We asked our readers to share their worst restaurant experiences ever. We were very surprised at how many awful stories we received! These 18 stories are the worst of the bunch. Just hope that they never happen to you.
Note: The content of this article does not reflect the Writer’s personal beliefs.
The food that never arrived
One of the users said, "We were in a restaurant in Paris last fall. We ordered our food, which never came out. We were finally able to tell the manager, who went and got the waitress. She claimed we had already been served, eaten it all, and this was a scam to get a second dinner."
Chicago-style pizza gone wrong
Another reader shared this story:
This happened like 30 years ago and it still haunts me. My first (and last) time I ever had Chicago-style pizza. We were in a fairly dead restaurant but a couple of tables over from us was a rather large family consisting of a mom, dad, and two kids in the 9-12 age range.
Our pizza arrives, and we get all set to dig in when the older kid at the other table starts fountaining puke everywhere. The parents don't react. They just move out of the way and keep eating. At this point, every other diner in the place is moving en masse to pay and get out.
Accused of having a fake ID
We even heard a story of someone´s ID getting destroyed:
I was having dinner with my now-wife, who had just recently moved back to MA from Cali, so she doesn't have a new MA ID yet. We go to order drinks, and the waitress takes my wife's Cali ID, immediately proclaims it is "fake," snaps it in half, and hands it back to her.
In the blink of an eye just destroys her current ID for no reason. The manager ended up getting involved and agreed that the waitress was out of line, and, I think, offered free drinks or something, but my wife was furious, and we ended up just leaving.
All-you-can-eat buffet never again
Someone had a horrific experience at an all-you-can-eat buffet. It was supposedly redone with new food. It was not. The food was disgusting, and everything was dirty. Pieces of plastic from the food bags were in the food itself, and people were literally eating from the bins of food and putting half-chewed food back into the bin.
Finally, when they were about to leave, someone puked by the only door, trapping us all inside until someone cleaned it up. None of the teenagers working there wanted to clean it, so the manager had to call from home and assign someone to clean it.
Pizza with fingernail
Pizza went wrong for this user:
About 7 years ago I went to Olive Garden and everything was normal until I got my food. I was having pizza and it was alright until I felt a crunch. I took whatever was causing that crunch out of my mouth and it was a nice big ol' fingernail. I was so disgusting that I literally could not say a word about it. I haven’t been back to one since.
The unwanted relationship advice
Another user shared how she was lectured:
I went for breakfast, and the waitress took one look at me and said, "I can tell that you are single." Then she proceeded to lecture me about going to a restaurant for breakfast instead of cooking my own food.
Just like a Tarantino movie
Someone had this experience in São Paulo:
There's a burger joint called Big Kahuna Burger here in São Paulo. It's a Tarantino-themed restaurant, as you can probably guess by the name. I went inside the restaurant, and Pulp Fiction had just started on the TV. I saw the whole movie while my fries, burger, and dessert went to other tables. single. order.
Overpriced afternoon tea in London
Another user had the worst experience in London:
Last fall, my wife and I went on a European vacation, and we went to dinner, showing up precisely at our reservation time. After about 15 minutes we were told it would still be a little longer and were asked to wait at a table in another dining room. The tables were tightly packed, and I had to essentially shove my ass in a few diner's faces to take my seat.
After we arrived at our real table 30 min later, we waited another 30 minutes for a server. Service remained slow the entire time, and the whole ordeal lasted about 3 hours.
When I received the check I was very eager to get out of there. I decided to time how long it would take by the time we received the check until we left. 45 minutes. No apologies, no nothing. Just a $500 tab and a "c'ya later!". Completely unacceptable.
Steak with glass
Someone reported a pretty interesting "side dish" with steak:
I went to our nicest steakhouse to celebrate finishing a work project where I had been working up to 16-hour days for a few weeks, utterly exhausted. I ordered the enchilada and aged steak platter, and I was excited for my first time trying aged steaks.
I finally got my food and took a bite of the enchiladas first. As I started to chew, I felt a "crunch". Pull it out, and it's a piece of broken glass. I'm pretty sure some of it broke off in my mouth that I swallowed.
The Roach
Here is a quick, awful restaurant experience: Watching this giant roach crawl out of the salad my husband was eating...
Long Hair In The Pasta
One reader talked about finding long black hair in their food. The restaurant claimed that the hair was from the customer, but it was long and black, while the diner was a man with short blonde hair. Not only was it disgusting to find hair in the food, but then the man was also accused of being a liar. Sounds like there were many reasons not to go back to this restaurant!
Allergic Reaction on a Plate
They say you should always inform your waiter if you have any food allergies before you order. One reader told us that she always does this because she is very allergic to almonds. However, it doesn't seem like the waiters always acknowledge this.
She was assured that the dessert she ordered had no almonds, but when it was delivered to the table, it was literally sprinkled with almonds. It's a good thing they were visible so she didn't take a bite by accident! Allergies are no joke!
Moving Mouse Trap
Restaurants often have problems with mice. This is a disgusting fact that is more common than you may think. All that food and daily garbage is just calling for mice to come. However, restaurants need to keep their rodent problems a secret from diners.
One restaurantgoer told us about a time they were eating at a nice restaurant and saw a mouse slowly making its way under the table. Why was the mouse going so slow? Because one leg was caught in a mouse trap. While we applaud the restaurant for having traps set, the fact that the mouse was visible and half alive in the middle of the dinner service is disgusting.
Spiked Drinks
We all know that kids cannot have alcohol. But sometimes, they get served alcoholic drinks by mistake. A reader reported taking her young daughter out to dinner, and both of them ordered pina coladas, one without the alcohol. You may have guessed that the server gave the young girl the wrong drink.
While the mother caught the error before the girl could drink too much, the damage was still done. This could be a serious, almost life-threatening ordeal! We seriously hope the restaurant was fined.
Disappearing Server
Are you ready for this one? A friend told us a story about going to dinner with his girlfriend at a nice, French restaurant. They both sat down, were given water, and were told that the waiter would be over shortly. After about 15 minutes of waiting they started to wonder where the waiters were. It seemed that there was no staff in the dining room at all, just customers at tables.
A person from another table got up to see where all the servers were and was told by the manager that the entire staff had just walked out. Apparently, the owner was a real jerk and everyone who worked at the restaurant quit on the spot that night. Needless to say, our friend had to leave and the restaurant closed.
The Proposal
Here is what happened to one of our favorite female readers and her then-boyfriend. "I had been dating my boyfriend for almost a year, and things were going really well. We were out at a restaurant when our waiter brought over our dessert order. I started eating and immediately bit into something hard in my chocolate cake. I spit out what was in my mouth and found an engagement ring.
I started shouting "Yes!" and everyone in the restaurant was staring at me, including my boyfriend. Then, a man from another table came rushing over and grabbed the chocolate-spit-covered ring from my hands and brought it back to his table where he got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend. The waiter had brought the cake and ring to the wrong table.
Everyone is Sick
Get ready to hear about one of the most disgusting restaurant experiences ever. We are warning you that this one is bad! A reader wrote in to tell us about a time they were dining in a restaurant with a friend when the person at the table next to them started to get violently ill. The man ended up throwing up right on the table, which then caused the woman at the neighboring table to vomit on the floor.
A server nearby saw the two ill people and ran over to help, but she ended up heaving. Almost everyone in the restaurant started to get up and go to the door as the smell from the triple vomit was insanely bad. There is no worse experience than that! We seriously hope this never, ever happens again in any restaurant, anywhere.
Kid Meals
Kids in restaurants can be a tricky thing. One reader shared this story with us, and it honestly makes us never want to go to a kid-friendly restaurant again. "I was out with my girlfriend, and we were seated next to a family with one little girl who was about 4 or 5. The tables were super close, so I was sitting right next to the girl. She kept talking to me, and I was trying to be nice, but I also wanted to talk to my girlfriend, not a strange kid.
When our food finally came, the little girl asked to try my meal. She started eating off my plate with her hands, and when I asked her to stop, she just laughed and kept picking at my food. The parents seemed oblivious and also kept laughing and saying that the girl was just 'so friendly'. Okay, but this was just rude and gross. She ate almost the whole meal off my plate. I finally had to get up and leave."
What was your worst restaurant experience? Let us know below!
More for You
14 Foods People Don't Really Like. Why are we all pretending to like these 14 foods? Nobody really likes them or finds them remotely appetizing. We all just think that we are supposed to like them. So we eat, fake smile and still feel hungry afterward as we can only stomach a few bites of these gross things. So, can we all stop it? Can we all go back to eating foods we truly like and ditch these nasty things? Let's do it together!
This article was originally published at Spatula Desserts inspired by this Reddit post.
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