It happens to everyone, something so embarrassing happens that people think they'll never live it down. Unfortunately for food workers, their embarrassment determines their tip and livelihood so they feel like they're under even more pressure. These are the best stories, hilarious or tragic, of food worker embarrassments. Content has been edited for clarity.
I Actually Didn’t Feel That Bad
“I was bar tending during a lunch shift at a horseshoe shaped bar in the middle of a restaurant. The bartender who closed the bar the previous night did not shut off the hose inside the bar. Unbeknown to me, the nozzle had fallen off the hook and was resting right under the service bar, where I was making drinks.
About 30 minutes into the lunch rush, I had a full bar and a miles worth of service bar drinks to make. All I remember is hearing yelling and commotion coming from my right, yet I continue to slave away as I had a million and one things to do.
Finally, hearing a, ‘WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!’ towards my direction, I turned to see the hose dousing half the restaurant in water. I had been stepping on the nozzle for at least 30-45 seconds. The entire left side of the restaurant (customers, the food, everything was drenched in water. Everyone who had food, had it ruined, men in business suits… soaked. Water was literally dripping off the ceiling. Looking back it was kind of awesome to see around 100 people all giving you the rage face all at the same time.”
Saved By My Wit
“I was in training as a waiter at a steak restaurant on 6th Street in Austin, Texas, and I was on the lunch shift. I had a large party of local city council people and some other unidentified high rollers. Yeah, I was pretty nervous.
This restaurant had a strange system of dispensing salad dressings, which was to put them in ‘monkey bowls’ which were small metal bowls with no covers. Since I had a large party, my tray was full of salad dressing-filled monkey bowls: blue cheese, ranch & thousand island. Somehow, as I approached the table, my tray got off balance and the bowls of dressing all hit the floor and sent up a geyser of dressing that nicely splattered against some of the people at the table. The restaurant went silent and I’m standing there at the table with everyone looking at me. I said, ‘Dang, I can’t believe I missed the city councilman!’ and everyone broke up laughing. That’s probably one of the best things I’ve ever said in my life, as it saved my butt.
After a tough first week, I ended up working at that place for a couple of years. I saw so many bowls of dressing land on the floor, an event we called a ‘dressing bomb.’ They never changed the system though.
This Guy Made Everything Awkward
“I was hosting at one of the 2 highest rated restaurants in my city. So we get a lot of engagements, and generally know how to handle ourselves.
Our 7 course tasting menu was $150 (per person), plus $100/person for an accompanying drink pairing. The guy called ahead to request both tastings and our nicest table. When he came in with his girlfriend, the staff let each other know so we could watch it happen. And then, before the 2nd course, he broke up with her.
It took us a while to figure out what was going on: she started crying (normal for an engagement), but then he laughed at her and took a photo on his phone of her crying face. He left, and her server had the pleasure of telling her she’d still have to pay for the meal (at least $500), so she stayed and ate/drank her way through the next 6 courses alone. It took her at least 2 hours to get through it all. The whole restaurant was massively uncomfortable.”
Just Trying To Be Helpful
“My first job was as a waitress in an Italian restaurant.
I hadn’t been there long and I thought I was just about getting the hang of things so when I saw a group with a bottle of vino on their table that wasn’t in a cooler bucket, I thought I’d be super competent and get one for them. My boss then appears behind me and takes the bottle out of the cooler, apologizing to everyone at the table for my mistake.
Apparently bottles of red don’t go in coolers. I felt a bit stupid!”
Captain Americuh
“While working as a waiter in middle of nowhere North Carolina (the locals referred to it as Morehead City) on a slow evening, this 40-something inebriated redneck came in rocking a huge mullet (this was in 2000 or so; mullet’s weren’t cool yet.) He sat at the bar and after he had about two Natural Lights, it became apparent he was completely trashed, so we cut him off.
I went to the kitchen to fetch some food for someone and when I came out, he was behind the bar stumbling around. I didn’t know what to do so I just watched him for a few seconds. He picked up a spoon and started prying at the monitors that the bar used to order food from. I yelled at him to stop and he responded, ‘Shut up, I’m here to fix the computers,’ and kept at it. At that point, I recruited one of the bigger cooks from the back to help in case he got rowdy, and we told him to stop and tried to throw him out of the place. After cursing up a storm and getting in our faces, he refused to leave, and sat back at the bar. We didn’t want to make a scene in front of the guests, so we called the police.
So this is where it gets awesome. The cops show up and ask him what he’s doing. He tells them the same thing (‘He’s here to fix the dang computer.’) They see he’s trashed and ask him for his identification. ‘ID… YOU WANT TO SEE MY ID?’ he shouts, and pulls his shirt off to expose a huge tattoo he has covering his chest of a bald eagle clutching an American flag. He tells the officers ‘THERES MY IDEA, AMERICUHHHHHH’ while pointing to his chest. The police officers took him outside and the whole time, I kid you not, he starts shouting ‘USA USA’ as if he was at a wrestling match watching Hacksaw Jim Duggan or something.
Everyone there laughed about it and we finished off our night. I was the closing bartender and when I left for the evening around 1 AM I start walking to me car, and who do I see driving around the parking lot but Captain Americuh. I have no idea how the heck the cops let him go as it was only about 2 hours later and he was obviously still trashed, but there he was driving in circles. I ask him what he’s doing and he says ‘I lost a dollar in this here parking lot, and I ain’t going home til I find it.’ I called the police again from my cell phone to report an inebriated driver, and once they showed up I took off. Never saw him again sadly.”
A Slip Of The Tongue
“I was the manager of a high class steakhouse. We had one waiter who was a student at the local Catholic college. His name was Tony and he was very polite, never used bad language, never swore. Anyway, we had three cuts of Prime Rib. The Santa Fe was an 8 Oz cut, the Conductor was a bone-in 16 Oz cut, and the Casey Jones was a double bone 32 Oz cut.
Tony was waiting on a table of six middle aged couples who had reserved a room at the hotel next door – and they were getting pretty smashed. One of the guests asked Tony to explain the different cuts of prime rib, and this is what happened:
Customer: ‘Tony, what’s the difference between the Santa Fe, Conductor, and the Casey Jones?’
Tony: ‘Um, the Santa Fe is an 8 ounce cut, the Conductor is a 16 ounce (c-word)…..I mean, cut.’
The entire table roared with laughter and everyone continued the mood, asking Tony to describe the difference between medium and medium rare where Tony replied, ‘Medium is a warm pink center and medium rare is a hot red center.’
The jokes, puns, and innuendo went all night long as poor Tony just got more and more embarrassed.”
I Came Up Short
“I used to work at Baskin Robbins in high school. It was in an urban location and because of the store’s proximity to poverty, we got a lot of people that wanted multiple free samples. Enough that it was clear they were abusing the spirit of the offering. So we would grab the box of itty-bitty pink Baskin Robbins sample spoons before customers entered the store if we thought they were the kind of person to ‘sample’ before they bought.
One winter weekend shift we decided to take our game to the next level; not just try and figure out who would want a free sample of ice cream, but to try and identify which type of ice cream they wanted.
‘That guy definitely wants something nutty. I’ll give him a sample of butter pecan.’
‘Oh, I can tell. This chick wants chocolate. No, wait… she wants coffee. I’ll give her a sample of Jamocha Almond Fudge.’
We each tried it a couple times that shift with mixed results.
We’re dudes, and dudes like to keep score, so we knew that it was currently a tie. We both had one correct and one incorrect guess. No one ever turned down our free sample, surprisingly.
Knowing that the store was about to close and we were in a tie, we both got very excited when the last customer drove up to the store. Giant windows spanning the front of the store gave us a nice view outside. We both stared at the driver intently but he wasn’t getting out of the car. He parked and was idling, and that provided us both the opportunity to size him up — figure out what he’d want to sample. In the spirit of competition, my coworker conceded to me as it was my turn and we couldn’t start fighting over customers. I made my choice and held the tiny spoon in my hand, complete with a nice sample of vanilla ice cream. ‘Dude has a mustache. Mustaches always get vanilla,’ I remember thinking. My back was to the store entrance but I heard the bell chime. I was looking at my coworker, me nearly gloating because I was confident I was about to win the game. My coworker looked over my shoulder at the front door then stared at me intently and said, ‘Your turn’ and abruptly walked away.
I looked to the lobby and noticed the top of a child’s head by the freezers. Thinking the guy sent in his kid to get the ice cream, I said, ‘Here you go little buddy,’ in a cartoon-ish voice and as I reached over the freezer and handed him the tiny sample spoon I noticed that he was a midget, and he was not happy.”
He Did Not Get His Man Badge
“I work for a popular bar and grill chain that is famous for its wings.
I typically tend bar, but that night we were short a server so I came in to help out. It had been a few years since waiting tables, so I was less than enthusiastic to be back in the realm of teenagers and families with young children. Lucky me, the first table of the night was a ten-top of teenage boys. We’re talking 15 and down. I was fortunate in that they were polite and somewhat manageable, and was thinking ‘Ok, maybe this won’t be so bad,’ as they started to order. Coming to the last kid, I felt I had this one in the bag. Unfortunately for me he ordered twelve boneless wings in our hottest sauce. Now, I realize it’s not the end-all, be-all of hot sauces, but it’s nothing to mess with if you don’t like food to be very, very spicy. So the food comes out, and the kid wants to earn his man-badge in uncomfortable eating. It was about a quarter of the way through the wings that he started to look like he hated his life. I asked if he was alright. Not willing to let that man-badge escape, he tries to power through and tells me everything is peaches. Halfway in, he begins to lose color, and I tell the kid to give it up. He doesn’t even respond at this point, but continues to try to shovel boneless wings in. Suddenly he turns green and drops his fork. By this point I’m half pleading, half yelling at the kid and his friends to get to the bathroom. His friends get him two steps toward the bathroom when the kid loses it all over the carpeted floor. It’s the middle of dinner, so the place is packed and on a wait. I literally throw up my hands in disgust and walk away to get the management. For $2.33 an hour there is no way I’m touching that mess.
After the kid came out he was apologizing profusely, and couldn’t look me in the eye. I felt bad for him, even though he did it to himself. In the end the kids felt so sorry for me they tipped me 30%, and that kid walked away without that man-badge.”
Win Some, Lose Some
“One time I was serving a table of corporate VPs and one of the servers was being a suck up and totally overzealous…as I was pre-bussing the empty plates and putting them on a tray, a server came up to me with the VP’s 6 milkshakes. She grabbed the tray with the empties on it and forced the tray with the milkshakes into my weak non-tray hand without bothering to check for balance or anything. The combination of the tray being too heavy for my non-tray arm plus the fact the shakes weren’t centered made the whole tray topple all over the floor on our shoes and splatter on the VPs.
Until that point, I was doing well with the table. This idiot server’s rush to get their shakes out 14 seconds faster ruined my day.
Another time I was training a new server and I always made them carry a tray with a glass of water around to practice while they shadowed me if they hadn’t served before. She was doing really well, so I had her bring a fresh water to a table of inebriated people I was serving. She leaned over and dumped the water down an inebriated girl’s halter top back. It was December. I laughed out loud in front of them.”
Just A Little Mix Up
“I was working at a pizza place. The morning time is the prep time where you make the dough, grate the cheese, cook the sauce, and prep all the toppings.
Well, I had a late night and I was a little tired. I started to get the sauce going, cut down all the toppings, and grated all the cheese. I put all the stuff away and started working on making the dough. You grate the cheese with the front attachment to the Hobart mixer on speed 6, you mix the dough on speed 1. When I poured the 2 giant sacks of flour into the mixer and turned it on at speed 6, there was a giant explosion and complete whiteout in the restaurant. I looked like Wylie Coyote after the bomb explodes in his face, except covered in white.
Always make sure to check the speed before turning on the mixer.”
Why Am I The One Helping You?
“I worked in a bar a while back. Girl was sitting at the bar alone for a while, crying. Super awkward, so we give her a drink on the house. She explains that the guy she was seeing just dumped her out of nowhere. We feel bad, console her, etc. A little while later, the guy joins her. And they’re visibly arguing. He’s straight-faced while she’s crying. The bar is loud, so she’s not wailing or anything, but she’s crying pretty hard. Again, so weird. Why would you do this in public? Her and the guy sit there for like 2 hours. I don’t understand why you’d stay and drink/hang out with a girl you just dumped.
Later in the night, he starts hitting on another girl at the bar while this chick is in the bathroom.
I go to the bathroom to make sure she’s okay and she’s on the floor hysterical and mentioning her inhaler. She has friends standing around her, and they are doing nothing. Just standing there. So I have to go back to where she was sitting and ask the guy which purse is hers. He tries to play macho and act like he doesn’t know until I get right in his face and he immediately points to her purse.
I am just floored. She came here with friends and they let her sit at the bar and be dumped and cry in public… and now she’s needing an inhaler and no one is doing anything..?
It was the weirdest situation ever. By the way everyone acted, I assumed maybe she’s the drama queen of the group and no one wants to deal with it, but honestly… don’t hang out with her if that’s the case. Don’t leave your friend hysterically asking for an inhaler on the floor of a bar bathroom.”
Please Say Something
“A husband and wife, probably in their early 50s, came into the restaurant for dinner every Sunday, without fail. They always ordered the same food, the woman always ordered a carafe of red, the man ordered a brew. When they were ordering, they were super friendly, very cheerful. They always wanted the drinks right away, so I’d bring it to them before heading into the kitchen to work on their meals.
I used to dread bringing the food to their table because by the time I got there, the woman was always done with her drink, and she’d sit with her head in her hands while her husband, who never had any drink left either, would stare blankly at the table. No talking. I’d set the food down, tell them to let me know if they needed anything, and get no response. They ate quietly while staring down at the table and never asked me for any additional service. When they were finished, they’d leave without saying a word and I’d always find cash to pay for their dinner along with a pretty big tip at the table.
Every. Single. Sunday.
The tip was nice but I always felt like there was never a right time to bring their food because even if I rushed, it was never ready before they went from cheerful and talkative to practically catatonic.”
He Should Get Dumped For That Cheesy Plan
“Guy and girlfriend come into our restaurant for dinner. Guy then secretly tells me he has a ring and wants to propose to her and wants it to be all special. I was to wait until a specific time and come and ask if the table ‘needed anything else’ and them he would say ‘I do. I need her.’ And then get down on his knee, etc. etc.
I thought it was cheesy, but hey I wanted to help the guy out and be a part of something like that, so I said I’d do it.
I get to the table and ask the question, he then pops THE question and she burst into tears. But not good happy tears. She then blurts out that she wants to break up and that she was in love another guy, apparently a friend of his.
I just slowly backed away from the table as his entire world came crashing down on him.”
So Cringey
“It was about a year ago and I worked at Red Lobster. At the time, our current promotion was endless shrimp, so we would get some pretty interesting people in there.
Well on this late Sunday night, I get a party of ten people and four of them are kids. You can imagine what kind of mess those little Rugrats left me. They also let me know that they came in to celebrate a birthday. I swear these people ordered like fifteen orders of shrimp linguini. Anyways, throughout the entire meal, the dad had been yelling at his kids and it made me super uncomfortable but I just ignored it. Then finally it was time for us to sing to this dude and I brought 5 other servers to sing with me.
Well as we all walk in with his dessert and ready to sing, we see the dad with his son bent over his knee spanking him with his belt that he had been wearing. I started laughing out of nervousness because I felt so embarrassed for the child and him. We tried to walk away and give them privacy but the dad insisted on us continuing the little performance. The little boy was in tears, during the entire song. So I immediately left the table and brought him a scoop of ice cream. I don’t believe any child should be embarrassed like that in public. Needless to say they left a less than 10% tip. That is definitely my most awkward serving experience.”
Shut Them All Down
“This happened to my best friend while he was a waiter at a fancy restaurant. He was known for joking heavily with the younger customers.
So a table of all black women come in, probably all under 30 years old. They’re actually kind of flirting with my friend – you know, just throwing out some simple but suggestive comments.
At the end of the meal, they go to order coffee. The table asks him what the best type of coffee is.
He says, ‘Well, you know, I like my coffee like I like my women…’
The entire table is on edge. You can almost hear them praying that one of them will get lucky.
‘Yeah? How’s that?’ They ask.
‘COLUMBIAN,’ he responds.”