Welcome back to Behind Closed Ovens, where we take a look at the best and strangest stories from inside the food industry. Today we bring you further stories of restaurant employees who enacted righteous vengeance on total douchenozzles. As always, these are real e-mails from real readers.
Kinja user Missy Pants:
"I got to witness this first hand as a customer.
This was at a place in Toronto that called itself an "Italian Crab shack" — honestly the only reason we went there was for their giant buckets of crab legs, it was the 90s, I was 23 and I thought it was a "fancy" restaurant, shut up.
I'm sitting at a table with my friends, we're chowing down on our buckets o'crab, and the table next to us was a dude obviously on a date, getting drunker by the second. And louder. And he keeps ordering food. His table was full of food and he wasn't eating any of it, he just kept ordering it. And booze — so much booze. Jack and cokes and jack shots on the side, because that totally goes with seafood.
At one point while trying to order yet more food for his equally drunk date, the waiter suggests the antipasto. Dude gets very loud yelling about how he "Don't want any fucking pasta, so make sure that the antipasto doesn't have any fucking pasta in it!"
The waiter tried to explain that antipasto is a pasta-free dish, but dude was having none of it.
Sensing an opportunity to get aggressive and impress his very drunk date (girl was passing out) he *stands* up and tries to get into the waiters face yelling "don't fucking tell me there's no pasta in antipasto, don't try to scam me, I don't want any fucking pasta!" - I say try because the waiter was about 6' tall and dude was maybe 5'4".
After the waiter left to get him his pasta-free antipasto dude lit up a joint and offered it to us.
We laughingly declined and told him to put it out or he was going to get arrested. At which point he told us that he was getting all his food for free because his buddy was the chef and no way would his buddy let him get arrested.
The joint seemed to be the tipping point for the manager, who finally approached the table and told dude they weren't bringing him anymore food, and would he please pay his bill and leave.
Dude said something to the effect "Go tell Bob I'm here, he's taking care of this, he's the chef" — and of course the answer was, "Sir, there is no 'Bob' working here. Are you going to pay this bill or are we going to call the police?"
I really wish I knew what happened after that, but we'd eaten our bucket o'crab and left. The last thing I saw as I was leaving was a line of bussers, the manager, the maitre d' & extra waiters all standing in a circle around his table and he rummaged through all his pockets, swaying in place, while his date lay on a nearby bench unconscious."
Sandra Worthington:
"I spent a summer delivering pizzas that was unusually hot and humid, days that were around 100 degrees with at least 80% humidity. There was a guy who lived at the far edge of our large delivery area. It would take at least 20-25 minutes to get to his apartment in good traffic. He would always order every Friday at around 5:30, so traffic was terrible and he always ordered the same thing: a personal pepperoni pizza, a side salad and a can of Pepsi. He lived on the 4th floor and there was no elevator and the stairs were outside. The guy would leave a tip that would only round up to the next dollar, so the tip was like 65 cents and he was always very rude about how the order took too long, his food was cold, it tasted like shit the week before, ect.
I was the newest driver so I always ended up being the one who had to take the delivery because he would stiff everyone. After about 6 weeks of this, I was fed up. I tried everything: joking, being really polite, being really enthusiastic, I even tried to flirt with the guy. Nothing could make him not be a dick. I had been having a really bad night so far, so when his order came, I snatched it up and stormed out the door. As soon as I got to my car and got on the road, I started to shake the absolute shit out of his can of Pepsi and I shook it all the way to his door. As per usual, he left his 65 cent tip. I thanked him, told him to have a great night and lingered for a few seconds. Just long enough to hear him open his can of Pepsi, scream, and drop it on the floor.
He never ordered again the rest of the summer."
Kinja user onlypawn:
"Worked my senior year of high school at the local branch of a nationally-known chain that rhymes with 'Guaco Smell.' I was just 16 at the time, but I was friends with one of the assistant managers, so it wasn't that dire a job. A lot of my friends worked there, which made it not much worse than any other fast food job.
Company policy stated that a month's notice was required for any time off, bit excessive by current standards, but whatever. I'd put in for a Saturday, a month in advance, in order to attend my HS graduation. When that week's schedule got posted, my request had been ignored, and I was on the day shift, exactly when I (and one half of the entire staff) was supposed to be graduating. I brought it up with the general manager, who'd always been a bit too smarmy for his own good, and his reply was, "Too many others took that day off, you have to work, if you don't show, consider yourself fired."
This was the final straw, especially considering that while working the afternoon shift the day before, the same Douchenozzle demanded that I break the law for him and work past 11:00 (not allowed for minors, at least not at the time), after already finishing my 8-hour shift, after several co-workers called in "sick" (hmm, graduation the next day...).
So, having had enough, I got my stuff, walked out, walked home and graduated the next day. Picked up my last check later that week, and was subjected to a low-rent version of Alec Baldwin's 'Glengarry Glen Ross' speech from the same manager, detailing how I was going to fail at life.
Nothing out of the ordinary yet, not for fast food, anyway. The twist is in the ending.
Dad, prior to his retirement, was an investigator for the state Unemployment Tax Collection division. My buddy the assistant manager knew this, and had likely told Mr. Douche, but to no avail. The investigation began later that week, and while no jail time was served, several managers in the region sought employment elsewhere, including the Douche, who I believe went on to a rewarding career in used cars.
The lesson, if one is to be had? If you're going to fuck with the taxman's kid, make sure you're paid up."
Do you have a crazy restaurant story you'd like to see appear in Behind Closed Ovens? Please e-mail [email protected] with "Behind Closed Ovens" in the subject line (or you can find me on Twitter @EyePatchGuy). Submissions are always welcome!
Image via Cheryl Casey/Shutterstock.