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Serious diners may revile the open restaurant kitchen as noisy and passé, but the worst behaved among them should thank their lucky stars for the unfortified layout. After all, it's much harder for a server to spit in their food with everyone in the room watching.
But no amount of interior decorating can stop servers from taking revenge on their most miserable customers. Cads who pat their servers' behinds and cheapskates who order water, sugar and lemon instead of paying for lemonade should know their hijinks don't go unnoticed: Even the sweetest-seeming server will punish offenses at the table -- usually smiling all the while.
Spitting gets all the press, but few servers at sit-down restaurants like to mess with bodily fluids: Spitting's considered a rather déclassé and uninspired way of getting back at customers. Savvy restaurant workers aim for pocketbooks, not their guests' immune systems.
No matter what prices are listed on a menu, your server has a say in how much meal you get for your money. It's often the server's job to mete out side dishes, prepare salads and ladle soup -- and nasty customers will get shorted every time. And while free refills may be the stated policy at many franchised restaurants, wronged servers at less-generous eateries will happily charge their nightmare customers for every soda they slurp.
I once worked at a fine-dining restaurant that offered a house-brand wine -- a sappy fruit bomb that invariably distracted customers from the better wines on the list. My fellow servers discovered the most satisfying way to deal with boorish guests who ordered a $9 glass of the stuff was to serve them instead an ad hoc soda-machine concoction of Diet Coke and Mello Yello and then nod politely when they praised its nose.
I'm confident server revenge is far more widespread than many customers suspect, and that there are methods I still haven't encountered.
Tell us about how you've gotten even with a customer -- or caught a server trying to get back at you.
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10-20-2009 @7:09PM Emily said... Wow. I just felt like I should say something about this article because I have been a waitress for four years now. I have never, NEVER given somebody something other than what they asked for on purpose. I have alwasy given my customers the benefit of the doubt. I've had people order the water with lemon and sugar and try to get free things and sometimes I would get a 50% tip. And I don't think this article was written very fairly. From reading this article, I would walk into a resturant and assume that the server was out to get me. How can you say you once were a server but veiw the current servers in such a bad light. Sure, some servers are bad and do mean things but don't we run into those types of people everywhere??
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10-20-2009 @2:36PM redconvoy said... You punished your customers for a $9 glass of wine? What did you do to people who ordered a $2.50 soda? Spit in it? Not everyone could afford a good wine and some people are just plain cheap. I don't drink because I don't like alcohol whatsoever. It might have been a fine dining establishment, but people are going to complain about the prices or order cheap wine just to fit in somehow.
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10-20-2009 @2:47PM Irina said... When I order water, sugar and lemon it's not because I'm a cheapskate, but because freshly made lemonade is *much* nicer than bottled lemonade. If the restaurant makes it fresh, I'll order that instead, of course.
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10-20-2009 @2:50PM MadMom said... If you are so unhappy in your job that you feel you need to spit into someone's glass or give them soda instead of wine, it seems it is time to find a new job.
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10-20-2009 @2:57PM Angel said... I was a server at Olive Garden and people always comment on how good the breadsticks are. Well one time a family ordered there food and everything and I bought them the breadsticks but apparently the patriarch of the family was not satisfied with the temperature of the breadsticks so he decided to throw them across the round table at me (they fell on the floor) and demanded he get fresh hot breadsticks. Completely unnecessary because I would've bought them to him regardless without the rudeness. Even his wife and kids looked at him like OMG dad is doing it again. Well I calmly picked up the sticks and told him I would be right back with them. I bought out fresh breadsticks for the family and told him his were not ready I was having specially made breadsticks for him. Of course he was ecstatic with himself, puffing out his chest at the obvious effect his stupidity had had on me. Well all I did was re-wrap the breadsticks that had rolled all over the floor, microwave them and serve them right back to him. Needless to say he was pleased with the "fresh, hot" breadsticks I bought him. Incase I felt any kind of guilt, he commented that I obviously had been trying to stick them with stale breadsticks and I should take my job more seriously. I just thanked him for this lesson and told him to enjoy!!!!
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10-20-2009 @2:56PM Gary said... Why does Slashfood keep this column going? Every single article is designed to do nothing but put down the very people that the service industry relies on to make their living.
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10-20-2009 @3:00PM Angel said... You are the person that gets your food spit on. Its not a matter of disliking your job its a matter of people treating you like you're their servant not just serving them there food. Most servers become bitter after dealing with trash for so long. I was a really nice server and although I would never spit on someone's food I also wouldn't stand in the way of someone getting what they deserve.
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10-20-2009 @5:02PM KASEY said... To "Redconvy":
The server wasn't punishing BECAUSE they ordered the cheap wine.....the customer obvioulsy pissed them off about something else (probably just rude)so they substituted their wine for soda.
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10-20-2009 @3:46PM marianne said... well, I once worked at a place that served alcohol. There were these 4 guys who would come and sit at a table instead of a bar for 4-5 hrs at a time and would always leave $5.00. They would take up a table and throw back pitchers of beer, (not even bottles)..So I along with the staff had had it, including my manager. So we filled a pitcher up half way with beer and the other urine.....
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10-20-2009 @3:04PM art_erickson said... Lemon, lime is even better, is usually added to water to disguise the 'off' taste of 'plain' water - I do not care for lemonade and never add sugar to water. What a broad brush with which you paint.
I didn't know the server was responsible for the sales of the establishment. If so, they should be paid appropriately. Is this problem between them and me, or between them and the employer? The habit of 'tipping' is boorish (and unacceptable in certain cultures) not the customers.
This also goes to the concept of 'revenge'. Punishing people who do not give you money is akin to extortion. If you delay that revenge and "punish" the next customer (with small portions, etc) then you, and the establishment, get what you deserve.
Dining out appears to be for the wealthy.
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10-20-2009 @3:06PM Barry A Clarke said... No matter what dining establishment my wife and I are at, we order water an lemon. Why? Because we enjoy it. I know when we have good service and it is rewarded with a 25-30% tip because the bill would have been higher with a drink. But if I suspect that the server has an attitude problem, then the tip is geared towards this and I can assure you that it is not upward............
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10-20-2009 @3:12PM Spoonman said... Ah, yes..never piss off the people who handle your food...
Not just waiters, either. When I delivered pizza in college, I got to know who was a shoddy tipper and who wasn't. For them, I'd always make sure to take their pizza out of the hot bag, open the box, roll down the windows, turn on the A/C and face the vents at the pizza, even in the middle of the winter. Never was a colder pizza delivered.
We had one woman who used to call two-three times/week and would make a big show out of making sure she got the 13 cents in change she was owed. I made a "special" delivery to her one night and on arriving back at the store, the manager told me she'd called back to complain. He was making her a new pizza and would I be nice enough to take it back out to her? Sure I would!
She then called back again when THIS pizza showed up ice cold. The manager found it fairly incredulous since it had only arrived at her house 5-6 minutes after it came out of the oven. "Ma'am, there's absolutely NO WAY it could have been cold in that amount of time. It defies the laws of physics!"
Muwahahahahaha!
And, before you ask, yes, she continued to call 2-3 times per week, even after that.
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10-20-2009 @3:11PM akwjones said... or...maybe if you're too cheap to buy real wine or to buy a real lemonade, its time for you to get a new job that pays you more money!
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10-20-2009 @3:15PM amanda said... I have served for a long time it is a temporary job for most while we work our way through college and yet many people feel the need to treat us as if we were their own personal servants while I try to be nice and know someday I'll be better off and a better person than the low-life who is being rude I have definitely pulled some stunts for example when bartending at a restaurant when people didn't tip and then ordered another round I made their top shelf drinks with well liquor and not much of it I've pulled many other things a few gross just be nice to us and we will return the favor its so simple
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10-20-2009 @3:40PM p said... I am a waiter in DC and treat my customers with the utmost respect. If I get stiffed on a tip so be it,move on no sense of being mad. I have never altered anyones food or drink. I've heard stories ,but have never witness anything.
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10-20-2009 @3:17PM art_erickson said... Angel (the alias is contrary to behaviour) needs counseling.
Gary should understand this is AOL.
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10-20-2009 @5:44PM Susan said... I was a server in a couple of different restaurants and I can't imagine doing anything nasty to a customer no matter how rude they might be. You just shrug it off and move on to the next customer. Mostly rude customers are few and far between at least the ones who are so rude that make you want to do nasty things.
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10-20-2009 @3:23PM kkareon said... It all boils down to manners. Wether you are the consumer or the employee, if you were raised properly you know how to conduct yourself in puplic or professionally. The golden rule still sums it up perfectly "Do onto others as you would wish them do onto you." Follow this rule and no one will ever have to spit again.
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10-20-2009 @3:22PM Ang said... Why would the server assume the person is trying to save money by ordering water w/lemon? I know a lot of people that drink their water that way at home and when they go out. I like unsweet tea and I like water with lemon. I do not like sugar. There are many like me. As far as the waitress serving the unclean breadsticks, shame on her. Does she realize this man might have a health problem and that doing what she did she could end up costing the man his life? Okay. He was rude to you. I'm sorry but what you did was far worse.
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10-20-2009 @3:26PM pat said... Well I for one am glad for articles like these. It brings attention to the service industry workers, aka the working class and what they have to do to make a living. People may say, oh if you don't like it, then just quit! DUH! Do you think we are stupid? Like we haven't thought of that before. Obviously there must be a reason. Anyway I've worked as a server for about three months and it feels like three years. Being classy, I've never spit on anyone's food, no one deserves that, no matter how loudmouthed they are. Once this old bag told me to leave her alone becuase she wanted to say grace with her hubby. So I did. When I came back after ten minutes, she shooed me away like I was an annoying fly, most impolitely. Apparently, she didn't know servers have a set schedule and that a restaurant was not a church. So I left her and came back after an hour and didn't feel sorry about it. When I did come back she complained that I ignored her.
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