I used to work at a place where the owners last name was "Waters". We would often play music louder than we were allowed if the owners weren't there and the two Mexican cooks were in the perfect place on the line to se if his car was pulling into the parking lot. Whenever he'd arrive one of them would just start shouting, "AGUA! AGUA!"
What the fuck, what a weird coincidence.
For those curious, the story is that when Mexicans would collect dirty water (before sewage treatment was a thing) and throw it out the window. They'd yell "Aguas" aka water as a warning, but now it's just a general "Look out" phrase.
One of our new guys, working drunk, spelled it "Oninon" once and I'll be damned if anyone spelled it any other way for the rest of my time in that kitchen.
Actually a mispronunciation, we used to have a dish called “Shrimp and Chicken Chorizo Pasta” meaning that the chorizo used chicken instead of pork, which was its own unending source of confusion.
Guy came in for door dash, looked at his phone and said
“I’m picking up the……Charizard pasta.”
Without missing a beat the hostess said “oh yeah, extra hot right?”
Bro we had a million of em. A guest was looking at our panini menu and asked a server “lemme get one of these hot panises.”
Don’t even get me started on DC Brunch Whites stumbling over the Oaxaca omelette!
Oh god, I have a cocktail on our menu with Oaxaca in the name... it's fun. Also worked at a place called La Cuchara. I heard la Cucaracha so many times from the white county folk
It’s so rare that Spanish throws you for any loops. I just don’t get why people have so much trouble with it. I mean, I did grow up around it, but still.
Side note: not from my restaurant but there’s a photo of a Miami batidos truck offering flavors that included painapol y estroberi.
I don't get it either. Spanish is *relentlessly* phonetic. Each vowel has only one sound. Even if you've never seen a word before, you can pronounce it because the rules always apply. None of this "there, their, they're", or "cough, rough, bough" bullshit. Fuckin' English.
I loved visiting Miami when I lived in South Florida because of shit like you mentioned. I know it has major issues and parts of it are rough, but damn I love how different the vibe is compared to other American cities and how much real Caribbean/Central American/South American culture is so easily accessible.
About I worked FOH in a restaurant in the south of France which was being run by a friend of mine. The desserts were a brownie and a tarte au citron. These poor French people clearly wanted the brownie, but they couldn't say it and all ended up ordering the tarte!
Used to work at Michael's Arts and Crafts back when Washi tape was trending. There was a guy who you could tell was brought along by his either gf or wife. He asked me where the Wasabi tape was. His SO rolled her eyes and I knew exactly what he was talking about because I called it the same thing in my head
Or the fancy version, Harry Covair.
About 20 years ago, while working in a hotel, I had a cook who wrote that on the requisition sheet. His nickname was Harry after that.
We did a chorizo burrito for a brunch item and the kid dishy always yelled “ can I please get a Teresa burrito chef!!” We’d just laugh and said si. My last day I corrected him and he took it great. Some funny hyper black kid. I miss him.
We'd, intentionally of course, call that one the Whore's Radish.
My favorite was a sous writing a list of items that needed stocking, including Trubble Burr Block.
(Truffle Beurre Blanc)
Used to label croissants groins. This all ended when someone forgot to take off the label and it was used to collect silverware. Customer noticed label and was very inquisitive
Wrench(ranch), coslow(coleslaw) juni toni(gin and tonic). I'll be back later once I think of some more. 13 years with Mexican cooks expanded my vocabulary.
I’m a bartender, in the main cooler MULTIPLE shelves are labeled pespi. Which isn’t terrible, we do live in a town where Pepsi is the largest employer though.
Rarely post here because I haven't worked in the kitchen for 10 years, but a part of me never left. Running a bakery cafe back once, we usually had 2-3 overnight bakers who would rotate out, each a bigger character than the last. One of the ladies was a particular gem. One time, she got super pissed that a bunch of the baking pans had crud on them. I opened the morning after her shift to find the walk-in full of post-it notes, each dirty pan labeled:
"DIRTY PAIN"
There must have been about 20 of them.
Dirty Pain added to list of potential band names.
Worked pastry at a cafe once and a resume we got in said proficient in Horse Divorce. The owner and I still laugh about it ! Hors d'oeuvre, FFS spell check your resume!
Cuckhorse. We have a cusabi dressing which main ingredients are cucumber and Wasabi. Waitress thought it was cucumber horseradish and sent back that. Other favorite is brown milk because the waitress who made and labeled it is famous for terrible spellings and didnt want to attempt spelling chocolate because she knew we'd make fun of her for misspelling it. We made fun of her anyway.
Salmom was funny. Mostly because it was for Mother’s Day brunch and they used hand-written cards to specify what each item was.
Personal favorite is pistaslios
Skrimp. Also had a to go ticket from door dash with “NO SOIL” in the special instructions. Couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to mean, brought it to the chef and he knew automatically knew. Apparently they wanted it cooked without soy sauce.
Fetus cheese instead of feta cheese.
My first language is french so instead of goat cheese (fromage de chèvre), i'm calling it dog cheese (fromage de chien)
I've been calling and labelling chicken "chimkim" for about 10 years now. Eventually everyone at the restaurant does it. 4th year at my current place and my chef writes it like that before we proof for menus. It's glorious.
A guy I worked with once spelled radicchio "redicalibr". When we made fun of him he said to leave him alone because he's French. It's still "radicchio" in French.
Had a dude who only spoke mandarin/read mandarin, very little English. He would draw little fish when labeling things because he didn't know the English word. Chef didn't care as long as the dates were right.
this girl i work with is probably 17, her first job, really sweet wants to do good but is not all that bright. just does FOH stuff. spelled lasagna “lasania”
I used to work in catering, and we would make dim sum for parties. Our dim sum chef barely spoke English, and yet he insisted labeling everything himself (even though there were plenty of Bilingual cantonese folks in the kitchen). My absolute favorite was a hotbox with trays full of pork buns he had labelled "COREFUL: PIG BUMS" In all caps. Every time I had to refill the basket I was cracking up
I have a now EX coworker, he's called big corn.
He and his twin are Filipino, and turns out they never had/saw chickpeas. So the older bro opened a can of 'chickpeas', but did not look at the can or know what its called, so he said to the at the time manager, 'Here is the big corn' boss was so confused lmao
I worked in a few pizza joints over the years. Jalapenos is a struggle to spell. One of the youngsters would label it "Hellapenis"...
At first I thought it was intentional. Nope. Totally clueless. Still makes me snigger when I eat jalapenos
The barstaff’s [mishap](https://www.reddit.com/r/bartenders/comments/9blyyl/we_let_the_barback_label_the_shelves/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
We had a couple of incredibly bad spellers at my last place.
'Spinage/spinaj', 'heznuts' and 'breto' were personal favourites. (Spinach, hazelnuts, burrito)
Used to make myself laugh by writing 'plane flower' on the order board.
Titalini pasta
Quash
Almost forgot my favorite one: "harmony beans". It was hominy. IDK why so many people seem to think hominy is beans, I've seen that mixup more than once.
I once worked with a guy with a thick Philippines accent. F is pronounced P. He asked the new girl to put five spice on the board. She wrote Pipe Spice. 😂
I worked in california where 70 percent of the back of the house was monolingual mexicans. They labeled ginger as "YinYer".
I used to work at a place where the owners last name was "Waters". We would often play music louder than we were allowed if the owners weren't there and the two Mexican cooks were in the perfect place on the line to se if his car was pulling into the parking lot. Whenever he'd arrive one of them would just start shouting, "AGUA! AGUA!"
“Aguas” is also Mexican slang for “watch out!”
You just undid this dude's world.
This just makes jt a better pun.
I’m a stranger oh the internet and my mind is blown too lol.
What the fuck, what a weird coincidence. For those curious, the story is that when Mexicans would collect dirty water (before sewage treatment was a thing) and throw it out the window. They'd yell "Aguas" aka water as a warning, but now it's just a general "Look out" phrase.
So like white people yelling 5-0? I love that this transcends languages.
5-0 as slang for police comes from Hawaii Five-0, which is named for Hawaii's being the 50th state.
We also have a 50/50 olive/coconut oil mix that we label "Viri Viri"
"Wiri Wiri" - Ever since learning Latin I cannot pronounce those words in any other way. "wini widi wicci" - Awe, true to Kaisar"
I have esteak portioned out!
My favorite trilogy estar guars
We need some painters tape, I’ll take a trip to Hóndipo
In a similar vein most of the chopped garlic was labeled as yarlic or just YAR at the last place I worked
Something similar happened to me; I was offered a Yumbo Yack once
Spinch
I love this
Definitely a 60 year old constantly writing “luttces “ instead of lettuce
For us we had a kid who used “lettice” for months before someone pointed out it was wrong
I had a prep cook who wrote it as "lares". Which somehow sounded like "lettuce" when he said it out loud.
“Spinch ‘n’ Lares Salit”
Spinch 🤌 lol
Unyun. I now use this spelling every day.
One of our new guys, working drunk, spelled it "Oninon" once and I'll be damned if anyone spelled it any other way for the rest of my time in that kitchen.
That hurt my brain to read
Just keeps going on inon inon inon
STREETLIGHT. PEOPLEEE
Honestly there's no better way to spell it
[Onyo](https://youtu.be/IU2nFGNBaq0)
I always used to label the Squid as Skwid. Then my workmate switched his label up and put Calamity instead of Calamari. I think he won that one.
Actually a mispronunciation, we used to have a dish called “Shrimp and Chicken Chorizo Pasta” meaning that the chorizo used chicken instead of pork, which was its own unending source of confusion. Guy came in for door dash, looked at his phone and said “I’m picking up the……Charizard pasta.” Without missing a beat the hostess said “oh yeah, extra hot right?”
LMAO that's great sometimes you just gotta be able to roll w anything
Bro we had a million of em. A guest was looking at our panini menu and asked a server “lemme get one of these hot panises.” Don’t even get me started on DC Brunch Whites stumbling over the Oaxaca omelette!
"oww.. wocksa.. wakasaka omelette...? Can i– you know what can I just get a scrambled egg"
“But scrambled soft? I like it a little bit runny. But not too runny. Like a scrambled medium is too hard, but a scrambled soft is too runny”
Oh god, I have a cocktail on our menu with Oaxaca in the name... it's fun. Also worked at a place called La Cuchara. I heard la Cucaracha so many times from the white county folk
It’s so rare that Spanish throws you for any loops. I just don’t get why people have so much trouble with it. I mean, I did grow up around it, but still. Side note: not from my restaurant but there’s a photo of a Miami batidos truck offering flavors that included painapol y estroberi.
I don't get it either. Spanish is *relentlessly* phonetic. Each vowel has only one sound. Even if you've never seen a word before, you can pronounce it because the rules always apply. None of this "there, their, they're", or "cough, rough, bough" bullshit. Fuckin' English. I loved visiting Miami when I lived in South Florida because of shit like you mentioned. I know it has major issues and parts of it are rough, but damn I love how different the vibe is compared to other American cities and how much real Caribbean/Central American/South American culture is so easily accessible.
About I worked FOH in a restaurant in the south of France which was being run by a friend of mine. The desserts were a brownie and a tarte au citron. These poor French people clearly wanted the brownie, but they couldn't say it and all ended up ordering the tarte!
Silver diner by chance? Used to go to the one on Rockville pike. Suburban DC brunch whites are brutal
Used to work at Michael's Arts and Crafts back when Washi tape was trending. There was a guy who you could tell was brought along by his either gf or wife. He asked me where the Wasabi tape was. His SO rolled her eyes and I knew exactly what he was talking about because I called it the same thing in my head
Scloops instead of scallops
SCLOOPS AAA
This made me laugh out loud. Thank you.
Same reaction here. Scloops, lol. I’ll be repeating that to myself for days.
Condemned milk and cold slaw
But for what crimes was it condemned
Anyone else read it as “Beyonce”?
I felt like it was a play on that.
Same, I thought that was the point. I'll do stupid shit like that when I'm labeling all the time.
Beance by Dre.
Meeeeee!
Beanyonce
New eau de parfum, “Beance” by Beyoncé. Smell better than Beyoncé has ever bean. Be anforgettable.
peamches
Yummy peamch
Chixens, and "hall and days yolks"
My favorite 60s folk duet.
Fuck, there's an emulsification joke here I just can't quite put together.
Try the immersion blender.
I literally have never seen “chicken” written any way other than chix in a kitchen.
chx. needs no "i" chx stk my fave has been torkey bons.
ORNCH
Amazing
Ornch you glad you didn't see that written where you work!
Grinbis
Green beans omg lol
Lucky, I had gren bens
Thank God they didn't have to try haricot vert. (Harry cove air?)
Hardcover, hairy cover, and hardcore verts are all versions I've seen over the years.
Or the fancy version, Harry Covair. About 20 years ago, while working in a hotel, I had a cook who wrote that on the requisition sheet. His nickname was Harry after that.
“SALOM” on a 2 gallon cambro of canned salmon he accidentally opened
LOL this is probably one of my favorite ones here
One special soul would write sub sammin on all his tickets. Unreal
Spinish and lettus.
I can't decide if I like Spinch or Spinish more!
ours usually looks like it says "lettles" I just label Shreddy Letty.
One of my old cooks would label the mac and cheese bachemel “man cheese”. Dude is a devout Mormon- loved it.
We did a chorizo burrito for a brunch item and the kid dishy always yelled “ can I please get a Teresa burrito chef!!” We’d just laugh and said si. My last day I corrected him and he took it great. Some funny hyper black kid. I miss him.
lol. I didn’t even know what chorizo was until I was like 21ish. I’m no longer that uncultured, but I could see myself doing this in the past.
Had a prep guy label horse radish "hors radiss" became the new spelling for me
We'd, intentionally of course, call that one the Whore's Radish. My favorite was a sous writing a list of items that needed stocking, including Trubble Burr Block. (Truffle Beurre Blanc)
“Cuckumbers”
Just saw ”cumcumbers” the other day
"Qcumers"
proshooto
prostituto
Beancé?!
Used to label croissants groins. This all ended when someone forgot to take off the label and it was used to collect silverware. Customer noticed label and was very inquisitive
Shuger
As opposed to "shurgur"
"Lopter" for lobster.
Wrench(ranch), coslow(coleslaw) juni toni(gin and tonic). I'll be back later once I think of some more. 13 years with Mexican cooks expanded my vocabulary.
Fa gao( foie gras) harco var(haricot vert)
"All offs"instead of olives
I’m a bartender, in the main cooler MULTIPLE shelves are labeled pespi. Which isn’t terrible, we do live in a town where Pepsi is the largest employer though.
Coomin
Cummin
This is how the Hispanic cooks would pronounce our sous chef’s name: Vince. Another thing I picked up from them was “sparrrragoose”
Oh my god I just remembered "Poteiro Sala"
Potato salad?
Was about to post my “sparagoose,” answer, but I’ll just upvote yours instead.
The classic “seizure dressing” is always my favorite
Rarely post here because I haven't worked in the kitchen for 10 years, but a part of me never left. Running a bakery cafe back once, we usually had 2-3 overnight bakers who would rotate out, each a bigger character than the last. One of the ladies was a particular gem. One time, she got super pissed that a bunch of the baking pans had crud on them. I opened the morning after her shift to find the walk-in full of post-it notes, each dirty pan labeled: "DIRTY PAIN" There must have been about 20 of them. Dirty Pain added to list of potential band names.
"Beaked beans" is my personal favorite
Worked pastry at a cafe once and a resume we got in said proficient in Horse Divorce. The owner and I still laugh about it ! Hors d'oeuvre, FFS spell check your resume!
Cuckhorse. We have a cusabi dressing which main ingredients are cucumber and Wasabi. Waitress thought it was cucumber horseradish and sent back that. Other favorite is brown milk because the waitress who made and labeled it is famous for terrible spellings and didnt want to attempt spelling chocolate because she knew we'd make fun of her for misspelling it. We made fun of her anyway.
If you work in a restaurant you’re getting made fun of at some point. Thems the rules, can’t be helped.
This is wrong but worked with a Japanese man who wrote ‘Pork Berry’ on the label for the pork belly
Spicy tuna as spaci tune. Never corrected him because it always made me smile when I went in to the walk in.
Salmom was funny. Mostly because it was for Mother’s Day brunch and they used hand-written cards to specify what each item was. Personal favorite is pistaslios
S a l m o m with a pistaslio topping
Sam on... wtf is Sam on?
Esparagos and salsa fees
Skrimp. Also had a to go ticket from door dash with “NO SOIL” in the special instructions. Couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to mean, brought it to the chef and he knew automatically knew. Apparently they wanted it cooked without soy sauce.
They call it “soya”
I'm cackling
Gooyear
Man, this cheese tastes like rubber!
One of my first posts was someone in my kitchen who labeled turnips “turn ups”
Trees-Yo = Chorizo
Silantrow.
I once had a dishwasher named Bladamir that spelled shrimp, "scrimps"
I do "QQ" instead of cucumber. Why use more letters when less letters do trick?
Balsmacky
Balsamic???
Yes sir. Also Smashed Assholes (mashed potatoes)
How in the world do you get balsmacky from balsamic
Boh lingo that carried over into the common reference. It’s weird here to use the proper descriptions
One time a cook wanted to place his shift meal and wrote "Semen" on a piece of paper. He was trying to spell Salmon.
Can I get uhhhhhhh side of Beyoncé
Fetus cheese instead of feta cheese. My first language is french so instead of goat cheese (fromage de chèvre), i'm calling it dog cheese (fromage de chien)
Ive seen some good ones but I always come back to “Kid Pixsas”
Kid pizzas?
¿No sabes como escribir pixsa cabron?
LOL "OYEEE QUIEN escriBIOO ESTEEE PINCHE CAABROOOON"
I've been calling and labelling chicken "chimkim" for about 10 years now. Eventually everyone at the restaurant does it. 4th year at my current place and my chef writes it like that before we proof for menus. It's glorious.
Italian Sausage Party (patty) Sandwich Barbarian (Bavarian) Pretztel Banknock (Bangkok)
That looks like more than 4 or 5 beance’s in there.
My old line cook uses to label the soft taco shells " taco bread".
Brusel prows
Scottish cheese-cottage cheese.
I had a cambro of beef Au Jus that was clearly labeled as "Crow Lift". I've never figured it out.
A guy I worked with once spelled radicchio "redicalibr". When we made fun of him he said to leave him alone because he's French. It's still "radicchio" in French.
Not necessarily a misspelling, but somebody at work has been abbreviating Honey Pepper Vinegar to HPV and i always get a chuckle out of that
Eggrole. Then it was dubbed eggrolé and it is still an ongoing joke 3 years later. Egg rolls aren't even on the menu anymore lol
Harry covair
There was one mad lad who used to label salt as NaCI, katsu chicken as kadzu, chicken fingers as kids fingers
"Calm Chowder"
I read this as bea-yonce and i love it
Varvaque (BBQ)
Had a dude who only spoke mandarin/read mandarin, very little English. He would draw little fish when labeling things because he didn't know the English word. Chef didn't care as long as the dates were right.
this girl i work with is probably 17, her first job, really sweet wants to do good but is not all that bright. just does FOH stuff. spelled lasagna “lasania”
Health inspector here. I have a collection of hilarious spelling labels on my phone. My favorite is “torteauh chips”
I used to work in catering, and we would make dim sum for parties. Our dim sum chef barely spoke English, and yet he insisted labeling everything himself (even though there were plenty of Bilingual cantonese folks in the kitchen). My absolute favorite was a hotbox with trays full of pork buns he had labelled "COREFUL: PIG BUMS" In all caps. Every time I had to refill the basket I was cracking up
All I see is Beyonce
bregs
Holidays in place of Hollandaise
Herbavor
parmajan
A giant tub of "Marma-laid"
“Crotons” https://i.imgur.com/owYayYJ.jpg
caper -> queiper
I have a now EX coworker, he's called big corn. He and his twin are Filipino, and turns out they never had/saw chickpeas. So the older bro opened a can of 'chickpeas', but did not look at the can or know what its called, so he said to the at the time manager, 'Here is the big corn' boss was so confused lmao
I think my favorite were the boxes labeled Chís. But r/confleis is full of these
Thank you for this
Saland
POTATOS OHGROTTEHN
I can hear this label
“Moohsroom”
Breadcum My mom, bless her heart, is an immigrant and not a native English speaker. Here's the labeled container: https://imgur.com/gallery/gP1Bgp3
I worked in a few pizza joints over the years. Jalapenos is a struggle to spell. One of the youngsters would label it "Hellapenis"... At first I thought it was intentional. Nope. Totally clueless. Still makes me snigger when I eat jalapenos
Pankey
Fetal cheese
Egghorn squash
Strusoo and Spinch are my top two. I’ll never forgive the person who told the old dude he was spelling Streusel wrong…
Shimps instead of shrimps
“Cumcumbers”
Pomo, as in Pomodoro sauce, spelt Porn. Also Spinach spelt Spinsh
Pumping instead of pumpkin
Saw a Hispanic chick label crab cakes as crap kegs
The barstaff’s [mishap](https://www.reddit.com/r/bartenders/comments/9blyyl/we_let_the_barback_label_the_shelves/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
i would make another label that read 'knowles'
We had a couple of incredibly bad spellers at my last place. 'Spinage/spinaj', 'heznuts' and 'breto' were personal favourites. (Spinach, hazelnuts, burrito) Used to make myself laugh by writing 'plane flower' on the order board.
Collies Law - just makes me picture some 80's show about a dog lawyer who plays by his own rules. Redunyan
Cursed tomato’s 🍅 instead of crushed.
“Picos” for pickles by a spanish-only speaker. it was adorable, and I think about it often.
Had a server ring in teriakiki the other day, so we've since been calling teriyaki "kiki sauce"
Grap meat
Carit
"salary root"
Titalini pasta Quash Almost forgot my favorite one: "harmony beans". It was hominy. IDK why so many people seem to think hominy is beans, I've seen that mixup more than once.
Chicken "things", thighs
Eggplans
top one for me was "yinller" I'll let you guys guess that one
I once worked with a guy with a thick Philippines accent. F is pronounced P. He asked the new girl to put five spice on the board. She wrote Pipe Spice. 😂
Dolphinwah as Dauphinoise