Worst/Best Wait person story?

1) Ordered pizza that never arrived. The waitress came by about a half-hour later and asked us if we needed anything else.

2) I think I mentioned this on a question about tipping Had a waitress at Olive Garden fuss at a coworker of mine for tasting a pepperoncini (or was it a Kalamata Olive, I forget) from my bottomless salad. I told her to put a salad for my co-worker on my bill, and I took it out of her tip.

A bunch of my friends and I went out for one of our birthdays (I’ve since forgotten whose). The waiter was cute as hell and each of us was flirting with him, just having fun and all, nothing serious. We asked him to split the check so that we could each pay for our part, so he said he could do that. He came back with each of our checks and on each one he had written his name and phone number. We all had a good laugh at that. None of us called him.

Best waitperson: My daughter who screwed up her freshman year in college, lost our funding of her tuition. She waited tables for a year to pay for her own tuition, brought her GPA up to where we would pay again, and is one of the most amazing and motivated people I know. She graduated Cum Laude.

@chyna – I can’t believe they divulged that!

On my friend’s last day as a waitress [at a mid-level mediterranean restaurant in the Bay Area] she arrived at work, removed her clothes in the back, and proceeded to take orders completely naked until she was asked to leave.

@peedub: How long did that take? In Jersey, she wouldn’t have made it to the first order.

@peedub Another waiter told us about the coke because he was pissed he had to take over the section. I love naked waitress stories!

Went out for a special dinner at a very upscale restaurant. We ordered our food and waited and waited and waited. More than an hour and a half. I do NOT know why and would not do it now.

When our food finally came, we actually paid for it! Even though our evening had been ruined.

A sous chef had suffered a bad cut and they had to call 911. They never made any announcement to the patrons.

It was dumb. Needless to say we never went back and never recommended the place.

We went to a really nice place for our tenth wedding anniversary. It was on the top of a mountain in Colorado Springs. It was very hard to get a reservation, but we were on vacation and accepted a reservation for nine thirty, which was late for us, especially since we had our eight year old with us. They seated us and took our drink order. They brought our drinks after a while. Fifteen minutes later the waiter told us the chef was not taking any more orders because the restaurant closed in ten minutes. He handed my husband the check and began ushering us out. My husband asked to speak to the chef/owner. The chef apologized, cooked us a special meal, sat us at a private table on a balcony, with champagne and all the trimmings and would not accept money for our meal. What started out as a horrible night ended up great!

@mzgator Great story. I like happy endings.

@poofandmook I think she actually got through a couple of orders. I guess the customers were giggling but kind of played along. I’m sure it didn’t hurt that she’s not too hard on the eyes.

@Chyna – I’ve worked in a few restaurants in my lifetime; I know have heard all about such excursions. Surely the guy was fired, right?

I’ll tell on myself. I was an awful server, but I was 19 and in shape. I made good tips and it paid for books, food and the extras, in college. I worked at a little bbq place, truly small restaurant; however, people loved the place. The owners were two Russian brothers – we later learned that they weren’t filing taxes and all of the stuff we though they were doing. from fake pay stubs, fake w-2s – the works – long story on that end!

Anyway, they always had one night that was all-you-can-eat and it was packed! A lot of beer was served, as well as the food. They bought plastic beer mugs, but not the weight that restaurants can buy to weight the mug down, to keep the patrons from spilling their beers, easily. (not sure they are still made that way) I was pretty good about warning people, so they wouldn’t douse themselves in beer, but I forgot this one night. My section had a lot of loud rowdy guys and I was getting annoyed. The one guy had really hit my last nerve, so I forgot to warn him about the mug. I took about 3 steps away, knew he was tipsy and sure enough, beer – everywhere. I went back, apologized and said I was so sorry I forgot to warn him – and brought him beer and napkins.

He didn’t seem annoyed and still left a tip. I will say that was my only “on purpose” accident as a server. I didn’t do things to food or anything weird. I just wasn’t a great server. I got your food there, but spilled tea, while pouring it. Couldn’t carry a lot at one time…but I would take things off the bill! :)

@cak that sounds so much like me it is ridiculous. I did the same thing. I wasn’t a great server but did the very least to keep my job and keep people from rioting. lol. Serving is hard, especially when you have rude people demanding your attention.

@cak good thing you were “in shape”

@madcapper – I’m no dummy! ;-)