What's the worst/weirdest restaurant experience you've ever had?

[BruhWhy]

We once went into a very small, posh sandwichy sort of café for lunch with the kids. The vibe felt immediately off, we walked in and the loud, happy conversation the people working there were having abruptly stopped and it was suddenly just dead silent, we were the only customers in there but it was definitely open, I checked! They stopped what they were doing and kind of just stood there behind the counters and stared at us angrily as we situated ourselves, it was SO weird.

I ordered us all drinks and paninis, the woman taking my order didn't say a word to me, just wrote down what I ordered and pointed me back towards the table we were sitting at. The atmosphere was extremely tense throughout and they kept staring at us like we'd just come in and rubbed shit up their walls.

Food came, and as the server set a plate down in the middle of the table with sauces and stuff on it, the plate broke in two. Just cracked as she put it down. She saw it crack, paused for a second, then... walked off 😳

We ate in awkward silence while they stood behind the counter looking annoyed, and then left as quickly as we could. It was so fucking weird and I still think about it 5 years later because I just can't work out why they were acting so strange!

On honeymoon and a child at the table next to us was complaining about having tummy ache. The parents told them to be quiet. Child proceeded to do a diarrhoea shit right there on the floor. It was not contained by their shorts.

Then the parents made no attempt to clean it, apologise OR leave after this. Staff had to clear it up.

My worst was in a town in northern Scotland. For the record, I lived in Scotland for several years and this was the only experience like this I had. My dad and sister were visiting me, we're all from southern England. We went to a pub for dinner, my dad went up to bar to ask if we could get menus, the barman said "We're not serving food" just as a waiter walked out the kitchen with two plates of food. My dad said it looked like they were serving food and the barman said "we're not serving food to you". It was the only anti-english experience I had there but it was unfortunate it happened when my family were there

A couple of weird ones:
In Canada with a friend who was vegetarian. It was a hotel stay including dinner so no options to choose from. She said she was vegetarian, waitress said no problem. They brought her out a plate of chicken wings. Friend again told waitress she's vegetarian. Waitress: It's not beef

Went to a wedding at a hotel. The hotel was closed to normal guests for the whole weekend and was for the exclusive use of wedding guests (so they knew everyone staying on Friday night would be at the wedding on Saturday). Because it was only wedding guests staying on Friday they explained the kitchen wasn't running at full capacity and it was a limited menu. Fine with all of us. Except the "limited menu" was the EXACT SAME meal they were serving for the wedding breakfast the next day!!! One meat option, one veggie option, one children's option. It just seemed such an odd thing to do when they knew we'd all be eating the same meal again the next day

@BruhWhy
where was this ? Have you checked if it is still in business ?

A restaurant in Barcelona where they asked if you wanted a smoking or non smoking table. The tables were pushed right next to each other and we were on a non smoking table - in between 2 smoking tables. Bizarre.

Story told to me by someone I worked with. She went to a Thai place with a friend who had a severe onion allergy. Rang the restaurant beforehand to ask if okay, then spoke to waiter and chef when ordering. When food comes the woman has a massive reaction and an ambulance has to be called. Friend asked them and they said they had blended the onions as people say they are allergic but they aren’t.

My husband and I went to a Peruvian restaurant in the city centre that was really highly rated on trip advisor. We were the only diners in the place.

The food was actually lovely, it was just… the really weird, creepy service.

The restaurant turned into a sort of salsa club later in the evening. The owner was really keep to promote this so he insisted on giving ‘us’ a lesson. It was impossible to say no.

The lesson was him dancing with me and staring weirdly at my husband as he did so. While saying creepy, weird things like ‘she’s feeling my body’, etc. There was limited physical contact involved (thankfully) but he kept making these weird comments to my husband.

It was incredibly uncomfortable. We left quickly and have never been back!

This sounds like something out of monty python 😂

Fancy restaurant in London with my client. We had been waiting one whole hour for the food to come so we went to the kitchen area (open plan kitchen) and kindly told the chef we had been waiting one hour for food, he looked at us and said: “ go fuck yourselves”.

gutted.

I would never go and speak directly to the kitchen.

A lovely client took DH and I out for New Year’s eve meal in Spain. It was a speciality restaurant of the region and the meal consisted of a huge pile of fried green veg (something between spinach and cabbage) accompanying the main dish of varied parts of a pigs head: ears, snout, cheeks - all porky pale and including piggie hairs. There was no other option on the menu. It was totally our fault in that we were already pretty much heading towards being veggie but assumed we’d be able work round any standard menu meat option and bulk up on side dishes. We just didn’t realise it’d be a total oink fest. It worked in that we did go full vegetarian very soon after and the company was lovely. On the way home we passed a 6 foot pink rabbit making his way home from a party.

In a restaurant in Croatia. The waitress brought us the menus, but when we tried to order (Can't remember what) she just said 'no. I will bring you the fish. It is good today'. And strode off!! DP and I just looked at each other and shrugged then laughed. And she was right, the fish was good!

Mad stories here.

I used to work in Camberley and went to a pub for lunch one day with some colleagues. I don’t remember the meal now but there was a side salad and as I looked at it, a worm stood up straight, right in the middle of the salad. I told the harassed looking waitress, and she snatched the plate away and scraped the salad into a bin and slammed the plate back in front of me.

Didn’t eat any more of the meal 😳

I was recently in Copenhagen for work, and our group wanted to eat together. Turned out getting a table on Saturday night somewhere that had a vegan option was really hard, but very lovely colleague found somewhere. As it turned out, a Hare Krishna cafe that had one table (and a roaring take away business tbf), one member of staff, one menu item, and one drink. The poor guy was so confused by people eating in that we had to ask for everything including a bottle opener for the ginger beer, cutlery, and we had to work the bill out as he couldn't manage 9 ginger beers and 9 set menus. The food however was fresh, tasty and we had the most fun sober dinner ever.

Think I would have returned later with some bricks to adorne the windows with.Seriously.

Went to an Indian restaurant in the Uk. Placed our orders but then there was no sign of staff - some people had starters, others had none . Out of the kitchen comes a policeman telling everyone to leave. They had arrested all of the staff who were illegals. Ended up grabbing something at KFC as we were going to the cinema.

We were in Pizza Hut, we all had pizza except DS who was in a highchair and had eaten spaghetti. DS face was covered in sauce. A young member of staff (about 16) was spraying and wiping tables near us, we got her attention to ask for the bill. She asked if we needed anything else and DH laughing, looking at DS and his orange face said “no, unless you can do something about his face” the girl then sprayed the liquid in the spray bottle in his face. He was confused, we were saying WTH, she realised the instant she did it that she’d made a big error. Thankfully nothing terrible came of it, the spray bottle only had water and a squeeze of washing up liquid. We didn’t have to pay for dinner.

I think mine was when DH and I went to a very fancy “see and be seen” restaurant when I was about 7 months pregnant.

we were seated at one of those counters where you look right in to the kitchen, which was great right up until the man handling and chopping the raw chicken, started to assemble a salad on the same board and without so much as rinsing his hands. We watched and the salad dish then came straight out to us! We pointed out that it had raw chicken on it and wouldn’t be eating it. If I had eaten it and been unwell it could have been especially nasty as I was pregnant. They were very apologetic and we got most of the meal for free - and they moved us so we couldn’t see into the kitchen…

similarly, I remember being revolted when I was in a restaurant with just one small toilet cubicle and a sink outside. The chef came out of the loo and walked straight past the sink without so much as breaking stride.

This happened to me!!! Were you in West Oxfordshire??

No. Surrey! 😂

When I was in my twenties, I went on a date to a very intimate, very expensive restaurant.
When I was introduced to the owner, he leaned in and gave me a very passionate kiss on the lips. 😳

Went to an Italian restaurant with my husband.

1. He ordered minestrone and got a bowl of practically pure chopped tomato. 2)I ordered pasta with ham-the ham consisted of 1 inch cubes of tinned ham. 3)Both ordered ice cream desserts-they left them sitting under the lights, and by the time we got them they were liquid. The place closed down soon after!

Extraordinarily bad place in France, it was the last night of the holiday. It was supposedly child friendly. We arrived around 7.30pm with the children aged 7 and 5. It had a fabulous terrace and garden with a view of a gorge, fabulous balmy summer evening. It was tiny there were only four tables.

At another one was a French family, there was also a couple and a small group of four adults. It was a husband and wife team him serving, her cooking, the starters and first drinks arrived promptly, all brilliant. Then the husband who had seemed merry when we arrived got drunk, he was absolutely roaring.

We waited and waited for the main course, the French family next us had a massive row because the eldest daughter (about 7) broke her mum's iPhone and was sent into the dark garden for time out at about 10pm where she sulked. There was an absolute plague of insects, the owner was completely half cut when finally at 11pm the mains appeared. The weather suddenly turned and there was a big thunderstorm, the awning over the terrace got full of water and was full of holes so everyone was soaked.

The owner insisted we all have pudding at around midnight. Having all been very patient we all queued up to pay and leave but he couldn't work out what anyone had eaten ir drunk and was walking round the tables looking at the empty wine bottles and scratching his head trying to work it out. In the end, everyone just agreed a random fee, paid and left by then it was 12.30 the kids were beyond exhausted, it was so surreal, remarkablly the food was excellent it just took hours. An experience never forgotten.

Years ago I was on holiday driving round Scotland using the Rough Guide. We went for an early dinner but our first choice of restaurant had no free tables. No problem, flicked through the Guide and chose somewhere else nearby.

It was 5.30, we went to this restaurant and to a desk in the lobby. No one in sight, so we rang the bell. A woman appeared and said in a sort of exasperated / harassed tone 'we don't open till 5pm!'. BF and I looked at each other, and I awkwardly told her it was 5.30. She, still seeming annoyed, waved us towards a small room with a little bar / serving window and a bench seat around a single coffee table for some drinks. Which would have been absolutely fine except there were 3 preschoolers in there, in pajamas, watching cartoons on a big TV and lying on the bench seat so we had to squish ip right at one end to sit down.

We thought they'd be shooed off to bed, or we'd be taken to a table in the restaurant, but no, we had about 45 mins of cartoons while the woman refused to give us a menu or seat us until the kitchen was 'ready'.

We should have said thanks but no thanks and left, but by that time we were starving, we were in the middle of nowhere, no idea where else we'd be able to get food and I was (ridiculously!) worried she'd think we didn't like their kids if we left .

In my defence I was only just an adult and it was my first holiday without my parents, I really had no idea what to make of it all!

Despite the Rough Guide's assurances, the food was crap too...

We went to go into a restaurant in Malta that had a few dishes on the counter. We asked for menus and were told very sharply that it doesnt do that. You have the dishes on display. It also smelt of damp. So we went elsewhere.

We went for sunday lunch in England where they had radio one on very loudly. We asked for it to be turned down and they did but it was still so loud we had to shout to be heard. The servers were so inattentive we raised our hands and called for service.

I went to a nice riverside pub/restaurant in Oxford with a friend. I ordered vegetarian lasagne and my friend ordered meat lasagne. The food came and we started eating but I immediately realise I had meat. I called the waiter over and explained and he apologised and took it away.

The next thing I know, the cook comes charging out of the kitchen and stands over me, hands on hips. She had a massive go at me, accused me of lying and claiming they didn’t even serve veggie lasagne. I was totally flummoxed by her aggressive manner and also really embarrassed - everyone was looking at us and it was just super weird.

She then stormed back to the kitchen and we literally just stood up and walked out. We didn’t pay for anything and the staff watched us go and didn’t even try to stop us. Sadly, this was pre-Trip Advisor.

Went to a local cafe for coffee with a friend. She didn't have a handbag and put her pack of cigarettes on the table, not intending to smoke - just had nowhere else to put them.

The waiter leapt over to our table as if my friend had just sparked up and started shouting about how smoking wasn't allowed. We explained that we knew and had no intention of smoking there but he did not want to know.

We left and he yelled 'Come back when you quit!' after us, which became an immediate favourite catchphrase of ours.