 400 k and all of his children went into successful careers straight out of college he walks into my restaurant looks at me looks around the restaurant and says so this is your life now this reminds me of that one spongebob episode when squillia meets squidward working at the krusty krab i bartended a ritz carlton not directed at me but there was this solo businessman from ny sitting at my bar deep into his work so i left him alone this other gentleman came up and held out a 20 asking me to make change without missing a beat the businessman looks up at him and in his uptown way said that his change i love that guy not a waiter but one old guy next to me wanted to pay his meal he was there with four other people the waiter asked him if he wants to pay with debit card or to pay in cash old guy answered i only pay with debit card for things above 5 000 euros in the nastiest tone possible that can be arranged sir i was 21 bartending in a smoothie restaurant often frequented by yachties oh you look about my daughter's age except she's away at college a career is really important to her i was graduating that year and off to grad school the following year ro that's great another grey goose not a fancy restaurant but a fancy lady in a nursing home i worked at being a nesting ground of old gossips she was at a table with some other barbarous women one of them peed her off to which she said i would call you a dog but that would be an insult to the loyal creatures everywhere and i would call you the other bit but unlike some i was brought up far better than that somebody went up to the bar and asked if we could put a specific sports game on the tv we only have two the bartender started to change the channel but a customer started yelling and swearing at him because there was 20 seconds left in the game that he changed the channel on i kinda understood why he was upset until we changed the channel back and he said freaking finally you almost just lost your job buddy this idiot thinks he holds our jobs in the palm of his hand because he may have met the owner once or twice i've never seen an adult be and cry that much over 20 seconds of a game guest says do you know what anthropomorphism means i say the act of giving human characteristics to something inhuman guest turns to his date and says well it looks like you should be the one waiting tables just a couple days ago i was serving a very important business meeting important enough to where one of the gentlemen flew in from hong kong for it i guess i left some documents on the table that got thrown away and they came back in a couple hours later frantically looking for them pulled me aside and said look i make more in a week than you do in a year find me those papers or i'll have you shining my shoes just to make a little extra not without those papers he won't be time to see exactly how bad he needs that document 500 a page please i was bartending one night when a rude man asked how i was ever going to get a job with all of my visible tattoos i responded with well as you can clearly see i am at work right now he gave me a condescending half smile while i poured his drink i responded to that with and i owned this restaurant i then chugged a beer in front of him i had just poured and said it's great to be the boss in hindsight i wish i chugged his drink i do really own my own restaurant and i work every job that when needed never had a problem with customers at high class restaurants they always want to impress their partners associates so even if they try and be mean i usually still get an awesome tip they could shove a barbed broom stick up my nose if i'm getting 20 on a 325 dinner i don't care 60 in exchange for an old lady telling me our coffee tastes like crap is okay by me i have 65 and a barbed broomstick you don't even have to get me food i'm an event chef or a fine dining catering company the wealthy tend to treat me well and with respect they tend to understand that you treat other humans with respect especially the one in the chef's coat and hat handling your food the most snooty customers are the ones that want to be wealthy they're usually upper middle class and think that this is how the wealthy treat the help best insult i've had is with another company where i got a two dollar and fifty cents tip chefs get tipped too for the whole night somehow worse than no tip retail in a super rich neighborhood most people are nice but the snootiest ones won't return a smile say hello or even make eye contact like they're disgusted you exist but they have to go through the indignity of talking to you to buy things if you butter them up enough they'll throw a little and start being nice to you but you have to do the monkey dance first i don't really care work me isn't real me i worked at a place like that too i would give the seniors discounts to women that were very rude the looks on their face when i told them was priceless it was soul crushing had some friends that worked at a super expensive restaurant in boulder company it was on top of a mountain and overlooked the town one of the waitresses told me that an older couple go there at least twice a month sometimes weekly she overheard them talking about they like looking down at all of the trash or something like that good tippers though apparently i used to work in a nice seafood place i had a long ponytail and one older gentleman pulled my hair to get my attention and order another drink i just smiled and opened my eyes very wide probably twitching to try not to say anything my boss saw it and told me he'd put a bullet in his head if he did it again [Music] on the contrary the wealthiest most high-class couple i ever served offered me a glass of their 150 bottle of wine and a seat at their table to talk about my life and what i want to do with it after i'm done working at the restaurant we talked for over an hour it was my last table of my last shift awesome people some richie's aren't that bad the best explanation i've heard is money just magnifies their personality if they're in butthole they are huge buttholes if they're nice they are great the distribution of nice to butthole is the same regardless of wealth i work at a country club this one lady comes in every weekend for breakfast and sits there for hours until her husband and his friends are done golfing a couple weekends ago she said her omelette tasted like chloroform i just want to know how she knows what that tastes like we had toby keith in our private dining room once as he would come into our place every time he was in town one of my server assistants who was pretty young was pushing a cart of whiskey bottles and the cart fell over right in front of him he said hey why don't you pour me another drink before you clean up that mess you made his tone was awful and it took the crap out of me she started crying out of embarrassment's fear and he turned to me and said why don't you go pour me a drink then i greeted some older woman after their meal and asked did you enjoy meal ladies one of them replied that their dog ate better food at home i had no response for this and hurriedly gathered up the rest of the plates and left the plates were all empty drunk lady asked me what my full name was i told her my name my name is two first names think mark martin she told me that she doesn't trust people with two first names and that she thinks it's trashy i just ignored her table they were wasted it was funny not food industry related but i used to work as a manager in a ff 500 retail store and had a very nice salary that my college degree helped me earn a woman came in and said she was shopping for her daughter that's starting college and said i bet you wished you had gone to college so you could get a real job this was about three sentences after introducing ourselves i didn't take much offense to it but i was shocked at how openly rude this sea was i worked as a server at a high-end country club they would snap at you to get your attention call you boy among other things once i put too much ice in an older woman's iced tea and she threw it at the buster never made that mistake again later decided it was not worth the money to be treated like human scum i know this is backwards but my buddy and i once tried to get ourselves and our girlfriends into a fancy restaurant without a reservation we were told that the place required reservations and that they were done taking any more for the night we tried to be smooth and asked if there was a way the waiter could bend that rule aka we implied a big tip bribe this classy mother sucker looks as dead in the face and says oh no sir we serve only for glory here it was the classiest frick off i've ever received we weren't even mad not a bar restaurant but my ex-husband worked as an artist for really rich people in florida he had a german national client who paid him in cash the way he paid him was to wad up the bills and throw them at my ex one by one as he spoke disparagingly to him the guy's home won some awards so my husband did a really good job i can't even think what was in the guy's head to do such a thing waiters what's the saddest time waiting for someone you have experienced i'm not a waiter but once my friend and i were out at a restaurant celebrating our new apartment there were some people sitting next to us that were in a tinder date the girl kept asking the guy questions about what was apparently on his profile and he kept saying he didn't do that or just put that on there to get someone to like him she seemed so defeated at one point he got up without saying anything and when she asked where he was going he ignored her came back about five minutes later when this girl looks like she's on the verge of tears she asks where he went and he just said bathroom and went back to eating it was awkward to witness frick that dude i'm not a waiter but i got one heck of a story i was going for a friend's party at a restaurant and when i got there there was a kid sitting by the door he was also coming to the party when i told the waiters i was there for the party as well they called my friend and he identified me immediately but had never seen the kid before as it turned out his friend who invited him to the party had the party days before and gave him the wrong date we felt bad for the kid so we let him join our party that day i made a new friend reminds me of an event a group my friend was in held they skied and held a single skiing event they put up flyers and sent notices out one of the people who showed up that morning was a 13 year old kid who wanted to try skiing he said everyone was nice to the kid and they all made sure he had a good day his first time on the mountain happened to my friend she was a hostess at a restaurant and sat this old lady at a table while she was waiting for her friend she stayed there for a few hours asking every now and then if her friend had showed up my friend was heartbroken and told this to her co-worker who was working the other side of the restaurant turns out her co-worker also had an old lady alone at a table who had been waiting patiently for her friend the ladies got a chance to chat a bit before they left so it was a happy ending at least thank god for at least one happy ending in this thread not a server anymore or at a time but i still remember this one like 20 years later my dnd group was currently that week without a place to game so we went to the local dennis we told the waitress that we would be there for about six hours yes we tipped her very well for camping that long anyway about an hour into our session this guy comes in and sits at a two top in clear view of me he sets a single rose on the table and sits down when the waitress took his drink order he was all smiles nothing really dramatic happens but over the next four hours or so i just watch his body language change he checks his phone like every two or three minutes never gets a call never seems to get or send a text finally after the four hours he just gets up leaves a 20 on the table he only ordered a soft drink as far as i could tell and just walks out no idea why but that image of the table a single drink the tip and the abandoned rose stayed with me all my life for your own sanity you never wait more than 20 minutes if she isn't responding to calls or messages okay this story did not happen to me but to my friend my friend was a manager still is at a pretty fancy restaurant she was working during valentine's day a guy walking pretty nicely dressed but not too nicely kind of nervous he's walked to a table for two since it was valentine the restaurant did its best to give off a romantic atmosphere roses on the table love themed dessert etc the guy order a water and start to wait when the waiter tries to take his order he tells he is waiting for someone he waits for an hour's the two and then three each time sending checking his phone trying to call someone after a while my friend goes to talk to him this guy had lost his girlfriend of six years he was 24 at the time two years ago and it was his first date ever since after that she talked to him a bit more about him how life is etc etc turns out they had quite a bit in common so they exchanged contact a lot happened afterward but they've been happily married for two years now he is now 30 she is 28. he was in it for the long con of free desserts not my story but my sister there was a boy in my niece's class think third fourth grade kinda chubby quiet kid he invited people to his birthday party my sister made my niece go to be polite luckily she did cause only my niece went from the classroom his mother was so happy she went my sister felt so bad for him but i think he was just happy one person came to his party so when my niece had her birthday party at a skating rink she invited him too he was ecstatic i met the boy very good kid and he had a blast at her party i think some of the kids wanted to go to his party but the parents were just too lazy seriously parents imagine if that was your kid's party i make my son go to every birthday party and all the kids including my son love it my mom was embarrassed to be poor and didn't have money for other kids gifts but instead of being creative or offering to help she just said i wasn't allowed to go to other kids birthday parties luckily had a number of other things to keep me from becoming a weird male adjusted kid adult not a waiter but i witnessed a sad experience in a ny restaurant worth sharing here on askreddit a lady sitting by herself at the table next to me just stared straight ahead and with tears in her eyes when i asked her if she was okay she told me that her husband had recently died and this was her first time out to her restaurant on her own she said she had a pair of concert tickets for a performance at lincoln center they had planned to attend bill would now be going alone another first since her husband passed when i told her that i was a musician she asked if i'd like her extra ticket so we went together and had a great time after the concert we even went out for dessert and a night cap she was delightful i'll forever be grateful for the opportunity in that crowded restaurant to speak to someone who needed companionship and understanding had a lady probably in her late 70s early 80s come in with her daughter for a birthday dinner they got there early and set up some small decorations on the table a bouquet or two some balloons they waited for over an hour and a half before they told me that they guessed no one was coming and they'd go ahead and order they had invited over a dozen people and no one even called i told the lady that the people she invited were missing out and we chatted for a bit i tried to make sure that i checked in on her a lot made small talk cracked a few dad jokes and while she was very sweet you could tell she was disappointed i mean at her age who knows how many birthdays you have left at that point in your life i feel like family and friends would be the most important thing to you they finished thanked me left a tip and departed later that evening about five hours later two young men about 2025 showed up and asked if the such and such birthday party had been seated yet i told them they'd missed a fun dinner and that it had ended hours ago they didn't seem to care and just ambled out later that evening about five hours later two young men about 2025 showed up and asked if the such and such birthday party had been seated yet i told them they'd missed a fun dinner and that it had ended hours ago they didn't seem to care and just ambled out that kinda sounds like they honestly got the time they were supposed to show up wrong they had a reservation for 12 people it was the girl's 17th birthday and she arrives first with her boyfriend her dad comes a few minutes later the three of them wait about 45 minutes and decide to just order they eat and are about to leave when the rest of her family shows up drunk they make a scene about how they weren't hungry and had to show up so nobody would be mad at them for not coming eat her cake and leave the birthday girl was crying and her dad and boyfriend were trying to console her they sound like my pose-in-laws this happened years ago when i was a bartender i worked at a fairly high-end restaurant dress code but not too uptight an older gentleman who i had seen multiple times before sits down at the end of the bar and he tells me what he's drinking and then also orders a second drink for his wife who is supposed to be meeting him there 30 minutes go by and he's on his second drink while his wife still hasn't arrived he's looking around behind his shoulder at the door and calling on his phone to no avail another 45 minutes passes and he finishes his wife's drink for her then closes the tab a couple weeks go by and this man comes into the restaurant again he has a bunch of people with him who range from old age to teens they all look sad and are all dressed up in black his wife wasn't in the group with them he orders a drink for himself and another for his wife he closes the tab then walks back to the front of the restaurant by the hostess stand with his drink but left his wife's drink behind i was kinda busy at the time so i didn't think much of it in the moment i later found out through one of the hostesses no idea how she found out that he and his family were there after the funeral of a family member who had died a couple weeks prior i did the mental calculations and it seemed to fall in the exact time frame that he had been sitting at the bar alone waiting for his wife but now i know that funerals usually don't take weeks to complete once a person dies so this could have all been coincidental but it seemed a little too perfect of a coincidence it depends sometimes especially when there is a cremation the memorial service may be sometime later i worked at tim hortons over 25 years ago one day an old man came in by himself and requested a cake for a birthday he asked that we write happy birthday angel on it when it was ready he came to the counter to pay for it flashed a huge smile and said it's my birthday i'm angel i will never forget angel buying himself a birthday cake my co-workers just told me this story last week and i cried i work at a semi-classy seafood restaurant in south east michigan and the host who has been working there for a long time said she had the sweetest old man who came with a single rose and vars set it up himself and ordered a bottle of champagne sitting by the table in a chiller and everything and he just waited for a date that never showed literally cried when she told me this another one they had was the guy who set up the reservation called to cancel it the day of and asked the host to please inform his date they told him they obviously didn't have her number and he just hung up the woman showed up dressed to the nine and was stunning apparently his loss i had a really bad fight with my ex following a meal at a semi-classy seafood restaurant in southeast michigan several years ago and i would have rather had that fight than be that poor guy who gets stood up not my story happened to my roommate he worked at an old diner that had a fair amount of veterans as regulars there was one group that came in and shared a meal every three months and caught up with each other's lives been doing it since they got back from serving together in the korean war over the years the group had gotten smaller as some passed on by the time my roommates started working there the group was down to three then down to two by the end of that year the last two kept coming back for over a year until one day the last guy came in and after a few cups of coffee said i guess i'm all that's left he never did come back as far as my roommate remembers ugh this happened to a good friend he's one of just two left of his company of 20 they served in iraq together they're all only 40 44 if they were still alive one of them only passed two weeks ago it's devastating this is similar a man in his eight is used to come in on his own every night without fail always ordered the same thing was genuinely lovely to the staff it turned out his wife had died a few years previously and coming to the restaurant and talking to waiters was the only social interaction he had all day we ended up giving him free meals every day just so he could keep coming i had a dude at my bar waiting for a tinder date it had been like 15 minutes and a girl walks in he perked up and smiled he then proceeded to watch her i can only assume very drunk self go over to another guy of a completely different race and seem so excited to meet him she realized her mistake and quickly looked around to see her actual date most awkward tinder date i've ever served i was in a nightclub famous for having girl sex workers and there was this guy with two women one in each of his sides then his wife came and dressed as a h got herself a glass cup and shattered it in his head i never saw that much blood and yelling but the guy was okay kinda it was like a big mexican soap opera he kind of deserved it though english is not my first language so sorry if i sound offensive the waiter here this was at my first job when i was maybe 16 or 17 and didn't have many friends i had been asked by co-workers to go bowling one afternoon i was excited to go as i didn't really get to go hang out with anyone very much and my crush was the one who asked me to go i got the details from my crush via text and got to the bowling alley a little early to make sure i had the right place i headed in and realized i was the first one there over the next hour i called reach person who had said they were going and each one sent me to voicemail i'm pretty sure the alley staff thought i was being sketchy as heck too i ended up going home and just never brought it up at work even though i know my manager would have gone off on the staff for doing that to me dude had a soft spot for me and told me i was like the kid he never had he was a really kind man server here as many stories have said a mom made a reservation for 20 i believe for her kids birthday the mom arrived an hour early and we gave her the entire back section so she could decorate it however she wanted she did a lot like she really went all out for her kid which me and my co-workers thought was the sweetest thing ever come party time at 2 p.m and no one comes more time goes by and nothing by 3 p.m nothing the mom waits until 4 and comes to us crying that no one showed up obviously heartbroken my manager says to them you guys order as much as you want and we will make you the biggest birthday dessert for your son they had a giant feast and while they were doing this me and my co-workers made him a custom birthday card with all our names on it we had an artist that worked there so she drew him a bunch of disney things on the card and laminated it the most interesting part about this happened after with me the kid was kinda quiet and he had a switch that his mom gave to him as a present something about this kid reminded me of me as a kid so i went up to their table and asked them how everything was they were both in a better mood and spirits and i started talking to the kid about video games and stuff for like 20 minutes i found out later that he loves anime more specifically naruto so we started talking about that and i'm not sure if he knew anyone else that liked naruto but this kid lit up like i was the first person he's talked to about the show it was the most heartwarming thing to ever happen to me the whole entire time the mom was like you actually understand what he says about the show so obviously the kid talked to his mom about it but she had no idea what he was talking about at some point the mother started crying because she was so happy that her kid had someone to talk to about his interests as they were leaving i went to my locker and got my car keys because i had a naruto keychain on them i took it off and i gave it to him and i said happy birthday and this kid says this was the best birthday ever to his mom and he said that he wanted to come back and eat at my restaurant soon most heartwarming thing to ever happen to me in my entire life i don't know what happened to me after they left but i just started crying from being overwhelmed with what happened it still brings a tear to my eye anytime i think about it tldr mom reserved party of 24 sons birthday no one showed my manager gave them a giant feast i talked to the kid about video games and naruto and his day was made not me but my mom so basically there's this sweet old man that comes down to the restaurant that my mom works at as a waitress and it's usually him and his wife and sometimes their grandson but anyways one day the man came in with his daughter and they told my mom that the wife had passed away then a couple of days later the daughter had started to show up regularly with the old man and the daughter one day before they ate had told my mom that the old man had alzheimer's and was starting to forget stuff here and there but still remembered the important things but he forgot about the wife's passing so whenever they eat he would wait for his wife to come that the daughter would remind him that she wasn't feeling good so every day they come they eat their food and have a good time but at the end of it he would ask for the cake of the day whenever there's lemon cake because she loved the lemon cake i don't know how my mom does it but it must be hard to do all this without crying six years ago i returned to a town where i used to live on a friday night a male friend asked me to meet him downtown as we hadn't seen each other in a few years when i said that my daughter was using my car he said he would send a cab to get me and he did he said he would meet me in front of the restaurant since he lived much closer to downtown it was a beautiful spring night so i waited outside watching people come and go minutes passed then an hour then an hour and a half finally i saw him running up the street toward the restaurant he apologized all over the place as we didn't yet have uber all lift and the cabs were totally backed up he didn't want to drive because our surprise date was at an after hours speakeasy but he'd finally jumped in his car and had to search around for parking on a weekend night if he'd been texting and calling but i left my phone at home when i got in the cab he asked why i waited so long and i said because you said you would be here we figured if we could survive that series of mishaps then we could survive anything we were married five months later and are about to celebrate our sixth anniversary hope this cheers some of you up not a waiter bouncer a girl had booked out the entire top floor of the club for her 18th expecting about 200 packs drinks package for everyone place totally decorated dj lights security 6 weight staff she was there about 15 minutes prior to kick-off with her m d an hour later three people turned up and nicked a couple of drinks and then left that was it she waited five more hours until we closed the bar manager was really good about it and refunded most of the fee we knocked most of the staff off early to save costs and i sent the security guys to other venues but the humiliation must have been terrible this elder lady looked about 65 came in every day and sat at the same booth and ordered the same thing lemonade she was always well dressed in the same outfit and had immaculate makeup i would ask her what she wanted to eat she would always reply with a big bright smile not yet i'm waiting for another guest by the end of the night she would be so sad she would stuff her napkin in her cup and get up and leave her makeup would be steaming down her face with great wrecking sobs she would never tell me what was wrong no matter how i asked one day she came in and stayed till after closing in walks a tall man dressed like a farm hand he was dirty and smelled of horses he walked over to the lady and gently picked her up then carried her to his truck and settled her in he came back in the pay for her lemonade and i asked him why she was so sad every time she left she had alzheimer's she was waiting on the man's grandfather on their 30th anniversary but he never made it he got into a car accident and died she was still mourning the loss of her beloved husband 25 years later she was 49 when he passed when i met her she was 74. i hurt every time just knowing that she relived that pain every day i hope that she has found peace again in the arms of her beloved husband again this is the saddest one here if you are new to the channel you can subscribe i publish new videos every day until then check another video [Music] bye for now

Channel: UE Stories

Views: 46,584

Keywords: restaurant, waiters, restaurant story, dating stories, restaurant stories, reddit restaurant stories, #updootst, updoot, reddit, r/askreddit, askreddit, ask reddit, r/, \r, r\, best of reddit, reddit stories, reddit story, top posts, funniest posts, funny, funny posts, funny reddit stories, funny askreddit, reddit funny, askreddit funny, askreddit stories, reddit stories 2021, people of reddit, sub, reddit cringe, memes, updoot everything, updoot reddit, story, stories, rslash, comedy, fresh

Id: tLXADGiGugI

Length: 117min 54sec (7074 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 17 2021