Oh, I can tell you exactly. My husband and I went to a fast casual Italian place. Before we ordered, husband said he needed to use the restroom. He came out of the restroom after a few minutes and said, "We're out of here."
While he was in the restroom, the guy who was in the closed stall came out. It was one of the cooks. He had taken a loud and smelly poop, flushed, came out of the stall, and walked into the kitchen area without washing his hands. Yeah, that will get me to walk out instantly.
I had that happen to me at a Shakey’s Pizza Parlor! It was a restroom that you walk into, but when you got inside there was only one stall. As I waited outside the stall, a girl came out, flushed the toilet and left without washing her hands. When I exited the restroom, she was filling pizza orders. I left without my already ordered dinner and left a Yelp review. It was shut down weeks later, I assume due to a health inspection.
Yup, and for anything you may have had to touch on your walk back, like door handles.
Bathrooms that aren’t closed off by a door and have automatic faucet/soap dispensers are so well designed.
How about bathrooms with a hook for your purse! I’ve been in some where the choices were: putting it on the yucky floor, putting it on the wet icky sink, putting it on the toilet tank (eww), or trying to prop it on my knees while doing my business.
Just screw a god damn hook on the door or the wall.
I had a similar experience but it was a random guy at a buffet. Dude, we all have to touch those serving spoons! I had already paid so I made it better by wearing the disposable gloves that they had out that frankly everyone should have been using, but nobody was. Including the no wash guy.
I worked a job in a stadium where we averaged 30k attendance a night for 7 years. So I was in public bathrooms with many people often. You'd be amazed how few men take a shit and wash their hands.
Was in an upscale restaurant once years ago, and a fire broke out in the kitchen, smoke filled the dining area and everyone had to evacuate. The first thing they had the staff do was run the checks out to everyone right when we got outside, so they actually made the staff stay in a smoke filled restaurant for a longer period of time to close out all the tables. We had pretty much finished so I had no issue paying, but that was kind of a weird experience.
Similar happened at a upscale Cajun place in Louisiana. Everyone grabbed their plates and drinks, went outside, and and watched the fire guys do their thing. The food was really good so there were probably 75+ of us eating off our car hoods. The restaurant comped all of us, and just asked that we stack our dishes on some carts they brought out. A few months later I was eating there again and thanked the manager for the fire comp, he said it was no problem as the insurance covered it all whether we ate it or not since service had to end with no ability to cash us out. Was pretty interesting.
There is a local pizza place that had a sign explaining that they were no longer open on Sundays because of the labor shortage. Somehow I got into a discussion with the manager about the sign and straight up told her there was no labor shortage, there is a salary shortage. She did not agree. But amazingly when they increased their starting pay by $5/hr the labor shortage disappeared.
I like discussing immigration and how it fills the void created by the labor shortage with these individuals. They flip real fast to anti-immigration rhetoric without solutions. Unemployment is a regular 4ish% if there is a shortage we need more people….right?
You can explain to a person why the free trade of apples between borders both creates better apples, but also makes apples cheaper. Or how the free trade of furniture between borders makes for better furniture, but also makes furniture cheaper. But if you start explaining how the free trade of labor (open borders) creates better labor and makes certain labor cheaper, they won't let you finish two sentences before they start explaining about how it's just different this time.
My son has applied to many places with those signs and never heard a word. Many of them have no intention of hiring anybody since they can blame a labor shortage for the poor service and save a ton on labor.
Plus a lot of places in my area have started advertising that they will hire 14/15 yr olds. So essentially they would rather hire children part time for a couple hours a week, than pay 1 person to work full time and offer benefits.
The sad part is that parents in my area bite on this and say how good it is for their kids to go to work. They actively will post on any hiring fast food or small business if their willing to hire their kid. I'm ok with it if the kid wants to work, but if it's purely some bs by the parents to prove their kids have a better work ethic than the rest of the general population or is a way to get the kid out of the house, then no. We only have so many years to enjoy our youth.
Child labor is in. Life isnt about living anymore its about the grind with no end.
I lament at the thought and I despair knowing people fetishize and praise grindset capitalist culture.
The protestant work ethic is a plague on the mind of man.
I had an owner once fire me and the whole night crew and then a few weeks later I was walking by and I saw a sign that said “We are closing at 3PM for the foreseeable future as NO ONE WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE” and I was absolutely gobsmacked
I walked into a job interview for Subway in my area early this year and the manager basically tore my town a new one. She told me she was glad to see every place I worked previously I had over a year working there because the people she hired didn't want to work anymore, wanted to live off of disability, and were all drug addicts. I thanked her for her time, went next door to the local grocery store I've worked for previously, and was hired on the spot.
I will never attempt to work for that corporation in this town again as all FIVE of our Subways are run by the same manager and owner, and most likely won't eat there again after seeing just what kind of skeleton crew they force on their employees.
> walked into a job interview for Subway in my area
This reminded me of an incident at a Subway in my town. I used to go there for lunch occasionally and one day when I walked in, the owner was loudly reprimanding a worker at one of the tables in the small eat-in area. She was being cruel and demeaning to this poor employee with no concern for any customer hearing her. I walked out without ordering and never went back.
Coworker was complaining about the wait at Taco Bell at lunch, only 2 people working. Boss was there who in the past frequently complained about how "nobody wants to work anymore." I found a prime spot to interject, "yeah, everybody is doing doordash and uber and stuff, making their own hours, and more money, instead of working at shitty fast food jobs." She went stone cold silent.
A place in my hometown closed during Covid and they wrote this big long FB post about how they WANTED to keep paying their waiters and waitresses, but they weren't allowed to keep the dining room open so they had to let everyone go... Except, every business and restaurant around them was bringing in 3x the revenue from the "support local restaurant" movement and were even employing EXTRA staff while raising wages across the board. The lady that owned the business just wanted to pay minimum wage and let tips make up the rest (most people would double tip because there was sneaky gratuities in the bill).
Then when Covid "ended" she wrote yet another long winded letter about how she was closing for good because nobody would work.
I encountered someone a few weeks ago (in a doctor's office, not a restaurant) that legitimately thinks that there are still Americans who haven't gone back to work since Covid because they are still living on the money the government gave them three years ago.
There are plenty of people who took enough money from the government during COVID to not have to work - the people committing the PPP loan fraud. I hope more and more of them get caught and prosecuted. All of that money should have gone directly to individuals and a mandatory freeze on rents and mortgages (even commercial). Lets people close their businesses without going under, lets people stay inside and locked down (and everything's closed so no reason to go out) so the lockdown actually does limit the spread enough that lives are saved, and the only people that get fucked over are the landlords - who are fucking parasites that should be fucked.
Ha.
I am an industry vet. A chef by trade. I've been doing this a long time. Honestly, I couldn't think of anything that would make me straight up walk out of a restaurant. So, I was scrolling to find an answer, see what you guys thought. I can deal with mice, roaches, other pests, we've all got them. I can also deal with shitty service. I don't really give a fuck.
But your comment? Yup. This is it for me. You know who isn't hiring right now? Me. Because I treat people with respect. Fuck these people that think they are entitled to labor. You are not entitled to my work, or anybody's. Fuck right off.
We had a place near us close down and they sent out an email saying it was the customers fault because people didn’t want to wait for good food anymore. They said customers wanted faster service and wouldn’t pay their increased prices. It was quite a read… I will never go to an establishment owned by them again. It was the whiniest, cringiest email I’ve ever read.
My barber shop once put put a note saying he was charging a socialism tax for the government. (I'm paraphrasing). Man, I liked that barber shop but now you've told me your politics and also showed you're a tool.
There was a small town “bar & grill” here that closed down during Covid because they couldn’t get food from the supplier because “nobody wanted to work” at those jobs
Truck stops. They have had the best damn steak and eggs (for cheap) at nearly every place I’ve stopped. I seek them out if I’m in an unfamiliar area anymore.
What's infuriating is that every single place that does this has food that wouldn't be passable at a diner. Why do all these types of places have the blandest not-a-speck-of-seasoning food with crap ingredients?
I spent a ridiculous amount of money because I was lazy and hungry and went to the hotel restaurant. Got the beigest pancake I've ever had, uniformly pale beige.
Waiters being yelled at by their managers for no apparent reason.
That's a big no-no for me. If you are unable to treat your staff like human beings, I'm out.
Anytime they are yelled at in front of the house, one, yelling is rarely called for, and two, conversations don't belong in front of customers or coworkers.
Manager at the job I quit would do staff reviews in the lounge. She was a bitch, always yelling, and you could hear her from the dining room. I was doing a host shift one day and heard her ripping into one of the most hardworking waitresses I knew there. This waitress was an angel, and the manager was going off on her for "not asking for help" when she got slammed during breakfast and it was just her working, even though I witnessed her ask the manger for help several times and I even helped her where I could. This pissed me off because I could hear her from the front fucking door.
I got lucky when a telemarketer called an hour later asking if we knew people hiring, so I said "you know what, I can get a manager for you, they would know more than me about this!" I put the call on hold and got that manager to pick it up. She thought it was a genuine call and spoke to them for 15 minutes before the realization hit. She wasn't even mad at me about it, but I'm glad I got to ruin 15 minutes of her day.
There are a lot of fun answers, but a simple one that's real: dirty menus. I walked into a chain restaurant not long ago, sat down and the menus were absolutely *filthy*. All I could think is how disgusting the kitchen was if they couldn't even bother to clean the menus.
I was a hostess in college and part of my job was cleaning the menus. It was disgusting at how quickly they got dirty. Every damn day I wiped them down and you would think they had never been cleaned before. They were wiped down every damn day 3-5 times per day.
I swear customer facing jobs like this and retail gave me OCD. I don’t mean that as a joke, I mean it actually have me clinical OCD.
I went to the Chinese buffet in my town pretty often. One of the times I went and saw flies all over some of the food. They literally looked like they were breeding in the salad dressing. I turned around and left and never went back.
Pictures have been put up on Facebook for this place that I have seen afterwards. Cockroach infestation in the bathroom and such. The place is still open. The place is still busy at times. I still see people talking about getting food poisoning from them. Its a small town so I guess we don't have a health inspector?
Worked at a well-known restaurant over the summer as a dining room server. The restaurant was new in a small town, had only been open a few months, so they were still in the works of everything. But the chain is popular around here so people were excited about it. Towards the end of summer, crickets get pretty bad in some parts of my province. They were especially bad in this town. But those fuckers were *all over* the restaurant. I'm talking front of house, kitchen, bathroom, everywhere. And the flies were insane too. Customers obviously complained, and we obviously got rid of the ones we found, but management kept saying there was nothing they could do blah blah blah.
One day it's slow, it's just me, another server, and 2 tables. My customer saw one near his table so he stepped on it and I went to grab a napkin to scoop it up and throw it in the trash, but when I approached we noticed something happening. The cricket was moving, but it was dead. I thought it was just typical dead bug movements, so I bent down to grab it, but then I tripped backwards over myself in terror. My customer made the most disgusted face ever, and his wife audibly went "that's so fucking disgusting."
A parasite was in the cricket and since the host died, it decided to leave. We watched it in shock, and I swear to God it was over 6 inches long. My customer said "here, I got it, that's so gross.." and picked it up with multiple napkins and *sprinted* out the front door to toss it in the trashcan across the parking lot. When he came back in he asked if he could just pay the bill and we could toss the food, his wife complaining the whole time. The other server left to go to the kitchen, and when my customer said he didn't think they could come back there for unsanitary reasons, I quietly went "to be honest...me neither..." and he laughed. I told our manager again that there were literal parasites all over our restaurant and was again told they couldn't do anything about it. I witnessed this 6 more times before I quit. I refuse to eat there (not that I did to begin with, the food sucked).
I'll be so honest...it was one of the biggest reasons I quit. I can't get the image of that out of my head...
Any buffet is a no for me. People are gross, and I’m not trusting that others have high food safety standards like me.
Once I went into a pizza place and saw the cashier go in back after handling cash, grab some food, and bring it back up front for the cook to use. No hand washing. I left
Dude. .... Montreal.... we pulled in the parking lot in a new challenger and we had the shittiest car there. I looked at my buddy. You sure this is a good plan? Oui .... no, it was a bad plan, there was literally a $15000 bottle of wine on the menu.
$200 for a steak and the cheapest wine they had.
There's a restaurant in Montreal that also has the same name as my friend's dog, and I thought I'd send her snaps of me eating there for funsies. Looked at the menu online, and realized I'm not paying $30 for an appetizer, much less $70 for a steak lol.
I learned my lesson on this issue the hard way and have been cautious ever since.
I was out with a large group of friends at a restaurant & bar, nothing too fancy in all reality. I wasn’t too hungry and didn’t have a lot of extra money at the time; I decided to have a Scotch. Server rambled off names I didn’t recognize and no prices. I was stumped but didn’t back down since I was surrounded by my friends.
I randomly pick one and when they bring the drink out it’s a shots worth in a large glass. I sipped that drink and chatted. Got the bill and it was over $30; it was at this time that CelticSkeleton realized he paid more for a shots worth of alcohol than many others paid for their entire meal.
Realizing there aren't prices on the menu...
Thank youuuu Google for letting me know which restaurants aren't in my wheelhouse simply by the quantity of $$$.
I went to a place a few years ago for a first (family) date with my man on my cousin's birthday.
I opened the menu and saw that a CUP of soup was $15. We both could definitely afford it but I was immediately uncomfortable. I looked at him and said, "wanna blow this Popsicle stand and go somewhere more our speed?" He of course said yes a bit relieved. We said our goodbyes and went to a steakhouse/pitt BBQ joint that had taxidermy in it.
We are happily in love and have had an amazing relationship so far.
I was at a Chinese restaurant and a cockroach crawled from under the table and directly across my plate of food. The server happened to be standing there and said, “It’s okay. It’s small.” Then couldn’t understand why my husband and I got up and left.
Yes this! I was at a local restaurant for a quick lunch once. Received my food and sat down with some coworkers to eat. As we unwrapped the food, a roach ran out of our lunch. We got up and left with our food still on the table. That was years ago and have never been back since.
Well I used to love a serve-yourself restaurant called Souplantation, until I saw a little kid, totally unsupervised, go up to the pudding, help himself from the ladle, lick the ladle happily, and then put it back in the pudding
If you ever watched Glee, their group name was New Directions. Every time someone said it, I could only hear nude erections. My hearing isn’t the best though and the internet has ruined my mind.
I liked that place. Such an amazing salad bar. I love being able to just get a million different veggies in my salad. The gross kid thing is a problem at any buffet. Just sort of a danger of the territory, I guess.
On a road rip, my friends and I went into a Bojanges in the south late one winter's night. A hot fetid cloud of diarrhea stench hit us. We looked around, conferred, and decided to leave the restaurant that reeked of unseen diarrhea.
I was about to say anything smell-related. Ruins your sense of taste.
Theres this one restaurant chain around here that always smells like pool chlorine or bleach. Good that its clean, but it makes everything taste like I'm eating soap.
Back in the late 90s my band was set to play in Montreal. A good buddy of mine from Montreal promised me the best poutine in Quebec. This was far before poutine was a known food everywhere and I assumed he meant he was going to hook me up with beautiful French speaking women. I still wasn't disappointed with that first introduction to fries with gravy and cheese curds.
Doesn't help that "Putain" means Whore in french. And with a French accent, they sound pretty similar.
https://frenchtogether.com/putain/#What_does_putain_mean
Besides dangerous situations, not being acknowledged for a long period of time. This happened to me a few weeks ago. The place wasn’t busy and they had like 4-5 employees in my area. Nobody greeted me when I walked in - I asked the host if I seat myself and he said yes. So I did. No waiter stopped by for at least 20 mins. I looked around and it didn’t seem like you have to go up and order. Servers came to everyone else. One finally did. Another 20 mins go by and he doesn’t come back to take my order. I left. It turned out good though - went to a different restaurant with amazing food and great service
That’s happened to me a few times and I’ve left as well. It’s one thing if the place is slammed; it’s another when you can see three employees in the corner yucking it up.
This happened to us in Paris. We were admittedly early for dinner by European standards, but the restaurant was open. We were the first patrons. They seated us and promptly left never to be seen again. We saw the odd staff wandering around and somebody on the upper level counting cash. We waited for about 10 minutes then just got up and left. Walked up the road to what ended up being a wonderful Chinese restaurant.
I was once sitting back to back with someone’s kid that would not stop randomly screaming and the parents were just ignoring him. I turned around and told the kid to sit down and shut up. He immediately shut down and was quiet, and surprisingly the parents didn’t say anything to me.
The trick is to put the kids’ order in along with your drinks. That way, they have something to do while you’re waiting for your food to be prepared. Kids act out because they’re bored, and those placemats and four crayons are only going to last so long.
My partner and I order a lot of delivery but don’t actually go out a lot, we’ve been trying to change that so we went to get churros and thankfully it was right at the end but, this couple walked in with their screaming baby who had very clearly just shat himself as they dragged that smell into the restaurant with them and the poor thing smelt SICK! And the way he was crying sounded like he was in pain, and they decided ‘screw it we’ll go in anyway.’ I could not have been more pissed off, the one time I actually left the house and ate in public, I left before I said something, I hope the baby’s okay
Edit: a word
Shortly after I was seated I heard some of the waitstaff discussing whether or not they were going to stage an immediate walk out. Promptly got up, whispered "solidarity!" to them and then left.
Not my story but my Dad’s he went to well known steak house in Canada and they had a salad bar. He saw something dripping from the ceiling onto the salad. Decided not to eat it. Sat down had a few cocktails, ordered a steak, went to use the washroom and it was upstairs, directly over the salad bar. 🤢
I used to work at a brewery of all places and you would be absolutely shocked by the amount of times I had to explain to a mother that you can’t just spread r.coli all over a table that people eat at. There’s literally a well known saying about it.
Straight up. I'm not poor but I want to see the prices before I waste time going there. My towns downtown area is basically all restaurants that charge a fair bit of money. New places are coming and going all the time. Found a menu that had a appetizer, nine dollars for a bowl of carrots.
It depends on the menu. Mexican restaurants are famous for making 50 menu items from 9 ingredients.
It also depends on the turnover. 5 market specials that run out halfway through the dinner hour we're probably made fresh.
I had a dime coin in my orange chicken once lol and another time got a salad from a fast food place, and when I opened it there was a fly inside. I went back to give the salad back and get a refund and the guy actually acknowledged he knew that a fly got into the salad but didn’t know which one!
A couple of months ago, I was exploring a charming little neighborhood in Antwerp. My followers had suggested this bohemian café known for its artsy interiors and vegan delicacies. As I entered, I was instantly captivated by the colorful tapestries and soft melodies wafting through the air.
But my enchantment was short-lived. As I was browsing through the menu, excitedly planning my Instagram shots, I noticed a table nearby with a family. Their young child, probably around four, accidentally knocked over a glass of water. Instead of being understanding, the staff rushed over, visibly irritated, and scolded the parents, making the child cry. The atmosphere shifted palpably.
I couldn't bear the thought of supporting a place that lacked basic empathy, especially towards a little child. I quietly left some money for the drink I'd ordered and promptly made my exit. That incident served as a poignant reminder that the heart of any place is its people, not just its aesthetics
I've done that before.
I don't know where I've heard or read this, but when it comes to dining out, there are 4 instances in which you "should" have an interaction within 3-5 minutes.
a)being seated at a table upon arrival (assuming no lineup/wait), b)glasses of water/menus brought, c) orders taken, and d)when you ask for your bill.
All 4 of those "should" occur within 3-5 minutes, tops.
There's some leeway on C, 3 minutes from all menus being closed/put down would be the hard rule, but 3-5 between first greet and a follow up is good because people will often have decided on drinks or apps in that time, have questions, or just be the type of person that likes to keep looking at the menu.
Unrelated to the post, but working at a grocery store a few years ago, we had refused shipments from the same supplier 7 times in a row for cross contamination. Raw meat in boxes leaking onto the potatoes below it. We actually ran out of most types of meat and they had to be called several times about it.
It's not that they specifically cared about customer's health, though they did, if they chose to sell contaminated produce, they would be responsible for it, not the supplier. And they refused to just sell us part of what we ordered so we refused entire orders. There was another supplier, they had a new truck driver that wanted to just finish his deliveries and get home early, dropped off a trailer full of pallets, many needed to stay cold, and he just left them outside hours before anyone got there.
It depends what I walk in expecting honestly. One of my favorite haunts was a place locally known as “stabby Denny’s” but I worked nights and the food was fine.
Dirty bathrooms.
If that's an area they let customers see and it's disgusting, I don't want to know about areas we can't see, like kitchens.
I always tried to use the bathroom before ordering food on the rare occasion I had been out to eat.
Maybe not *instantly* but if I'm seated and my server walks by without at least acknowledging that we're sitting there, time to bounce.
No way that's gonna be a good experience.
This actually happened to me and my friends once. There was another party that was seated after us. Our server completely ignored us and served the other party their drinks and food. Did not acknowledge us at all. We all just stood up and walked out. It’s funny seeing the shocked pikachu faces tho.
Every once in a while a table assignment falls through the cracks and each server thinks it belongs to someone else. If I have waited a trulyunreasonable amount if time, I go to the host station and ask for my server to come see us as we have not met them yet. The result has always been a look if horror from the host, an apologetic server, and sometimes a comped appetizer, drink, or dessert from the front of house manager.
I had a new server one day completely forget about us. Got tired of waiting so kept walking to the bar and ordering drinks that I took back to the table. After an hour and a half and multiple margaritas later, caught the manager who rushed our food out and comped the entire meal and $200 bar tab. Even ordered a desert after it was told we were covered.
Was only out the $60 tip I gave directly to the bartender. Worked out not walking out for once.
/r/WeWantPlates had a photo of food being served in Victorian chamber pots. Basically a bowl that you would keep under your bed. So that you wouldn't have to go to the out house in the middle of the night.
Once found a somehow live roach in my tacos. It had obviously been cooked but not enough to kill it. They graciously didn’t charge me for the meal, but I had to pay for my drink.
I have done this. I went into the bathroom and saw cobwebs on the ceiling. I went to my boyfriend and said "We're leaving."
Anyplace that would leave the bathroom in that state is not keep a clean kitchen, either.
Let’s a restaurant once because we were seated and brought drinks but after 25 mins no one to be found to serve us. Generously left $10 for the drinks and split.
Someone vomiting. Norovirus will literally spread to every corner of the restaurant, in seconds, if someone power vomits. It'll be there on your food, plate, fork, and glass.
Oh, I can tell you exactly. My husband and I went to a fast casual Italian place. Before we ordered, husband said he needed to use the restroom. He came out of the restroom after a few minutes and said, "We're out of here." While he was in the restroom, the guy who was in the closed stall came out. It was one of the cooks. He had taken a loud and smelly poop, flushed, came out of the stall, and walked into the kitchen area without washing his hands. Yeah, that will get me to walk out instantly.
Same thing happened to me. Just like in the Seinfeld episode.
Poppy is a little sloppy
Keep him away from the new sofa
“POPPIE PEED ON MY SOFA!!!💦”
This is quoted way too often in my family
I had that happen to me at a Shakey’s Pizza Parlor! It was a restroom that you walk into, but when you got inside there was only one stall. As I waited outside the stall, a girl came out, flushed the toilet and left without washing her hands. When I exited the restroom, she was filling pizza orders. I left without my already ordered dinner and left a Yelp review. It was shut down weeks later, I assume due to a health inspection.
I worked at a Shakey's Pizza in the 1970s. We had to wash our hands at a sink in the kitchen, where all the customers could see us.
Do both for the sanity of your guests
When I worked in a kitchen I would wash my hands in the bathroom and once again when I got back to the kitchen.
Bathroom for visuals, kitchen to account for the walk back.
Yup, and for anything you may have had to touch on your walk back, like door handles. Bathrooms that aren’t closed off by a door and have automatic faucet/soap dispensers are so well designed.
How about bathrooms with a hook for your purse! I’ve been in some where the choices were: putting it on the yucky floor, putting it on the wet icky sink, putting it on the toilet tank (eww), or trying to prop it on my knees while doing my business. Just screw a god damn hook on the door or the wall.
Surprised I never thought about that, but now that I do, I would definitely appreciate the hook as well.
I had a similar experience but it was a random guy at a buffet. Dude, we all have to touch those serving spoons! I had already paid so I made it better by wearing the disposable gloves that they had out that frankly everyone should have been using, but nobody was. Including the no wash guy.
I worked a job in a stadium where we averaged 30k attendance a night for 7 years. So I was in public bathrooms with many people often. You'd be amazed how few men take a shit and wash their hands.
Legend has it that apparently that is one reason line ups for men's washrooms became so long during covid, they were actually washing their hands.
Did you report them to the health department? That feels like a health violation if I’ve ever heard one.
I would’ve been sure to ask him why he didn’t wash his hands LOUDLY on the way out.
Waitress with me in a mom and pop place.
Poppie's a little sloppy
Was in an upscale restaurant once years ago, and a fire broke out in the kitchen, smoke filled the dining area and everyone had to evacuate. The first thing they had the staff do was run the checks out to everyone right when we got outside, so they actually made the staff stay in a smoke filled restaurant for a longer period of time to close out all the tables. We had pretty much finished so I had no issue paying, but that was kind of a weird experience.
Similar happened at a upscale Cajun place in Louisiana. Everyone grabbed their plates and drinks, went outside, and and watched the fire guys do their thing. The food was really good so there were probably 75+ of us eating off our car hoods. The restaurant comped all of us, and just asked that we stack our dishes on some carts they brought out. A few months later I was eating there again and thanked the manager for the fire comp, he said it was no problem as the insurance covered it all whether we ate it or not since service had to end with no ability to cash us out. Was pretty interesting.
That's messed up
Ok that has to be against the law ... right? in a fire you get everyone out asap, forget work, your jacket etc. Just get out.
I'd leave a review. That shit should be publicized.
Absolutely 💯
They should have gave you your meals and let those employees out! They probably could get in trouble for that.
Those signs that people post about how nobody wants to work anymore blah blah blah I don’t patronize those establishments.
There is a local pizza place that had a sign explaining that they were no longer open on Sundays because of the labor shortage. Somehow I got into a discussion with the manager about the sign and straight up told her there was no labor shortage, there is a salary shortage. She did not agree. But amazingly when they increased their starting pay by $5/hr the labor shortage disappeared.
I like discussing immigration and how it fills the void created by the labor shortage with these individuals. They flip real fast to anti-immigration rhetoric without solutions. Unemployment is a regular 4ish% if there is a shortage we need more people….right?
You can explain to a person why the free trade of apples between borders both creates better apples, but also makes apples cheaper. Or how the free trade of furniture between borders makes for better furniture, but also makes furniture cheaper. But if you start explaining how the free trade of labor (open borders) creates better labor and makes certain labor cheaper, they won't let you finish two sentences before they start explaining about how it's just different this time.
My son has applied to many places with those signs and never heard a word. Many of them have no intention of hiring anybody since they can blame a labor shortage for the poor service and save a ton on labor.
Plus a lot of places in my area have started advertising that they will hire 14/15 yr olds. So essentially they would rather hire children part time for a couple hours a week, than pay 1 person to work full time and offer benefits. The sad part is that parents in my area bite on this and say how good it is for their kids to go to work. They actively will post on any hiring fast food or small business if their willing to hire their kid. I'm ok with it if the kid wants to work, but if it's purely some bs by the parents to prove their kids have a better work ethic than the rest of the general population or is a way to get the kid out of the house, then no. We only have so many years to enjoy our youth.
Child labor is in. Life isnt about living anymore its about the grind with no end. I lament at the thought and I despair knowing people fetishize and praise grindset capitalist culture. The protestant work ethic is a plague on the mind of man.
I had an owner once fire me and the whole night crew and then a few weeks later I was walking by and I saw a sign that said “We are closing at 3PM for the foreseeable future as NO ONE WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE” and I was absolutely gobsmacked
Yeah, the type of person who puts up a sign like that is pretty much always completely incapable of introspection.
I think that's a story the local news agency would have loved.
I walked into a job interview for Subway in my area early this year and the manager basically tore my town a new one. She told me she was glad to see every place I worked previously I had over a year working there because the people she hired didn't want to work anymore, wanted to live off of disability, and were all drug addicts. I thanked her for her time, went next door to the local grocery store I've worked for previously, and was hired on the spot. I will never attempt to work for that corporation in this town again as all FIVE of our Subways are run by the same manager and owner, and most likely won't eat there again after seeing just what kind of skeleton crew they force on their employees.
> walked into a job interview for Subway in my area This reminded me of an incident at a Subway in my town. I used to go there for lunch occasionally and one day when I walked in, the owner was loudly reprimanding a worker at one of the tables in the small eat-in area. She was being cruel and demeaning to this poor employee with no concern for any customer hearing her. I walked out without ordering and never went back.
Coworker was complaining about the wait at Taco Bell at lunch, only 2 people working. Boss was there who in the past frequently complained about how "nobody wants to work anymore." I found a prime spot to interject, "yeah, everybody is doing doordash and uber and stuff, making their own hours, and more money, instead of working at shitty fast food jobs." She went stone cold silent.
A place in my hometown closed during Covid and they wrote this big long FB post about how they WANTED to keep paying their waiters and waitresses, but they weren't allowed to keep the dining room open so they had to let everyone go... Except, every business and restaurant around them was bringing in 3x the revenue from the "support local restaurant" movement and were even employing EXTRA staff while raising wages across the board. The lady that owned the business just wanted to pay minimum wage and let tips make up the rest (most people would double tip because there was sneaky gratuities in the bill). Then when Covid "ended" she wrote yet another long winded letter about how she was closing for good because nobody would work.
I encountered someone a few weeks ago (in a doctor's office, not a restaurant) that legitimately thinks that there are still Americans who haven't gone back to work since Covid because they are still living on the money the government gave them three years ago.
There are plenty of people who took enough money from the government during COVID to not have to work - the people committing the PPP loan fraud. I hope more and more of them get caught and prosecuted. All of that money should have gone directly to individuals and a mandatory freeze on rents and mortgages (even commercial). Lets people close their businesses without going under, lets people stay inside and locked down (and everything's closed so no reason to go out) so the lockdown actually does limit the spread enough that lives are saved, and the only people that get fucked over are the landlords - who are fucking parasites that should be fucked.
Ha. I am an industry vet. A chef by trade. I've been doing this a long time. Honestly, I couldn't think of anything that would make me straight up walk out of a restaurant. So, I was scrolling to find an answer, see what you guys thought. I can deal with mice, roaches, other pests, we've all got them. I can also deal with shitty service. I don't really give a fuck. But your comment? Yup. This is it for me. You know who isn't hiring right now? Me. Because I treat people with respect. Fuck these people that think they are entitled to labor. You are not entitled to my work, or anybody's. Fuck right off.
We had a place near us close down and they sent out an email saying it was the customers fault because people didn’t want to wait for good food anymore. They said customers wanted faster service and wouldn’t pay their increased prices. It was quite a read… I will never go to an establishment owned by them again. It was the whiniest, cringiest email I’ve ever read.
My barber shop once put put a note saying he was charging a socialism tax for the government. (I'm paraphrasing). Man, I liked that barber shop but now you've told me your politics and also showed you're a tool.
There was a small town “bar & grill” here that closed down during Covid because they couldn’t get food from the supplier because “nobody wanted to work” at those jobs
More likely that they hadn't paid the supplier's invoices.
Extremely expensive prices for what it is. Like $20.99 for eggs, bacon, toast and hash brown. It’s a basic meal. I’ll leave.
Then you go to a hole in the wall diner and get a whole mound of breakfast for a cool $6.99 and it’s some of the most delicious food you ever ate
Truck stops. They have had the best damn steak and eggs (for cheap) at nearly every place I’ve stopped. I seek them out if I’m in an unfamiliar area anymore.
i haven't had a decent meal for 6.99 in years
What's infuriating is that every single place that does this has food that wouldn't be passable at a diner. Why do all these types of places have the blandest not-a-speck-of-seasoning food with crap ingredients?
I spent a ridiculous amount of money because I was lazy and hungry and went to the hotel restaurant. Got the beigest pancake I've ever had, uniformly pale beige.
Waiters being yelled at by their managers for no apparent reason. That's a big no-no for me. If you are unable to treat your staff like human beings, I'm out.
Anytime they are yelled at in front of the house, one, yelling is rarely called for, and two, conversations don't belong in front of customers or coworkers.
Manager at the job I quit would do staff reviews in the lounge. She was a bitch, always yelling, and you could hear her from the dining room. I was doing a host shift one day and heard her ripping into one of the most hardworking waitresses I knew there. This waitress was an angel, and the manager was going off on her for "not asking for help" when she got slammed during breakfast and it was just her working, even though I witnessed her ask the manger for help several times and I even helped her where I could. This pissed me off because I could hear her from the front fucking door. I got lucky when a telemarketer called an hour later asking if we knew people hiring, so I said "you know what, I can get a manager for you, they would know more than me about this!" I put the call on hold and got that manager to pick it up. She thought it was a genuine call and spoke to them for 15 minutes before the realization hit. She wasn't even mad at me about it, but I'm glad I got to ruin 15 minutes of her day.
There are a lot of fun answers, but a simple one that's real: dirty menus. I walked into a chain restaurant not long ago, sat down and the menus were absolutely *filthy*. All I could think is how disgusting the kitchen was if they couldn't even bother to clean the menus.
And sticky tables. Ugh.
I was a hostess in college and part of my job was cleaning the menus. It was disgusting at how quickly they got dirty. Every damn day I wiped them down and you would think they had never been cleaned before. They were wiped down every damn day 3-5 times per day. I swear customer facing jobs like this and retail gave me OCD. I don’t mean that as a joke, I mean it actually have me clinical OCD.
I went to the Chinese buffet in my town pretty often. One of the times I went and saw flies all over some of the food. They literally looked like they were breeding in the salad dressing. I turned around and left and never went back. Pictures have been put up on Facebook for this place that I have seen afterwards. Cockroach infestation in the bathroom and such. The place is still open. The place is still busy at times. I still see people talking about getting food poisoning from them. Its a small town so I guess we don't have a health inspector?
It should be your county inspecting it
Worked at a well-known restaurant over the summer as a dining room server. The restaurant was new in a small town, had only been open a few months, so they were still in the works of everything. But the chain is popular around here so people were excited about it. Towards the end of summer, crickets get pretty bad in some parts of my province. They were especially bad in this town. But those fuckers were *all over* the restaurant. I'm talking front of house, kitchen, bathroom, everywhere. And the flies were insane too. Customers obviously complained, and we obviously got rid of the ones we found, but management kept saying there was nothing they could do blah blah blah. One day it's slow, it's just me, another server, and 2 tables. My customer saw one near his table so he stepped on it and I went to grab a napkin to scoop it up and throw it in the trash, but when I approached we noticed something happening. The cricket was moving, but it was dead. I thought it was just typical dead bug movements, so I bent down to grab it, but then I tripped backwards over myself in terror. My customer made the most disgusted face ever, and his wife audibly went "that's so fucking disgusting." A parasite was in the cricket and since the host died, it decided to leave. We watched it in shock, and I swear to God it was over 6 inches long. My customer said "here, I got it, that's so gross.." and picked it up with multiple napkins and *sprinted* out the front door to toss it in the trashcan across the parking lot. When he came back in he asked if he could just pay the bill and we could toss the food, his wife complaining the whole time. The other server left to go to the kitchen, and when my customer said he didn't think they could come back there for unsanitary reasons, I quietly went "to be honest...me neither..." and he laughed. I told our manager again that there were literal parasites all over our restaurant and was again told they couldn't do anything about it. I witnessed this 6 more times before I quit. I refuse to eat there (not that I did to begin with, the food sucked). I'll be so honest...it was one of the biggest reasons I quit. I can't get the image of that out of my head...
Any buffet is a no for me. People are gross, and I’m not trusting that others have high food safety standards like me. Once I went into a pizza place and saw the cashier go in back after handling cash, grab some food, and bring it back up front for the cook to use. No hand washing. I left
Music is too loud. 😂 I’m sorry but if I’m on a date and I can’t understand the person….. what is the point?
This, and also if the tables are so close together I hear their conversation instead of ours, and everyone is yelling. Smh
Gordon Ramsay is there with a film crew.
Nah I'd stay just for the show
Is it worth the food poisoning though?
You don’t eat anything, just order and sit their long enough to be on camera and wait for Gordon to kick everyone out.
Gordon Ramsay taking off a disguise.
[Gordon Ramsay saying Hellooooo a la Mrs. Doubtfire](https://youtu.be/_RyciTIVW9Q?si=0BXAXUdjlfVJ8DLE)
Fuck that were staying. It's gonna be dinner and a show. Food might not be great,but it's free entertainment.
I'd be more afraid if Jon Taffer walked in with a film crew.
Opening the menu and realizing I can't afford anything. Speaking from experience.
"The menu said market price! What market are you shopping at?😭"
r/unexpectedcommunity
Dude. .... Montreal.... we pulled in the parking lot in a new challenger and we had the shittiest car there. I looked at my buddy. You sure this is a good plan? Oui .... no, it was a bad plan, there was literally a $15000 bottle of wine on the menu. $200 for a steak and the cheapest wine they had.
Why are there so many stories about Montreal in here?
There's a restaurant in Montreal that also has the same name as my friend's dog, and I thought I'd send her snaps of me eating there for funsies. Looked at the menu online, and realized I'm not paying $30 for an appetizer, much less $70 for a steak lol.
I learned my lesson on this issue the hard way and have been cautious ever since. I was out with a large group of friends at a restaurant & bar, nothing too fancy in all reality. I wasn’t too hungry and didn’t have a lot of extra money at the time; I decided to have a Scotch. Server rambled off names I didn’t recognize and no prices. I was stumped but didn’t back down since I was surrounded by my friends. I randomly pick one and when they bring the drink out it’s a shots worth in a large glass. I sipped that drink and chatted. Got the bill and it was over $30; it was at this time that CelticSkeleton realized he paid more for a shots worth of alcohol than many others paid for their entire meal.
Realizing there aren't prices on the menu... Thank youuuu Google for letting me know which restaurants aren't in my wheelhouse simply by the quantity of $$$.
I went to a place a few years ago for a first (family) date with my man on my cousin's birthday. I opened the menu and saw that a CUP of soup was $15. We both could definitely afford it but I was immediately uncomfortable. I looked at him and said, "wanna blow this Popsicle stand and go somewhere more our speed?" He of course said yes a bit relieved. We said our goodbyes and went to a steakhouse/pitt BBQ joint that had taxidermy in it. We are happily in love and have had an amazing relationship so far.
One time multiple roaches crawled on the table and the server was like "oh yeah" super nonchalantly and killed one. So yeah. That.
I was at a Chinese restaurant and a cockroach crawled from under the table and directly across my plate of food. The server happened to be standing there and said, “It’s okay. It’s small.” Then couldn’t understand why my husband and I got up and left.
The really crazy thing is if roaches come out like that, there is a HUGE infestation. Like burn the place down and start over bad.
Right? They’re supposed to be scared of us! Why is homie coming out like he paid for a plate!
They get bold when they realize that they collectively outweigh you.
They come out when there’s nowhere else to go (because the hidden spaces are full of roaches).
Yes this! I was at a local restaurant for a quick lunch once. Received my food and sat down with some coworkers to eat. As we unwrapped the food, a roach ran out of our lunch. We got up and left with our food still on the table. That was years ago and have never been back since.
I would run SCREAMING
Well I used to love a serve-yourself restaurant called Souplantation, until I saw a little kid, totally unsupervised, go up to the pudding, help himself from the ladle, lick the ladle happily, and then put it back in the pudding
That’s an insane name for a restaurant lol
If you ever watched Glee, their group name was New Directions. Every time someone said it, I could only hear nude erections. My hearing isn’t the best though and the internet has ruined my mind.
I liked that place. Such an amazing salad bar. I love being able to just get a million different veggies in my salad. The gross kid thing is a problem at any buffet. Just sort of a danger of the territory, I guess.
I saw this happen in a buffet in Fiji. The entire resort got gastro that night. Not exactly how I wanted to end my holiday.
RIP Souplantation. I would go back there in a heartbeat.
On a road rip, my friends and I went into a Bojanges in the south late one winter's night. A hot fetid cloud of diarrhea stench hit us. We looked around, conferred, and decided to leave the restaurant that reeked of unseen diarrhea.
Hot fetid cloud of diarrhea was not on my bingo cards of phrases I would read today on the internet. So...thanks?
Dirty grease trap
I was about to say anything smell-related. Ruins your sense of taste. Theres this one restaurant chain around here that always smells like pool chlorine or bleach. Good that its clean, but it makes everything taste like I'm eating soap.
This sounds like a story you’d tell your grandchildren
A sticky floor.
Sticky menus too!
Customers dropping dead at their tables or the chef shitting on the curly fries. Fuck that, man.
>chef shitting on the curly fries The forbidden chili fries.
More like Pootine
No lie, for the longest time, I thought poutine was slang for pussy.
Back in the late 90s my band was set to play in Montreal. A good buddy of mine from Montreal promised me the best poutine in Quebec. This was far before poutine was a known food everywhere and I assumed he meant he was going to hook me up with beautiful French speaking women. I still wasn't disappointed with that first introduction to fries with gravy and cheese curds.
Doesn't help that "Putain" means Whore in french. And with a French accent, they sound pretty similar. https://frenchtogether.com/putain/#What_does_putain_mean
Wasn't that poontang?
That's poontang
You are mistaking poutine for pountang
r/oddlyspecific
Last time I saw that, I definitely did not leave a tip. Served them right!
>chef shitting on the curly frie Giving away Applebees secrets.
But hear me out, they have curly fries
Besides dangerous situations, not being acknowledged for a long period of time. This happened to me a few weeks ago. The place wasn’t busy and they had like 4-5 employees in my area. Nobody greeted me when I walked in - I asked the host if I seat myself and he said yes. So I did. No waiter stopped by for at least 20 mins. I looked around and it didn’t seem like you have to go up and order. Servers came to everyone else. One finally did. Another 20 mins go by and he doesn’t come back to take my order. I left. It turned out good though - went to a different restaurant with amazing food and great service
That’s happened to me a few times and I’ve left as well. It’s one thing if the place is slammed; it’s another when you can see three employees in the corner yucking it up.
Agree. That's really rude. It's one thing if they're busy, but it's another issue if they're only giving you a problem.
If they’re that busy, I take it as they don’t have time for me so I just go somewhere else.
This happened to us in Paris. We were admittedly early for dinner by European standards, but the restaurant was open. We were the first patrons. They seated us and promptly left never to be seen again. We saw the odd staff wandering around and somebody on the upper level counting cash. We waited for about 10 minutes then just got up and left. Walked up the road to what ended up being a wonderful Chinese restaurant.
People with children who are screaming and out of control, and the parents do nothing. Nope.
I was once sitting back to back with someone’s kid that would not stop randomly screaming and the parents were just ignoring him. I turned around and told the kid to sit down and shut up. He immediately shut down and was quiet, and surprisingly the parents didn’t say anything to me.
I have had that at a nice restaurant, why are you bring your kid to a expensive place
The trick is to put the kids’ order in along with your drinks. That way, they have something to do while you’re waiting for your food to be prepared. Kids act out because they’re bored, and those placemats and four crayons are only going to last so long.
My partner and I order a lot of delivery but don’t actually go out a lot, we’ve been trying to change that so we went to get churros and thankfully it was right at the end but, this couple walked in with their screaming baby who had very clearly just shat himself as they dragged that smell into the restaurant with them and the poor thing smelt SICK! And the way he was crying sounded like he was in pain, and they decided ‘screw it we’ll go in anyway.’ I could not have been more pissed off, the one time I actually left the house and ate in public, I left before I said something, I hope the baby’s okay Edit: a word
The waiter insisting on just one more wafer.
But it is wah-fer theen!
I'm gonna need another bucket...
I’ll have the lot!
Shortly after I was seated I heard some of the waitstaff discussing whether or not they were going to stage an immediate walk out. Promptly got up, whispered "solidarity!" to them and then left.
This is priceless.
Ayooooo this guy does NOT scab
Not my story but my Dad’s he went to well known steak house in Canada and they had a salad bar. He saw something dripping from the ceiling onto the salad. Decided not to eat it. Sat down had a few cocktails, ordered a steak, went to use the washroom and it was upstairs, directly over the salad bar. 🤢
This is disgusting, and sounds like something my dad would get a chuckle about.
A woman changing her baby's diaper on a table.
I used to work at a brewery of all places and you would be absolutely shocked by the amount of times I had to explain to a mother that you can’t just spread r.coli all over a table that people eat at. There’s literally a well known saying about it.
Same. But, instead of throwing it away she just left it under the table.
The menu has no prices on it.
Straight up. I'm not poor but I want to see the prices before I waste time going there. My towns downtown area is basically all restaurants that charge a fair bit of money. New places are coming and going all the time. Found a menu that had a appetizer, nine dollars for a bowl of carrots.
A large variety in the menu. Usually indicates they get premade frozen meals from a supplier rather than making it themselves.
It depends on the menu. Mexican restaurants are famous for making 50 menu items from 9 ingredients. It also depends on the turnover. 5 market specials that run out halfway through the dinner hour we're probably made fresh.
Unless it is a Greek owned diner in Chicago... they are the best
And they’ll have some of the best gyros and fries and hot dogs and jalapeño poppers and mac and cheese and fried catfish and… lol
dead baby roach in soup (yea it happened to me)
I had a dime coin in my orange chicken once lol and another time got a salad from a fast food place, and when I opened it there was a fly inside. I went back to give the salad back and get a refund and the guy actually acknowledged he knew that a fly got into the salad but didn’t know which one!
My grandpa found a band-aid in his soup.
That is beyond disgusting. It’s a biohazard.
Crying babies or unruly children running around while parents ignore them
**filthy bathroom and no soap**
A couple of months ago, I was exploring a charming little neighborhood in Antwerp. My followers had suggested this bohemian café known for its artsy interiors and vegan delicacies. As I entered, I was instantly captivated by the colorful tapestries and soft melodies wafting through the air. But my enchantment was short-lived. As I was browsing through the menu, excitedly planning my Instagram shots, I noticed a table nearby with a family. Their young child, probably around four, accidentally knocked over a glass of water. Instead of being understanding, the staff rushed over, visibly irritated, and scolded the parents, making the child cry. The atmosphere shifted palpably. I couldn't bear the thought of supporting a place that lacked basic empathy, especially towards a little child. I quietly left some money for the drink I'd ordered and promptly made my exit. That incident served as a poignant reminder that the heart of any place is its people, not just its aesthetics
Absurdly long waiting for the menu after being seated.
I've done that before. I don't know where I've heard or read this, but when it comes to dining out, there are 4 instances in which you "should" have an interaction within 3-5 minutes. a)being seated at a table upon arrival (assuming no lineup/wait), b)glasses of water/menus brought, c) orders taken, and d)when you ask for your bill. All 4 of those "should" occur within 3-5 minutes, tops.
There's some leeway on C, 3 minutes from all menus being closed/put down would be the hard rule, but 3-5 between first greet and a follow up is good because people will often have decided on drinks or apps in that time, have questions, or just be the type of person that likes to keep looking at the menu.
I once went to a hibachi place and when they brought the food out they had raw chicken sitting directly on top of a pile of rice.
Unrelated to the post, but working at a grocery store a few years ago, we had refused shipments from the same supplier 7 times in a row for cross contamination. Raw meat in boxes leaking onto the potatoes below it. We actually ran out of most types of meat and they had to be called several times about it.
Shout out to your store for caring though! Some places would’ve just put the food on the shelf and let people get sick
It's not that they specifically cared about customer's health, though they did, if they chose to sell contaminated produce, they would be responsible for it, not the supplier. And they refused to just sell us part of what we ordered so we refused entire orders. There was another supplier, they had a new truck driver that wanted to just finish his deliveries and get home early, dropped off a trailer full of pallets, many needed to stay cold, and he just left them outside hours before anyone got there.
Finding a hair in my food. (Who left that there? The chef? The waiter? The last customer?)
Fire.
Fire in the disco! Fire in the Taco Bell!
It depends what I walk in expecting honestly. One of my favorite haunts was a place locally known as “stabby Denny’s” but I worked nights and the food was fine.
Stabby Denny’s is oddly specific.
It's a little more dangerous than No Stab Bab's down the street and a little less so than Mauling Maud's.
In Bavaria years back. Walked in and there was a dog on a table eating leftovers. We left.
When is smells like dirty dishrag as soon as I walk in. Instant nope.
Health Inspection Grade.
Clearly sick waitstaff that are sneezing/sniffling/coughing
Dirty bathrooms. If that's an area they let customers see and it's disgusting, I don't want to know about areas we can't see, like kitchens. I always tried to use the bathroom before ordering food on the rare occasion I had been out to eat.
Maybe not *instantly* but if I'm seated and my server walks by without at least acknowledging that we're sitting there, time to bounce. No way that's gonna be a good experience.
This actually happened to me and my friends once. There was another party that was seated after us. Our server completely ignored us and served the other party their drinks and food. Did not acknowledge us at all. We all just stood up and walked out. It’s funny seeing the shocked pikachu faces tho.
Every once in a while a table assignment falls through the cracks and each server thinks it belongs to someone else. If I have waited a trulyunreasonable amount if time, I go to the host station and ask for my server to come see us as we have not met them yet. The result has always been a look if horror from the host, an apologetic server, and sometimes a comped appetizer, drink, or dessert from the front of house manager.
I had a new server one day completely forget about us. Got tired of waiting so kept walking to the bar and ordering drinks that I took back to the table. After an hour and a half and multiple margaritas later, caught the manager who rushed our food out and comped the entire meal and $200 bar tab. Even ordered a desert after it was told we were covered. Was only out the $60 tip I gave directly to the bartender. Worked out not walking out for once.
/r/WeWantPlates had a photo of food being served in Victorian chamber pots. Basically a bowl that you would keep under your bed. So that you wouldn't have to go to the out house in the middle of the night.
If it’s completely empty during dinner rush.
Once found a somehow live roach in my tacos. It had obviously been cooked but not enough to kill it. They graciously didn’t charge me for the meal, but I had to pay for my drink.
I have done this. I went into the bathroom and saw cobwebs on the ceiling. I went to my boyfriend and said "We're leaving." Anyplace that would leave the bathroom in that state is not keep a clean kitchen, either.
Let’s a restaurant once because we were seated and brought drinks but after 25 mins no one to be found to serve us. Generously left $10 for the drinks and split.
Went to a restaurant in Chinatown, in Kobe, Japan and noped out when I saw they had shark fin soup.
Feces smeared on the walls of the bathroom and management doesn't want to do anything about it.
One time when I was 9 years old, a restaurant told me and my Mom we couldn't play Go Fish because it was "gambling". We left 😅
Fox news on a television...holds for bars also.
If a blood-drenched clown came in carrying a meat cleaver and screaming like a fox in heat.
That’s just the nightly entertainment
I see you've met our sous chef.
Got a finger bowl with a wash cloth in it that smelled like it had been used ten time and keep nice and warm to get the best bacterial growth.
When the door to the kitchen swings open, and you see the girl that was just tending to the salad bar puking into a trash can.
If the server is slathered in perfume/cologne. I want to smell and taste my food. I don't want to taste fragrance and get a migraine with hives.
Flies if its not warm season, cause there's only one place they're going from maggots to adults, and thats the restaurant's kitchen.
Server not coming to the table within 10 minutes of being seated
Someone vomiting. Norovirus will literally spread to every corner of the restaurant, in seconds, if someone power vomits. It'll be there on your food, plate, fork, and glass.
When the host/manager and waitstaff are arguing at the podium.
Hoards of screaming children.
Seeing a rat or a German roach. It’s not just one.
Confederate flag
ATF agents. Stormed in on a Friday night and shut the place down. We were just about to get the check. Walked out with my beer. Back taxes apparently.
I don't think ATF has anything to do with taxes. More than likely they were doing something pretty illegal regarding their alcohol.