What's your worst restaurant experience?

[RainbowsAndCrystals]

Had one where I was with two friends having breakfast and coffees ... they kept asking friends if they wanted another drink and ignored me every single time.

there's been worse and places I would never go back to.

Wow, user148, that sounds grim. I am glad you now have space to live the way you want to.

Its awful how controlling some people are in relationships - i dont understand it at all and it must be so hard to deal with.
He had some front to do this to you when you were in the same room as well. I;m glad your in a better place now though.

Oh i have just remembered one. Not me but my three sisters, they were on holiday in Malta, had a few hours too kill before their flight so went for a last meal. My eldest sister is notoriously fussy and she complained about her meal, saying she couldn't eat it so wouldn't be paying for it. The restaurant insisted she paid for it even though she didn't touch it and when she refused they got very nasty and called the police. Four burly police officers came and threatened to arrest her for theft if she didn't pay up. She isnt easily intimidated but was scared they would miss their flight so she had to stump up in the end.

Hello again 80's. Sweet of you to reply. I have to say that I didn't actually get rid of him. Too cowed I think to put any plans together. However, he is now bullying everyone in the big Restaurant in the sky so I have my life back.!!

Agree with you re Christmas lunches out. My daughter and I pick exactly what we want to eat - usually duck - and then do exactly as we want for the holidays.

Posh restaurant on a beach in St Barts. Models wafting past, Leonard Nimoy sitting at the next table, etc.

It started raining heavily.

Hundreds of cockroaches poured out of holes in the sand and ran all over the sandy floor, round people's feet.

We'd already paid so we ran away in horror.

DH and I were out for a night on the town a few years ago and went to TGIs for a bite to eat and a couple of cocktails. Ordered our food and a mojito each. As soon as they arrived took a big gulp each and the barman had put salt in them instead of the 2 heaped spoonfuls of sugar! I couldn't put salt on my chips for weeks after that!

Sorry 80's. Sent too soon. Meant that we eat at home and have exactly what we choose and when we choose to do so.

A few of the worst were kind of also my favourites. There's a hotel in Cornwall that has been the site of many an entertaining visit, although I think they've sadly professionalised in the past few years. I went there a couple of years ago and nothing weird hapoened, I was very disappointed. But we did once have a meal in a dining room with coachloads of pensioners all wondering where the hell they were, over cooked fish and smash potatoes, accompanied by a really terrible poetry reading. It was everything I could have hoped for.

I worked in restaurants while studying and have seen some customer behaviour that made me wonder if that was their companions worst meal ever. The lady who got so drunk (she must have been drinking before they arrived) that she vomited in the restaurant then stole a picture from the ladies, as we discovered afterwards, was pretty memorable. Fortunately people had finished their meals before then. Her date paid for the meal and ordered a taxi. I would be surprised if there was another one...

I remember the good old days at Wong Kei, where you would go for the good, cheap food, and hope to be insulted by their famously rude waiters, as a sort of dinner theatre.

Sample exchange:
CUSTOMER: is it possible to have the noodles but leave out the prawns, please?
WAITER: you don't like the food? YOU LEAVE!

They got customer service training some years ago, which was mildly disappointing.

Another about service.. Once ate IN GIRAFFE in Reading and the waiter asked if he could keep the change when DH paid the bill

Why wouldn't you tip in giraffe?

Restaurant we go to a lot.

Ordered glass of fizz and a pint when we got in there.
Pint arrived.
Ordered food plus bottle of red
Amuse bouche came.
Starter came about 20 mins later
Bottle of red arrives
Finish it. Order second bottle
Sit without food or drink for 20 mins
Main course of rare 500g t bone and medium 200g fillet arrive. Fillet almost mooing. T bone like leather. Fillet gets sent back
Glass of fizz randomly arrives.
Fillet comes back like shoe leather
Eat it anyway.
Manager comes over and asks how our meal is. We tell him it's been shite and slow and ask for bill.
Bottle of red arrives
Finish it.
Bill comes. With two fillet steaks on it. We tell them to remove
15 mins later, bill comes back with one fillet but three desserts (firstly there's 2 of us, secondly we had no pudding)
Ask hem to correct it, and to bring card machine
35 mins later, still nothing.
We were in there 3.5 hours

Manager came over. Comped us our tea.

Went back the following week and it was back to perfect

There was a chinese in Wapping where you could take your own alcohol! I always found that weird.
Waiters in very posh expensive places are known to be rude too i think? I dont know, but i have read this and thought what? Eating out can be strange. Chefs are also dysfuntional!

Not that unusual to bring your own bottle. Saves the restaurant the trouble of getting a licence.

Some cracking tales here.

Not me but someone I used to work with - and having gone through the agonising process of reserving a table for 10 at the place, I believe him:

The restaurant in question is the only one in walking distance from three major office buildings housing branches of large firms. There's a staff cafeteria in one of these but that's about it in terms of lunch and team get together options. In a nutshell: these guys have a captive audience and they know it, too! They're notorious for their 'service'.

So ex-colleague (a regular there) went for lunch alone one day and has finished his meal but was still having coffee, when a large group arrived and couldn't be seated together. Waiter turns up and asks him if he's ready to leave, which he's not. Waiter proceeds to place his coffee cup on the chair next to colleague and carries off the table to add it to the group setting instead.

And at this point, anybody who's worked at one of these three buildings is completely aware where I was based some 3 years ago.

One time in Wagamama, the waitress brought out a noodle dish. I realised it wasn't the one I ordered but I could not catch her attention, well I could but she kept ignoring me and I couldn't get up because DS2 was sat in his highchair. I gave up and started eating the dish anyway. Over half way through it, I finally got her as she was walking past. Just politely let her know it wasn't what I'd ordered but it's fine I like this one anyway, just wanted to let her know. She looked at me as if I'd gone into her house on Xmas morning and piddled all over the presents. She went to take the plate away, I said 'oh no it's fine really I'll finish it' but she snatched it away and returned with the one I did order and snarled 'you had better eat that now'.
Another time, a restaurant in the Lake District, we went in and the waiter made us feel like we were lucky to be spending our money there/it's an exclusive place but it was anything but. No one else there, it was freezing cold, everything including the walls, ceiling, wicker chairs with cushions, massive garish decorations, was spray-painted silver! Had to move some gigantic urns and decorative candelabras in order to see across the table and have room for the food...which was all deep-fried. A side of chips came in a tiny little shopping trolley. It was all a bit weird.

It's a shame the mid-market chains & pubs are struggling so much. I guess eating out will soon be the preserve of the rich. We struggle to find anywhere affordable these days

Mine involves my first and only run-in with the police.

A few years back, I was in a non chain pizzeria near Old Street with two friends. I'd just taken a bite off my second piece of pizza when I realised I was chewing what can only be described as a knot of black hair. I discreetly told the person serving our table, who also transpired to be the restaurant manager. I was disgusted, but very polite - almost embarrassed to have to ask for it to be taken back.

He was not happy: he did not believe about the hair(s), and when I fished the evidence out of the serviette, he accused me of pulling my own hair and putting it the food in order to get free pizza! He even called the chef out of the kitchen to show me that he was bald, ergo the hair must have been mine! All this in a very loud voice and causing a real scene in front of the other customers.

At this point my friends got really angry on my behalf (I was just sitting there speechless), threw a tenner on the table for their food and stood up to leave. Manager shouted that I should too pay for my pizza and, when we refused, he called us thieves and started all sorts of insults and threats. My friends were shouting back and before we knew it, the bald chef had called the police!!!

I don't think I've ever been in a more ridiculous situation in my life than when the policemen asked me for my testimony.
In the end, the police just instructed the guy to let us go without paying for my pizza since it had not been sold to me as advertised, i.e. sans hair.

No restaurant horror stories from me but just to say Harvester is our go to family restaurant for a treat with the kids; we've never had any issues with our local one or others we've visited.

Thera, thats just awful

Last week I went to a pizza restaurant with my DS3 to have a drink and dessert, as a treat.
About five minutes after our food was delivered to us, he needed a wee, so I left a big pile of our stuff on/around the table (coats, a bag of shopping) to demonstrate that we were still using it and escorted him to the loo. This took a little while as I was required to sing all of "Pantosaurus" and then encourage him to walk past the hand-dryer to get back to the restaurant, but not a hugely unreasonable time. Unfortunately, our table was totally empty.
I went over to the manager and assorted staff behind the bar to enquire, and they very proudly gave me our coats (etc) back with a huge grin that they had saved them for us after we had "forgotten" them. I explained that we had only been using the toilet and there was an abrupt silence, in which, to his credit, the manager instantly asked what we had been drinking and replaced it.
Unfortunately, DS3 had then realised that something was getting between him and the ice cream he had only had about two bites of, so he started to cry, increasingly inconsolably as I tried to explain to him that there had been a misunderstanding.
The staff then very hastily found his ice cream behind the bar as it had been cleared but not actually binned, but it was no longer satisfactory to him as it had gone away and then come back.
In the end he did calm down and eat some more of the dessert before we finally left, but I am not sure who was more traumatised by the end, DS or the poor waitress who had caused the situation.

Worst was in Covent Garden, years ago. Food was burned, dressings were watery and it was generally crap and overpriced.
A horror story one was in Santorini. Lovely Greek restaurant with the tables in an olive grove, Greek music, lights strung among the trees and people of all nationalities having a nice time. It was perfection. Until I felt someting tickling my arm and saw a gigantic cockroache crawling on it.
The garden was rife with cockroaches, crawling up the table legs and scuttling everywhere. I dont think the restaurant was unhygenenic, it was just an olive garden in a hot country=bugs.
Never have I attempted to exit a restaurant so fast, although it took ages to get the bill and the owner looked most perplexed I was in a rush. I was also very British and waited for the bill/complimentary fruit/little tot of raki so as not to appear rude. Nobody else seemed bothered by the roaches, they just batted them away.
We still refer to that restaurant as "cockroache garden".

I have one. B & B in Eastbourne, a bit faded, but plenty of character and right on the sea front. English breakfast was beans and tinned sausages - the ones that come in a can together

Went to dinner when we lived in Sydney at at restaurant overlooking Bondi beach. The waiter couldn't have cared less. He obviously dismissed us as backpackers. It was an expensive restaurant so we were obv able to afford it.

Anyway, he couldn't have been more attentive to the couple next to us. Rushing over to pour their wine, we could do our own. I asked if a dish had truffles as I didn't like the taste. No was the answer, lo and behold my main was doused in truffle oil. There was no pepper in the mill, when I pointed this out he said I didnt know how to use it and tried to show me how to use a pepper mill. The list went on and on.

What he didn't know was a good friend of ours was the managers sister. We went home and it got back to her and she asked us to email address and mailed her our experience. Well, there was holy hell apparently. We were invited back for a meal on the house.

Unfortunately fuck face was given the duty of serving us. He was all over us like a rash and at the time I was too shy to say, I'm not having him any where near me, sit me somewhere else please. Needless to say we didn't tip either time and never went back again.

Still laughing at
Someone had clearly taken a bite out of the cheese

God, that's really odd of them, Zebbie. I always fear that sort of thing happening when dining alone or when I was with one small child.

It nearly happened in one branch of Eat. I put my food tray down on the table and just went over to the bin to throw something away. Couldn't have been 30 seconds. I turned around and a member of staff was starting to clear away my food that I hadn't touched yet.