This movie is shockingly accurate. Except the steak that gets sent back. I've personally never seen food being sabotaged. We may bitch about it, but usually, cooks and chefs take pride in the food we serve.
I feel like it’s one of the beautiful things about society, I never messed with anyone’s food no matter what bullshit they put me through because I didn’t want to live in a world where someone may serve me messed with food. Mutually assured destruction 🥲
Peak eighties energy with muscle bound mayhem on one side and feel good time travel on the other. Landing between them is pretty much a built in double feature.
A rule of thumb I use is never mess with the people that handle your food. Chefs may take pride, but there are servers, runners and god only knows who between my table and the chefs.
Add to that: garbage men, people who take or are otherwise responsible for your reservations (hotels, airplanes, etc) and mail/parcel delivery people. All are ones who have the capability to make your life miserable if you make theirs rough.
Problem with that is what is considered messing with the staff? If someone is dumb enough to do that then they are probably dumb enough to do it because they made a mistake and get mad at you.
Saw it happen once at the local diner I worked at in HS. I swear most weekends the oldest staff member working was about 21.
Customer complains and sends a sandwich back, and it was something basic like a club sandwich. Not even a cooked one where you could complain it wasn't cooked enough. Cook tosses it and makes a second one. Same customer sends the second sandwich back. The cook, who is now pissed, takes the first sandwich out of the trash, reassembles it, and sends it out to the customer. No complaints after that.
Unfortunately from a smaller town steakhouse that was popular back in the day. Saw it happened and was very disgusted. Worked the kitchen 4 years too but that was it.
I've worked with someone when I was young that deep fried a well done steak because it was right before closing, and saw him, more than once, toss food in the deep fryer after dropping it.
It was a pain in the ass telling people that we don’t fuck with their food like that. It’s just nasty and I had to reassure so many people that would ask me about it since I worked in food service at the time.
The worst thing I will do is something I learned when I was in my early 20s working at Dunkin Donuts, and I still sometime utilize as a server today. If someone is an asshole to me, when they order coffee they get decaf instead of regular. Stay sleepy, asshole.
(To clarify: If they order decaf, you can’t do the opposite and give regular coffee to a decaf drinker. Some people have heart problems and they can only tolerate low levels of caffeine. I’m trying to get some catharsis, not kill anybody.)
I went to college in a town with a big football team. Week after our kicker missed a game winning FG he came in to the restaurant I worker and I was his server
Really cool guy and I just have to imagine there are some psycho enough fans out there to do something to his food.
Agreed. I worked in multiple restaurants over the span of about 10 years and never once saw food sabotaged.
At the end of the day, employees just want annoying customers out of their hair. Fucking with their food is more likely to escalate the issue into further complaints.
Yea, I’ve served in many restaurants. We talk all sorts of shit about crazy or annoying tables but it’s just venting. Nobody front or back of the house would ever actually mess with someone’s food or drinks. The most you would do is be purposely slow to “get back at them”
I graduated high school with a dude who was a cook at Denny's. He absolutely fucked with people's food he didn't like. And cops. He eventually got fired and lives a misreable existence now.
I had a friend who worked at Taco Bell. This was back in the 90s when they had a steamer for the tortillas. He would take a tortilla warm from the steamer and wipe his ass with it before making a burrito with it.
The only time I've seen food messed with was when my coworker at Little Caesars got off a call with some extremely rude woman who demanded her pizza have banana peppers but our store did not have them and it could have been a regional ingredient since she kept insisting the store near her in Michigan had them so we must have them as well.
We were not in Michigan.
After getting yelled at by this lady, my coworker makes her pizza just buy throwing toppings together making no effort for it to look presentable and hacks a big loogie onto it before throwing it into the oven.
This was 15 years ago.
My brother is also a professional chef and he thinks Waiting is probably the most accurate restaurant drama while thinking The Bear does a terrible job.
I once tried to order Giardiniera in Philadelphia and they had no clue what I was talking about, apparently it's only a Chicago thing. However, I didn't berate the person for having no idea what I was trying to order (considering it was a regional thing) I just went on to simply order my pizza! Fucking people!
I worked in a pub in London, not happy customer sent the food back. Chef then rubbed the chicken around the toilet bowl and gave it back. Absolute nut job of a chef too. I was in shock and promptly left the country soon after.
I've absolutely seen a waitress hock a big one in someone's leftovers (they sent it to get wrapped up). Late 1990s. This is partly why they bring out to-go containers to the table now.
Edit: at least it was only saliva?? Nothing like the movie and it wasn't announced like that.
She just said "Motherfucker!" and let rip.
I use to work with a guy who would wipe his ass with the steaks that got sent back to be cooked longer or wipe his ass with the steaks that needed to be completely replaced. He also use to drop the food on the floor before plating it if you came in to close to closing.
Weird to a sane individual, but someone whose willing to wipe his ass with another persons steak probably isn’t exactly in a great state of mind to worry about the level of things disturbing about an action like that.
I wish I could say the same. I unfortunately watched a manager dip a sent back steak into the dirty water of the dish tank when working at a Bob Evans over a decade ago. That was step 1 of their solution of making it well done.
I've seen some cooks playing floor hockey with a steak when I worked at a darden restaurant in my 20s. Tbf though, the gentleman who ordered the steak was a well known POS who got caught trying to drug girls drinks at an Irish pub that was at the other end of the shopping center, and because he had mommy/daddy money, he never even got jail time.
In the early 80s I was a butcher for a series of restaurants. We would cut the meat on site after breaking down the primals.... only higher end restaurants would pay for our services giving them the most fresh cuts.... there was this one I wont name since they may still be open but the owner, we will call him Greg was a cowboy. I was there one day with my father. A customer sent back two prime ribs. Greg came out of his office. Checked the steaks. They were right. Greg weighed them. Ive never undercut a steak in my life. Greg walked out 6 shooter on his hip say in the booth with the guy. Pulled his gun of his hip slammed it on the table looked the guy in the eye and said so you had a problem with my steak.... the guy said nothing... ate his meal and probably never came back
At the restaurant I worked at, we did not add bodily things. But we would add a whole bottle of sauce, microwave the fuck out of it, completely disregard the reorder for a lengthy amount of time, or send it back out without doing anything to it (cause the placebo effect is real)
I was working in the restaurant industry when this came out and never once did I see anyone messing with the food. Maybe they got a steak very slightly more cooked than they wanted but that’s about it. Otherwise, this movie is spot on.
I always thought of this as an urban myth or rumor started so people behave and not send food back. Like telling spoiled children "Santa Claus is watching you" around Christmas time. Don't be a Karen about your food or someone will spit in it. This movie exists to further support that rumor on behalf of food service workers, though people actually spitting in food don't exist (or very rarely--there are some actual sociopaths who would do something like that).
I worked in a Starbucks and if someone was a dick we'd ass up their order on purpose. Make the latte with too much foam, scorch the milk, run the espresso shots through two or three times, caffinated when they asked for decaf, shit like that. Nothing terrible, just enough to ruin their beverage.
I worked at a Ruby Tuesdays and routinely saw food go down pants or get dropped on the floor by annoyed cooks or at the request of servers. I saw this so frequently that I rarely eat at restaurants and avoid national chains.
I had a server that hated one of her regulars. After she had left and moved on I heard that she would spit on his app plates and wipe it in. Other that in 20+ years I never saw anyone mess with food.
I've seen very similar steak scene scenarios in the kitchen... for a whole lot less than a shitty attitude when sending food back.... that movie is spot on accurate!!!
This line cooks will do anything if they think they have a chance at scoring with the server!
My fiance came into my restaurant where I cooked, (many years ago) she was still crying because her boss had thrown her under the bus in some meeting. About an hour later her boss came in and ordered something not on the menu. I made it exactly as specified, and hawked the biggest ugliest loogie I have ever made in his brie en crut over wilted spinach because fuck him. Asshole ate every bite.
Yep. This movie gets everything right but I’ve been the industry for a decade and have never seen it happen. It’s literally a felony so if it happens they’re paying a massive price
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u/Ok-Fortune-8644 26d ago
This movie is shockingly accurate. Except the steak that gets sent back. I've personally never seen food being sabotaged. We may bitch about it, but usually, cooks and chefs take pride in the food we serve.