The WORST Restaurant Experiences
Dining out can be quite a memorable experience, but not always in a good way. From dealing with hot-headed staff to unwelcome additions to their meals, these are some of the worst restaurant experiences imaginable.
1. Terror In My Taco
I was peacefully eating my drowned tacos with some friends at a tiny family-owned restaurant a block away from my home. After I ate almost half my meal, I lifted my spoon and made a disturbing discovery. There was a cockroach leg in there. It was the same color as the fried taco meat.
I stopped and left at that moment and could barely hold the urge to puke. The only thing worse than finding a cockroach in your tacos is finding half a cockroach in your tacos.
2. Duped At The Olive Garden
A few years ago, I decided to finally propose to my girlfriend at the Olive Garden. I gave the engagement ring to a waitress to stick on the straw of some drink we were having. BAD IDEA. The ring wasn’t overly expensive; it was about 350 bucks. Well, our drink order came in, and the waitress apparently went home sick. There was no ring to be found.
3. Skewered At The Greek
A friend of mine and I used to go to a local Greek diner called The Amphoras—and one occasion, it gave me a dining experience I'll never forget. In their heyday, they were able to open up a second location. That location was special. The first diner was kind of a dark, cavernous place with a bakery next door.
It used to be one of the few places open 24/7 in the 70s when it opened, but by the 90s, it was one of many. The wait staff was always a mix.
I don't know what their hiring process was, but they were either incredibly good waiters or really, really bad. Late at night, you'd sometimes get people who were insane.
They all wore "uniforms," a kind of upscale suit that was even stranger. The second location tried to be more hip with a strange "southwestern vs art deco" vibe when it opened. It had a lot of financial issues and underwent a lot of remodels.
This story takes place during one of those remodels.
It was the middle of a weekday and post-lunch rush. My friend invited me to have lunch, but I already had lunch, so I just ordered a sundae. There were the constant sounds of remodeling coming from the kitchen area. As I scooped into my sundae, I felt something very hard in my mouth.
I spewed it out and saw the silver curl of a metal shaving. I looked in the sundae and saw a few more. I called the waiter over and said, "Hey, there are metal shavings in my sundae". But instead of saying, "Oh my gosh, sir! How awful,"
or even a sympathetic vibe, the waiter looked at me like, "Okay?"
I asked, "Well, may I have a sundae without metal shavings in it?" He replied, "You want a free sundae? Huh? That what you want? Wise guy. YOU THINK YOU CAN COME HERE AND,"
then the rest of it switched to a language I didn't understand, perhaps Greek. The manager heard this guy screaming at me and came over to see what was going on.
He asked what the problem was, and the waiter started shouting at HIM. The manager then shouted back. Soon, the two of them were screaming at each other in this language very heatedly.
Finally, the waiter tossed his serving tray down on the floor and stomped off into the kitchen.
Then, we heard screaming and shouting in Spanish, followed by horrific crashing noises like someone was fighting or tossing around pans. The sounds of construction stopped. We heard people shouting in alarm in English, Spanish, and possibly Greek.
The manager sincerely apologized and said he would be right back.
He went into the kitchen, where there was more shouting and crashing. The rest of the wait staff rushed to the kitchen, and looked into those little round windows, trying to see what was going on. Eventually, the crashing and shouting stopped.
The manager came back out and said, "Hello. Listen, I am VERY sorry about his behavior. I am going to comp both of your meals. However, I would like you to leave immediately because I am about to fire that man, and fear for your safety afterward,"
so we got out of there.
As we were leaving, I heard someone say in English, "Did he just lock himself in the freezer??"
4. Vanished Without A Word
I was at the Spaghetti Warehouse in the Flats in Cleveland in the early 90s when the unthinkable happened.
A few coworkers and I were visiting for some work at a steel mill for a week or so, and it was one of the only times we were out as a small four-person team. We were seated in some train car thing.
The waitress and a coworker of mine were flirting back and forth.
They served bread from a wicker basket. The waitress took out blade to serve one while holding the basket and sliced through the basket to part of her hand where her fingers met. She left quickly, and we had no idea what happened. Then, we noticed the trail of blood in the train car. We assumed she told the restaurant team.
We sat there figuring we'd hear from her when a manager lady walked through and asked if everything was all right.
We hadn't seen or heard from our waitress in about 25 minutes by that point, and the manager didn't believe it until we pointed out the blood trail. She was aghast.
It ended up being one of three times I've had my waitress leave a shift or quit while I was sitting there, and the restaurant was unaware.
