Obnoxious Restaurant Behavior: Not Just Kids

[Abra]

Right, you can't tell the difference. My husband is a cancer patient and has a tracheostomy as a result. Someone with a trach has to cough to clear it out, and does that often when eating, and it sounds pretty awful. He's been living with it for 5 years now, and I guess we're kind of used to it. I'm sure that a lot of people have been offended in restaurants, but thankfully no one has ever suggested that cancer patients aren't allowed in any restaurant we've been in.

Cut people a little slack, folks. Very few people really want to be offensive. And as for those that do, I'm as likely as the next person to turn to the offender and ask them to take it outside, or subject them to a steady barrage of withering looks.

[FoodMan]

I guess I still have this pet peeve from my table waiting days, but it bugs the crap out of me when someone does not order a drink (lemonade in this case) and then proceeds to make their own by ordering a LOT of lemon with their 'water' and extra Sweet and Low. Customers have asked me for bowl after bowl of lemons for their 'water'. Sheesh...buy a damn lemonade!

[Megan Blocker]

I guess I still have this pet peeve from my table waiting days, but it bugs the crap out of me when someone does not order a drink (lemonade in this case) and then proceeds to make their own by ordering a LOT of lemon with their 'water' and extra Sweet and Low. Customers have asked me for bowl after bowl of lemons for their 'water'. Sheesh...buy a damn lemonade!

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That just seems like so much effort. Perhaps the next time one of us encounters this we should give them a little lesson on ROI...this is how much your time is worth, and this is how much time you spent making your fake lemonade. Is it really worth X, or do you think you might just want to BUY ONE next time?

Hee hee!

[tommy]

I guess I still have this pet peeve from my table waiting days, but it bugs the crap out of me when someone does not order a drink (lemonade in this case) and then proceeds to make their own by ordering a LOT of lemon with their 'water' and extra Sweet and Low. Customers have asked me for bowl after bowl of lemons for their 'water'. Sheesh...buy a damn lemonade!

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lemonaid is likely filled with high fructose corn syrup and no lemon. quite different than water with lemon juice and sweet and low. sounds like a good idea actually.

Edited April 12, 2007 by tommy (log)

[Milagai]

I echo the request to "cut a little slack" sometimes.

Here in the town where I live,

is a person, who has no arms. Nothing from the shoulders down.

He is well known in this area, and a very involved and active person.

Runs his own garden maintenance business, operates all the lawnmowers

etc. just using his legs. He's exemplary in how he lives very independently

and looks after himself, is cheerful to his neighbors, etc.

Obviously he's barefoot most of the time, as his toes must do the work

of fingers.

Every so often, there comes another exchange of

newspaper letters about him,

how he was dining (yes, with his feet) at a restaurant, and someone

gets all offended at how "gross" they found it, and how he and

others like him should stay home.....

(Seriously, I am not making any of this up).

OTOH, I loved the stories of the "restaurant killer", the lady who

poured wine on the cigarsmoker's head, and the one about the

man who took a swig out of the wine bottle because he was too

impatient to wait to be served a drink....

Richly deserved retribution to those people.....

Milagai

[Busboy]

When public servants go bad...

"A former Naples city councilman was sentenced today to undergo a psychological examination and take anger management classes after pleading no contest..."

[FoodMan]

I guess I still have this pet peeve from my table waiting days, but it bugs the crap out of me when someone does not order a drink (lemonade in this case) and then proceeds to make their own by ordering a LOT of lemon with their 'water' and extra Sweet and Low. Customers have asked me for bowl after bowl of lemons for their 'water'. Sheesh...buy a damn lemonade!

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lemonaid is likely filled with high fructose corn syrup and no lemon. quite different than water with lemon juice and sweet and low. sounds like a good idea actually.

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not saying it tastes bad...it probably tastes kinda good. I guarantee you those doing it are basically doing it because they are too cheap to pay for lemonade and not because they are so partial to fresh squeezed vs. Snapple (the brand we sold). I still hate the practice, no matter what the reason is. You don't like the restaurant lemonade, go somewhere else or drink Sprite.

[tommy]

I guess I still have this pet peeve from my table waiting days, but it bugs the crap out of me when someone does not order a drink (lemonade in this case) and then proceeds to make their own by ordering a LOT of lemon with their 'water' and extra Sweet and Low. Customers have asked me for bowl after bowl of lemons for their 'water'. Sheesh...buy a damn lemonade!

←

lemonaid is likely filled with high fructose corn syrup and no lemon. quite different than water with lemon juice and sweet and low. sounds like a good idea actually.

←

not saying it tastes bad...it probably tastes kinda good. I guarantee you those doing it are basically doing it because they are too cheap to pay for lemonade and not because they are so partial to fresh squeezed vs. Snapple (the brand we sold). I still hate the practice, no matter what the reason is. You don't like the restaurant lemonade, go somewhere else or drink Sprite.

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choose a restaurant based on its soft drinks?

what cheapos. that lowers the tip too!

[Kouign Aman]

Ya hate it so much, make real lemonade for them to buy.

[FoodMan]

I guess I still have this pet peeve from my table waiting days, but it bugs the crap out of me when someone does not order a drink (lemonade in this case) and then proceeds to make their own by ordering a LOT of lemon with their 'water' and extra Sweet and Low. Customers have asked me for bowl after bowl of lemons for their 'water'. Sheesh...buy a damn lemonade!

←

lemonaid is likely filled with high fructose corn syrup and no lemon. quite different than water with lemon juice and sweet and low. sounds like a good idea actually.

←

not saying it tastes bad...it probably tastes kinda good. I guarantee you those doing it are basically doing it because they are too cheap to pay for lemonade and not because they are so partial to fresh squeezed vs. Snapple (the brand we sold). I still hate the practice, no matter what the reason is. You don't like the restaurant lemonade, go somewhere else or drink Sprite.

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choose a restaurant based on its soft drinks?

what cheapos. that lowers the tip too!

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Hey, if they are that much in love with REAL fresh squeezed lemonade....

[FoodMan]

Here's another obnoxious incident happened while I was waiting tables at an Italian restaurant.

A lady wanted a salad. We only had two dressings, vinaigrette and ceasar dressing. That's it. I explained that to her. What does she want? Honey-Mustard! 'ma'am we have no honey-mustard'. She then goes on about how on earth don't we have HM. She even goes on to say that I need to go back to the kitchen and whip her some HM using our H and M that we surely have in the pantry! When I refuse politely saying we have neither. She huffs, stands up and declares she is going to the Olive Garden instead . I was pretty pleased she reached that decision on her own.

[Luckylies]

Right, you can't tell the difference.  My husband is a cancer patient and has a tracheostomy as a result.  Someone with a trach has to cough to clear it out, and does that often when eating, and it sounds pretty awful.  He's been living with it for 5 years now, and I guess we're kind of used to it.  I'm sure that a lot of people have been offended in restaurants, but thankfully no one has ever suggested that cancer patients aren't allowed in any restaurant we've been in.

Cut people a little slack, folks.  Very few people really want to be offensive.  And as for those that do, I'm as likely as the next person to turn to the offender and ask them to take it outside, or subject them to a steady barrage of withering looks.

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I hope I didn't sound insensitive. What I meant was; you never know what people are going through, so you can't leap to conclusions, or make snap judgements, as easy as it may seem...

Though, a few months ago, I was sitting on a bench style restaurant seat next to a man who was so keyed up on drugs he couldn't stop tapping his feet and jiggling the entire bench. First it was funny, then annoying. I gave him a dirty look and asked him to stop. He did.

I would have fealt very, very, very bad, if his tapping were the symtom of an illness and not a reaction to bolivian marching powder.

[GreekCook]

I guess I still have this pet peeve from my table waiting days, but it bugs the crap out of me when someone does not order a drink (lemonade in this case) and then proceeds to make their own by ordering a LOT of lemon with their 'water' and extra Sweet and Low. Customers have asked me for bowl after bowl of lemons for their 'water'. Sheesh...buy a damn lemonade!

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Mine is similar, In Greece it's standard practice to take glasses of water to tables before taking their order..you always get one asshole who doesn't order anything yet has the audacity to call you time and time again just to refill his water glass.....this while you are trying to handle orders from a packed shop.

What makes it even worse is when he gives you "attitude" because he's been trying to get your attention for 5 minutes and you've ignored him!

When I first opened the shop, I was polite and kept grinning and bearing it, now when I get the odd obnoxious character, I tell him(it's always a guy for some reason) Cheapos only get one glass of water, you want service order something...if he gets offended and leaves it's no loss because he hasn't actually spent anything.

I have nothing against people not ordering anything, it's being obnoxious and acting as if you are God's gift to mankind that gets me really pissed off.

Well that's my rant

[Kim WB]

I was at a restaurant, seated at a banquette across fom my husband. Another couple was at the deuce table next to us, middle aged, well presented. During the course of our respective dinners, this guywas HORRIBLE to his wife, "stupid f'in this" and "idiot C*nt". She just sat thee, soaking it in. My husband and I were amazed and dismayed. Bob, my husband, was getting very angry, and I felt he was close to confronting the abuser. Thankfully, they aborted their main courses and got up to leave. The abuser left his cel phone behind, and my husband went to the mens room, and put it in the tank of the toilet. The guy came back relatively quickly looking for it, but we just bankly stared him down.

In retrospect, she needed help and support, and I hope she got it. It wasn't ALL the justice needed, but it was a tiny slice of it.

[Marky Marc]

There have been several times when my lady and I will get a table in an empty restaurant and have the server sit the only other patrons right next to us. Drives me batshit.

Of all the tables in the whole empty restaurant, why on earth do these people have to be seated within a foot of us? It totally strips the intimacy when all of a sudden I've got to take into account that a complete stranger is close enough to hear me breathe.

[dinwiddie]

Two short stories, both involving my son. When he was about 6 years old we were dining in a very nice restaurant in Virginia Beach. A party of 6 men came in, obviously just off the 19th hole, and were very loud and occasionally profane. My son, in his best manners, asked the matre'd if we could be moved because "those men have forgotten how to use their inside voices and it is spoiling our dinner ." The gentlemen, who overheard, quieted down and as they left one came over and appologized to my son for behaving badly in a restaurant.

Now, 13 years later, we are at a restaruant where a man at the table next to us is verbally flaying the woman he is with. She is hunching down in her chair, trying to sink thru the floor. When he gets up to go to the bathroom she starts to cry. My wife feeling sorry for her offers her a kleenex and invites her to sit with us. The man comes back and starts to reach for the woman, my son plants his 260+ pounds between them and in a firm voice, suggests that he learn what is appropriate behavior in a restaurant. The man, after realizing that he can't move the kid, says he is leaving and tells the woman to get up. My son informs her that it is her choice. She stays and we send her home in a cab. (They were not married, and I do not understand why she sat there and took the abuse, but that is not my business.)

So I guess sometimes the kids can teach the adults how to behave.

[Milagai]

^^^ Your son sounds so great! You've done a great job

raising him..

On behalf of women everywhere (though the

wonderful men I am around are poles apart from the *&^% you

described) I applaud you and your son...

Milagai

[Qwerty]

There have been several times when my lady and I will get a table in an empty restaurant and have the server sit the only other patrons right next to us. Drives me batshit.

Of all the tables in the whole empty restaurant, why on earth do these people have to be seated within a foot of us? It totally strips the intimacy when all of a sudden I've got to take into account that a complete stranger is close enough to hear me breathe.

 

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Probably because there is only 1 or 2 servers working and taking tables at the moment, so they seat that server's "section" as to avoid having to go from one end of the restaurant to the other to wait on a table.

Restaurants, especially good ones, have a tendancy to fill up quickly and this can help prevent the servers having tables scattered throghout the floor. Nothing makes a waiter more inefficient than not being able to consolidate their station.

[SarahW]

Right, you can't tell the difference.  My husband is a cancer patient and has a tracheostomy as a result.  Someone with a trach has to cough to clear it out, and does that often when eating, and it sounds pretty awful.  He's been living with it for 5 years now, and I guess we're kind of used to it.  I'm sure that a lot of people have been offended in restaurants, but thankfully no one has ever suggested that cancer patients aren't allowed in any restaurant we've been in.

Cut people a little slack, folks.  Very few people really want to be offensive.  And as for those that do, I'm as likely as the next person to turn to the offender and ask them to take it outside, or subject them to a steady barrage of withering looks.

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I'm going to get killed for this, but I think people with chronic medical conditions that cause disruptions, disturbances and disgust should eat in more private venues.

That means, yes, if your cystic fibrosis is severe enough or your trach cleanable only with disgusting noises, you should not dine out unless absolutely necessary, and then in the most private area of the restaurant possible, i.e., call ahead and ask for accomodation. I have had confining illnesses and I didn't see any reason to make others suffer from it when it was avoidable.

[Peter Green]

I'll take the customers' side for this one.

The most obnoxious behaviour I've seen was when a expat restaurant manager in Thailand literally screamed at one of the local staff, filling the entire restaurant with his rage.

I called the fellow over afterwards and explained to him that he'd do better to take this sort of behaviour out into the alley, and that he'd best learn how to work with his staff properly, or he probably wouldn't be long for the country.

[hjshorter]

I'm going to get killed for this, but I think people with chronic medical conditions that cause disruptions, disturbances and disgust should eat in more private venues.

That means, yes, if your cystic fibrosis is severe enough or your trach cleanable only with disgusting noises,  you should not dine out unless absolutely necessary, and then in the most private area of the restaurant possible,  i.e., call ahead and ask for accomodation.  I have had confining illnesses and I didn't see any reason to make others suffer from it when it was avoidable.

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Were any of them incurable?

Is it illegal to refuse service to someone because they have a medical condition that you, or someone else, finds "disgusting?"

Edited April 17, 2007 by hjshorter (log)

[insomniac]

I'll take the customers' side for this one.

The most obnoxious behaviour I've seen was when a expat restaurant manager in Thailand literally screamed at one of the local staff, filling the entire restaurant with his rage.

I called the fellow over afterwards and explained to him that he'd do better to take this sort of behaviour out into the alley, and that he'd best learn how to work with his staff properly, or he probably wouldn't be long for the country.

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or this life if he upsets the wrong people there

[Carrot Top]

The question of whether we allow those with illnesses that may disturb us to be "around us" in restaurants goes back to the question (or so I think) of how compassionate we are going to decide (and I use the word *decide* advisedly, because true compassion can be both bothersome to summon at times and challenging to the smoothness of daily life our culture seeks to arrange for us) to be.

How compassionate will we decide to be today?

Will we challenge ourselves to be compassionate, or will we merely be disgusted and angry at that that which does not make us comfortable?

Then wishing it to go away so that *we* can have a good meal.

(Addendum: To be completely clear, I try to err on the side of compassion when I can. If I am healthier than the one that is bothering me, then I am very lucky in this way and truly can afford the compassion. If a child requires my compassion due to their bad behavior, then god bless them. Sooner or later they will have to grow up and sit nicely. This will happen. In the meantime, I know that *nobody* yet has attained perfection as a parent or as a child. Or at least I haven't heard of it yet. The child will grow, my life will go on with a memory of just how imperfect we all are. And I might even be glad that *this* time, it was not my own imperfection glaring out at others. And I'll be slightly relieved, for a moment or so. Till the next time I do something *wrong*. )

Edited April 17, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[Tess]

Is it illegal to refuse service to someone because they have a medical condition that you, or someone else, finds "disgusting?"

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I don't know if it's illegal, but it's awfully short-sighted.

When my close family member was being treated for a rare form of cancer at St. Vincent's, he looked *awful* at times. I am happy to say that when he got out for a rare restaurant meal-- going to random places in the area-- he was always greeted enthusiastically and shown to a nice table. That meant a whole lot to him.

That said, I get as pissed off as the next person with people who go out with bad colds, blowing their noses all over everyone and leaving balled up tissues everywhere. As least wash your hands before you touch me. You know who you are.

[insomniac]

As a very long term resident of a country where vigorous and noisy throat clearing and spitting was ( and to some extent still is) considered normal I have on more than one occasion been with overseas visitors who when hearing the 'revving up' rather than the actual act have dry heaved or on one memorable occassion, actually vomited. I have become immune but perhaps the sound is what posters above are objecting to, rather than the illness??

Edited April 17, 2007 by insomniac (log)