Never work in hospitality. Strangest things people have complained about.

[KnopkaPixie]

Here's some to get us started:

"There's broken glass on this steak."
It was fancy coarse ground salt.

"I can't eat from a square plate. It's bad feng shui."

Any more?

This steamed salmon is oily …. Send it back & I want to speak to the chef!!!!

Salmon has oil naturally. Chef totally shamed the customer.

I had several of the well-known classic "My steak tartare is raw!" We always took it away to be cooked, after carefully explaining the outcome would be a burger made of prime filet mignon. Customers then complain about getting a burger when they'd paid for a steak.

There were so many complaints about supposedly corked wine; the men thought it was a great way to impress their lady friends with their wine sophistication. Solution: If wine is not corked (it was - once), look terribly concerned and walk once round the kitchen with the bottle. Return to table, announcing that you and your boss have checked this fresh bottle, invite customer to apply his expertise. Wine now acceptable.

Tourists complaining about lack of disabled access, uneven ground, absence of signage, lack of shops, no mobile signal, no 'restrooms', unavailability of taxis. In the middle of the Amazon jungle.

Yep regular cup, the corrugated ones. Train to work is 40 mins and it’s still too hot for me without a bit of cold water. Maybe I have a very sensitive mouth I don’t know..

i just want to know the specific shop that the coffee is still hot in a takeaway cup 1hr later. So I can frequent it

Don't you mean THAT wine WAS a weird shade of red 😃 #refund

“This burger tastes weird” (Me and the other wait staff all took a bite when it was sent back to the kitchen, it tasted normal).

”Can you take the food back, we’re not hungry yet!” (Why did you fucking order it then???)

I also received a head office complaint for greeting a table “Hi guys, how’re you doing?” as it was an American-style diner I worked in and it was part of our training to say “Hey guys” and “what’s up”? The couple were obviously offended about being called “guys”.

I'll order a hot chocolate made with soya milk and then ask for cream on top. I'll also ask for soya milk with cereal in a hotel and eat a yoghurt. I just don't like milk. I do get some strange looks but I'm not claiming to have an allergy so who cares!

I want a very well done steak. Oh and make it snappy. I have a meeting in 15min
Chef…..table 8 wants a v well done steak on the table in 15

A man staying with us asked me at 4:45pm on a Friday to organise a bouquet of flowers delivered for his wife the next day. We were a tiny country house hotel not bouje and definitely not the kinda thing we do, but I can’t say no so eventually managed to do it after he moaned and moaned about how it was his wife’s birthday and we had to make it special.
come the next day I get a phone call from the florist, the delivery girl had come back and he’d paid with an Isle of Man banknote, in Scotland, the man and his wife had left for the day so I had to wait around hours after footing the bill and get him to reimburse me when they eventually returned.
totally my fault for saying yes but honestly they wouldn’t take no for an answer then made it near impossible to help them 🤣

Mine is having to post someone to stand outside of a smashed glass door to physically prevent people from trying to push it open. It was one of those glass doors with a handle attached to the glass rather than a frame, the whole thing would have collapsed on to them.

I tended bar while going to university, and am loving this thread. It reminds me of Tales from your server.

There are some gems on there, too.

My friend used to work for Premier Inn, and she had a complaint from a customer about a dead pigeon under her bed. No-one knew how the hell it got there, but yeah unusual complaint! 😆

I do the same job

This is waaayyy more common than people think

We dread one woman in there,because she will swear up and down the houses she did say she wanted expensive burger (never a cheap one) and that she's not budging until we get her one as it's not in her bag (shouted at us with every swear word going-her young son is always in the back)

Then,when she's told 'no' she will park while blocking both lanes (still swearing) until the police come and they move her

She once came into the store,demanding we replace a cheeseburger for a mccrispy (shed paid for the cheesburger) as 'that thick bitch put a cheeseburger through and I asked for the mccrispy!'

That thick bitch was me,shed asked for a happy meal,cheeseburger and a coffee-her kid ran off upstairs to play on the ipads and after screaming at us for 20 minutes,she finally saw she wasn't getting her free burger (she wanted to keep the cheeseburger and get the mccrispy as 'competition') and turned looking for her son (who was about 4)

She found him,slack jawed in front of the ipad,came stomping down the stairs while screaming at me for not looking after him

She was told that we are a fast food restaurant,not her personal nanny and she is now banned (show up and you will be arrested)

The ban runs out in 3 weeks,wonder if she'll be back?

The boyfriend of a friend of mine back in the day called the chef into the dining room to explain what the round black thing in the middle of his dinner was.

In an Italian restaurant. An Italian PIZZA restaurant.

'It's an olive, sir.'

Years ago when I worked in events as an event planner, multiple clients complaining they ran out of food at their engagement party /film premiere, etc etc when I told them to order a set amount of canapés pp. Not my problem you utter dipsticks.

clients getting angry when they lost their deposit after cancelling their event after the deposit refund cutoff date.

Once when working in a restaurant a guy had a heart attack (his second, he was post op) whilst eating an enormous steak with peppercorn sauce, fries and rum and coke. He blamed our food not his poor choices. Made for an interesting tripadvisor exchange.

Unless you’re in Scotland I’d refuse that too. Absolute pain in the backside to get rid of south of the border.

Man in a blonde wig calling himself 'Sarah' complained to reception on his way out that his curtains weren't clean. Turned out he had just abused said curtains in a way that only men can. He got banned. I always thought he should have been reported to the police.

GAZPACHO SOUP

What!!?

Fire alarm went off in the a restaurant I worked at. Everyone had been evacuated and we were waiting for fire crew to arrive. A man kept asking staff when he was going to get his food.

A personal favourite was the man with the fish allergy who shouted at me for trying to poison him. Checked his online order and he had infact ordered fish!

Why though? This is what I don't understand. It's UK currency.

I'm kind of in awe at the brass balls of this

A surprising number of people don't realise that and won't accept it. So ironically, even if you know it's fine, you might still refuse because you don't know whether the next person will accept it!

Costa is one. Generally where the cup is corrugated not smooth