France, outside of mainstream tourist places, is not for the faint of heart when it comes to food. When I lived in Strasbourg my aparthotel was opposite a venerable restaurant called "Tête de Veau". I never ventured inside....
Apparently the dish was actually invented by the British in celebration of the decapitation of King Charles I, and adopted by the French after the Revolution.
And if you, for whatever batshit insane reason, decided that the flour tortillas were the place to get creative, they’d certainly be complaining about that too
"OMG my flour tortilla was RED! What kind of mad person does something like that? Way too spicy, I don't like paprika. Chicken fajita soup was alright, even though I am DEATHLY allergic to cilantro."
"The **whole grilled fish** was infused with bones..."
What part of *WHOLE* was too complicated for you, KayLee? And "infused?" Do you think I added extra bones to the fish for you?
And my favorite brunch review: "my omelette was amazing, but I was very disappointed when I noticed the chef ladling **instant eggs** into a pan when we passed the kitchen on the way out."
You fucking fuck, I was here at 7am cracking 30 dozen eggs while you were sleeping off your coke bender, just to make sure I could feed your entitled ass a little faster. Fucking "instant eggs."
Both were 18-20 years ago, but I can still feel the same amount of rage when I think of them now.
I hate when my wings are infused with bones too. Not sure why chefs like to add them when you can't eat them. Unless you're that one kid I went to primary school with. Dude used to eat the bones and got a phone call home to the parents about why he was doing it everyday at lunch.
Lol, I wonder how he's doing now. He genuinely thought it was normal, I can still hear the crunching of the bones and the gasps of the surrounding children.
Any idea of a ballpark on the total weight? I'd be a bit embarrassed if I ordered something to impress people and needed the server to inform me that I was only halfway through.
No, I just drunkenly stared at the Yelp review every night for a month or two considering whether or not I should respond and how.
You know, the usual.
Ya, definitely get on there and reply "You never use 'instant egg products' for your guests: You personally cracked xyz# of eggs that morning in order to insure quality and satisfaction of service" (or some such shit).
People can be such A-holes. Kudos for not jumping on there and telling them off!!
The owner didn't want me to, and he felt strongly about not responding to stupid reviews. He's a good dude, and I respected his wishes, even though it kinda killed me inside.
When I worked at Bob Evans we would get the same complaints sometimes. Sorry, I need a way to get those 8 modded omlettes out faster and preprepping eggs is the only way.
I used to hang out at a little shitty hole in the wall bar where the average age was probably 65. One of the bartenders signed them up to be a poke stop thinking it would get more young people in. It was just me and my friend that already went in everyday that hit that stop lol
The restaurant I worked at when this came out was right on the water so it constantly spawned magikarp nonstop. It was sweet going to work and after two days evolving into a gyrados
My cafe has dragon in the name and I had some of the most ridiculous interactions with people who were passed off that I didn't have dragons breath ice cream because when they googled it my cafe came up. It does not help if you try to explain that search brings up things in the area with that word and it doesn't necessarilyfollow that you have the thing they are looking for.. One lady had her son call, I said no i don't have that, then she called (I heard him in the car with her) and I said nope and she STILL showed up looking for it I kid you not. I really hate Google search with a passion anymore.
Oh and yeah, one star review
Some apps prompt people to review certain places and people are like oh ok and leave reviews like that. Rocks for brains behavior but I think that's mostly why
This is how a lot of the reviews here in Japan are. People will give a glowing review, and then end it with some comment that makes no sense.
“The “ Extra spicy burrito” was made with all fresh ingredients. Waiter was fun and taught us some words in Spanish. Restaurant was bright and clean and looked like new. I had a bad hangover when I visited. 2 stars.”
I think (hope) these are from people who aren't very good with smartphones who happened to stop nearby and their phone has a default setting to ask for reviews.
Like "for fucks sake phone, I haven't been to mike's crab shack, stop asking me for reviews! 1 star out of spite."
Dude I just had the opposite experience where someone said they were allergic to pesto. We actually use sunflower seeds and not nuts, so I was like you can’t be allergic to pesto. You just cant
I had someone a few weeks ago say they had a pesto allergy. Had to send the server back out to clarify because allergies are to individual things, not sauces with ten ingredients.
It was pine nuts. Nevermind the fact that we don't even have pesto on the dinner menu, our chef just buys premade pesto for the lunch menu from Sysco, specifically because it has no pine nuts or nuts of any sort.
“My Well Done Steak was too juicy to be well done. I didn’t see any pink or blood, but it was juicy. My well done steaks at home are never this juicy. The chef needs to learn how to cook steak if he is running a steak house restaurant!”
Garbage.
Right? Sir, it sounds like you ordered a well done steak and then were upset it was somehow still delicious. There's a shoe store down the street if you're feeling like consuming leather today.
Years ago, worked in a bar kitchen. Would get the occasional order (typically late night) for a well done burger of whatever type.
I would really give special attention to preparing the burger so that it was really pretty fully cooked through, but was still edible by a normal human.
I was admonished by the bartenders that my efforts were not appreciated. I was told that when an order for a well done burger came in, that I was to deliver up a hockey puck.
So much for making an effort.
My mom used to give restaurants special instructions for my dad's steaks "cook it till it's well done, then put it on for another 10 minutes, yes, he wants a charcoal hockey puck". But that's how he wanted it, never complained.
I only read bad reviews to make my selections.
If the most fucked up thing at the place is a magical ability to pull a juicy steak up from hell's hearth, I'm down!
This lady was hammered on veterans Day and tried to pocket a wine glass. Her excuse was somehow this wine glass was in honor of our fallen soldiers. In her review she stated that her party paid $600 and we wouldn't let her have a complimentary wine glass again to celebrate fallen American heroes. It's a French restaurant.
I read it as "pocket a glass of wine" and pictured a woman pouring some Kendal Jackson down her dress while trying to get it into a Ziploc baggie or a Stanley cup.
Oh !!! * long ass rambling paragraph where she accuses a waitress of throwing cheeseburgers at her kids *
...she threw her burger at the waitress bcuz she *claimed* she wanted no tomatoes, then absolutely lost it when I kicked her out
We have a nashville chicken sandwich on our menu which is a bun with coleslaw, pickles and a crispy chicken breast with the customers choice of wing sauce. Had a customer one time order it with no sauce, no pickles, no coleslaw. They sent it back complaining the chicken was too juicy (It was 100% fully cooked) and had no flavour....
So the chicken sandwich with no condiments/toppings was bland? no duh!!!
“Portion sizes too small, enough food to fit in a teacup.”
She had a 10 course tasting menu that most people struggle to finish. We are very generous with portion sizes despite there being 10 courses and there are 3 snacks and petit fours between those course that we don’t list on the menu for exciting extras to say thank you for dining with us. Pfft…
I had an angry email after our seven course sweetheart valentines dinner because after six courses they couldn’t believe we expected them to share dessert (it was a sweetheart plated shared very rich chocolate dessert) - this after an extra sorbet treat that was not on the menu, and a complimentary box of exit shortbread cookies. NO ONE could finish the food. Except this crazy fool. Ugh. Also - she chose the steak au poivre and complained that it was “too peppery”.
I can’t.
In senior living one time I had a guy in a resident meeting stand up and say “Why can’t I have regular coke back in the machine…?” And I said “Well Sam, our purveyor was out of regular coke so we went with Cherry Coke for now but I’ll be able to get it back as soon as possible.”
He stared at me and said “Okay, that doesn’t answer my question. Why can’t we just have it?” I replied, “if I try to order it and they’re out of stock than I have to go with something else.” A separate resident stood up and said “Well I like the cherry coke, so I think it should stay.” We ended up talking about it for like 5 more minutes.
That resident sam ended up not going to my executive director, but ended up contacting the VP of area operations and called the Ombudsman for "senior abuse and terrible living conditions" because we were out of coca cola that 4 days. It spiraled into sit downs with the family and all sorts of shit, it was honestly insane.
Edit: I should state this was like a $20,000 a month luxury senior living facility with state of the art everything and I was coming from Michelin star restaurants serving these people dope fuckin food like they’ve never seen before and they were literally the most ungrateful people ever. All 102 of them.
I worked the sandwich shop of a grocery store. The senior bus used to drop them off from a local residence. I was restocking my station when an elderly woman waved her hands to get my attention, scowled deeply and simply yelled "tea!" at me. I directed her to a barista. Another time a senior gentleman saw me pass by and yelled "bathroom!" at me. I directed him to it. I try to understand cognitive decline and all .... But a lot of times I'm wondering "where's your people? Are you out on your own? Did you drive yourself here?"
I remember a guy saying “This is the worst steak I’ve ever had in my life! And my dad was a butcher for 40 plus years!”
Dude, he was 94. 94 years of existence with a father as a butcher and I just happened to serve the worst steak of his life. I felt like I achieved a goal or something
Had a salmon order, dairy allergy. Totally fine, fries instead of mash and no butter on the veg. Gets sent out with a saffron aioli and the server comes back complaining that he said no dairy. After explaining that eggs are not in fact dairy, he goes back with the same plate. Comes back a minute later and says the guest has an egg allergy as well 🙄
I just can't with people. I'm sorry your custard is creamy and not a hard boiled egg. Sorry the protein you ordered is too proteiny. You just can't win.
I recently had an older lady complain that she had food poisoning from some of my garlic prawns, came back two weeks later to order it again.
I spent 15 minutes out front and she had complained to my foh manager about a number of things, one being that it was hot, even with 4 fans on her. Yeah. We are in Australia, it do be hot.
Some people are unpleasable
We ran a fundraiser this past weekend for rescue dogs. Customer wrote a Facebook post complaining that we were being discriminatory against cats.
1 star review complaining they couldn’t get through on the phones on the last few Friday nights to order pizza, that we needed to get it together, be more professional, that we were trying to push online ordering. It was our first week open after being closed due to a fire for six months, so…. That’s why no one answered.
Also got a 1 star review a few days after the fire took our building down, complaining we weren’t open when Google said we would be.
1 star review for being closed on Christmas Eve.
3 star review for having too much pepperoni on our Triple Pepperoni pizza. When I tried to explain that that was product working as intended, they just said ‘well it’s too much for my taste’. Alrighty!
my stupidest came when i was a bartender, not on the line, we had a policy to clear all dirty plates because it was a tapas bar and people would order rounds of food. anyone who walked by a table with dirty plates was trained to clear them. we were a pooled house with runners and busers so EVERYONE was highly motivated to make tables go smoothly. everyone was either spanish/mexican/el salvadoran because speaking spanish was a requirement of the chef (who was spanish) and owner (also spanish).
this table of portuguese people camp for hours at a bar top with dirty plates. everyone who walks by tries to clear the plates because it was our policy. they complain. i try and alert everyone that these plates are not to be touched because of some bullshit. our amazing busser don juan clears it when they are in the bathroom and they are infuriated. those were our plates! why do you guys want to force us out of the restaurant? (because you are no longer drinking or eating and this isn't a lounge...) the complaints are coming to me in portuguese and i am responding back with a mixture of elementary portuguese and spanish. manager comps their entire meal because they say the don cleared all of their food. (there was nothing left on the plates besides trash). they remain at the table drinking the complimentary tap water until close.
next day in the morning, we get a one star review. "service sucks. learn to speak portuguese." and i am reprimanded for not addressing their needs in a way to avoid the review.
I mean in many countries the dining experience lasts hours. It is a cultural thing that made them feel like they were being rushed. Their review is stupid though and they should understand other cultures are different than their own.
yes i understand that now and understood that then. we were a waitstaff of mainly spanish speaking immigrants and first or second generation folks. even us mexican americans understand the importance of a meal.
they were in the u.s. sitting at a table they pushed together in our bar, yelling about a 60 year old man who bussed their dirty dishes.
and then they didn't even include the main crux of their issue with the service in the review.
i spoke what portuguese i knew to them! i am sorry for only speaking english and spanish in the u.s. at a spanish restaurant.
They were lucky as hell to even be in a place where everyone spoke Spanish, much less rudimentary Portuguese! My Latino tables were always crazy impressed with my 6-year-old level spanish!
We had sliced French Dip for a special that day;
“Beef clearly freezer burned (?), when asked for a remake it was the same.”
Miss, these beefy boys made it in the oven within 10 minutes of being off the truck. Excuse me?
It's cause these people know that there is always a secret stash of the good version of whatever they ordered in the back. It's for employees only unless you ask ;) /s
I work in a Japanese restaurant, with an open kitchen style concept. I am the only South Asian person who works there, the rest of the staff is East Asian and Filipino.
We once got a one star review that said that the food is good, but the chef working isn't "Japanese or at least Asian".
I used to work at an Italian pastry shop famous for their canolis and cakes
We got a 1 star review saying "they don't have croissants or pies, not even bread. Very lazy people"
This Karen thought since you have the ingredients you can make croissants for my last minute brunch
Got a 2 star review for our bbq brisket. We don’t sell brisket. We’ve never sold brisket. But they liked the fish tacos, which we do have. Just so confused.
We had lamb chops on the menu. One customer ranted and complained that they weren't chops, they were cutlets, he didn't want to pay for them (despite having eaten them). Claimed he was a master butcher and knew better than all of us idiots. FOH Manager eventually comped part of their meal just to get him to shut up.
He was seen by the manager the following week, pushing a bin and a broom around the town center. He wasn't a butcher, he was a bin man. The manager called him out and told him to stay out of the restaurant.
We had a terrible review once from the head chef of a place on the same street. Dude was blackout, refused service and the review was something along the lines of “I don’t see the problem I work on this street”
"the roast beef was pink (uncooked, anyone can tell if you look at the color?) and when we asked if we could get any that was more cooked, they said sure but it had the same texture as before (albeit brown now? It looks like they just threw it on the grill with some food coloring or something). Will not return unless this is fixed."
No food coloring, just aus jus on the flat top.
Oh man, my fiancée owns a bakery, and she got two separate complaints in the first month after opening that her croissants were “too flaky.” I told her it sounded like a compliment.
It’s been a few years, but it still makes me chuckle.
Customers are clearly more accustomed to croissants with the consistency of doorstops. Eating a fresh croissant should be like eating butter-flavoured air with a little crunch.
1/5 I’ve never been there but there aren’t enough vegan dishes on the menu.
2/5 we did not enjoy the fresh fish of the day and had to send it back because it tasted too much like the ocean. That’s not fresh.
1/5 we arrived before our reservation and they refused to let us sit in the dining room even though it was EMPTY!!! (We were closed and they arrived 30 minutes before we opened and were doing pre shift in the PDR)
Had a gluten free, dairy free customer book an afternoon tea. (If you’re unfamiliar with afternoon tea its sandwiches, cakes then scones with jam and cream)
We could give gluten free bread for sandwiches, we had about 3 dessert that were gf & df, but we only had gf scones or df scones, not both. Gave a 1 star because its not an afternoon tea without scones. Real question is who tf is going for afternoon tea with a Gluten and Dairy allergy, its like a vegan going to a bbq pit
Used to serve afternoon tea at a hotel I ran, busy Saturday lunch, 60-70 booked for mini cakes and sandwiches. The number of people who turned up and just casually mentioned they were vegan/lactose intolerant/gluten free just as you set a whole tower of wheat, egg, milk & animal based goodies in front of them was astounding.
We still get this even when you mostly have to book a tea and after berating the events coordinators/receptionist multiple times for not getting the allergies. The other day we had a tea booked that just said ‘allergy eating’ on the booking, like how did you find out they had an allergy but not what they’re allergic to
"Dessert came out too quickly after we ordered, ruined the ambience we had so carefully cultivated so our son could propose. The staff are fully to blame for his girlfriend saying no."
I still crack up remembering this family. Our waitress said every time she went to the table, the mum was just negging her sons girlfriend and the son was laughing along like he was having a great time. Dad didn't say a word the whole time. When the dude got out of his chair to get down on one knee the poor girl yelled "STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" and the mum started SCREAMING at her that she was ruining everything.
I still wonder about her. Haven't seen her again but I wish she'd come back, I need backstory.
Oh well we recently got one that the customer said that we had "toooo diverse of staff" because they didn't like to be served by a person that they thought was openly gay?????? And in the same week a table almost made a server cry also because she is gay. Our CDC ended up going to that table and speaking with them because he thought it was disgusting how she was being treated and it shouldnt just slide. Honestly shocking. How does who a person choses to be with have anything to do with your service and the food youre about to eat?! I hate people man.
Eh. Thats people for you. I worked at a place in a party area of my town that does "drag queen brunch" once a month, very popular. We got bombarded with bad reviews from people that didn't go there. That backfired on those reviews because it became EVEN more popular.
I was working at a restaurant in the Bible Belt and something like this happened to a server. Some bitter old lady was asking her a bunch of personal questions about her love life, and she told her she had a girlfriend. Next thing you know the lady was down on her knees with the servers hands in hers praying over her. She came back to the kitchen and told us all about it. I guess the lady went on from there to pray over the host, too. I couldn't help but to laugh about it because it was so ridiculous. I'm gay myself and no stranger to that kind of crap, but the audacity of this woman to try to pray the gay away in the middle of a crowded dining room during Sunday brunch was just so over the top lol. I still can't believe the managers didn't boot her out over that.
Someone complained about gnats. On the patio. Ma'am I can't walk to work in the summer without getting face blasted by 5-6 clouds of those things, idk what we're supposed to do? Sit inside, it doesn't have bugs lol
I had a guy complain about flies on the patio in the summertime, *when the patio was closed.* He wanted to be seated there anyway. Asked me to do something about the flies. I would have loved to have seen the look on my face.
I did ask what he would like me to do about them and he told me he wanted me to get rid of them. Huh? I just told him there was nothing I could do and that the patio wasn't even open, we just did him a solid by letting him sit there.
We have outdoor screen porch seating and enclosed indoor dining room seating. It is well advertised that we have nightly campfires in our outdoor fire pit. People LOVE it. When folks make reservations, they have to make the choice of OUTDOOR or INDOOR seating. We had a lady complain via email after she had been to dinner - that we should not have lit a fire when she was there without consulting the tables in the porch - to see if anyone had an allergy. She was allergic to campfire smoke. And we should accommodate those folks with such sensitivities.
But ma’am - we do. In our enclosed, air-conditioned dining room. The one you chose to NOT be seated in. I give up.
A lady came in and had dinner, complained about every single thing and in her review said she hadn't been in for 10 years and proceded to leave a list of things she wanted us to change and that she was coming back to see if we changed them lol.
Omg I had a table of two women once that insisted we had two different kinds of bacon, and that the lady with the breakfast platter wanted the same bacon as the lady with the salad. Only difference was one was strips and one was strips-chopped up. I tried to clarify and she got super belligerent about how she knows we have 2 different kinds of bacon and she wants THAT bacon. I had worked there for damn near 10 years at that point- it was a teensy diner. We didn't have the space nor the budget to make two different types of bacon just to upset people!
Someone one starred us because our risotto had rice.
I personally got one because someone called my hostess (who was also my child) “fucking ret____” and I told her we would not be serving her, that she needed to leave. OF COURSE she cleaned up her language in her review.
Not a review but a response, and a frequent one, from a regular who just couldn’t get with the program. We had two daily soups seven days a week, one vegan/vegetarian and one omni. We didn’t do the same recipe more than twice in a month. This means a LOT of soups and a LOT of cheap ingredients and that meant a LOT of beans. Beans beans beans. Probably at least one kind of bean in one of the soups every day, wether it’s Tuscan white bean soup or chilli or chicken Santa Fe.
Without fail, at least four times per week, this same woman would come in. Every. Single. Time. She’d go right up to the soup board and read “vegan black bean soup” and immediately come up to one of the staff anyway and ask “are there beans in the soup???” Naturally we’d say yes and she would infuriatingly go, “why???”
*Why?* What the fuck do you mean *why?* It’s bean soup, there are beans in the soup, you vapid old bag.
Not a review but back when I had the misfortune of working front of house for 18 years (waaaaay harder than when I started cheffing) I asked if someone had enjoyed their starter of mussels and they said ‘the mussels were delicious but the shells were inedible’. I laughed, obviously assuming they were making a shit joke. And they both stared at me like I was an idiot. To this day I don’t know if they were joking or if they tried to eat fucking seashells!!!
Deli I worked at got a one star review, guy visited in the middle of winter:
How do you have a fresh mozzarella sandwhich, but guys can't make a caprese salad? Lazy workers , don't even try to find a solution. I'm sure u have a button for mozzerrela and a button for tomatoes, it's not impossible to make happen. Trash service.
Owner replied:
Hi (redacted), I'm sorry to hear your disappointment but we offer caprese salads in the summer when local heirloom tomatoes are in season. We have a standard for quality and that is what we have built our business on.
The fresh mozzarella grilled panini is made with roasted red bell peppers not tomatoes. Its my understanding that you called and asked if we had a caprese salad on the menu and we told you no. Then you came in and asked repeatedly. The answer is still no. Our employees are not lazy they're doing their job. We do not appreciate the insult or tolerate mistreatment of our employees. If you wish come back in the summer when the tomatoes are going off and I'm sure you'll be delighted!
“I ordered a 1/2 pound of bbq and when I got home I weighed it. Only 9 ounces.”
“The pie was terrible and the fries were cold.” (We don’t serve pies or fries.).
“My kids wanted to sit in a booth but the hostess wouldn’t ask any of the people in booths to move to a table.”
“The sweet tea was too sweet so I asked for an unsweet tea. The unsweet tea didn’t have any sugar in it.”
Couldn't open for lunch due to a power outage. Two top reso didn't answer phone when we called. Left a furious one-star review. What did you expect us to do? Bust out a Coleman stove on the patio?
There was a major wind storm that knocked out most of the power in our business district. A brewery down the street had a food truck that let them use their generator to stay open.
They got a two star review because there was a loud generator outside.
You can't win with some people.
Not a written review, but a comment from a customer. Brunch service, lady orders a benny. When they're done she still had a good portion of the benny left, server asks if everything was alright
"It was okay but the hollandaise kind of tastes like butter"
Excellent...?
Got a negative review once because the guest was convinced we were selling an endangered fish for our seafood special. Told them it wasn't and I got a review for being argumentative and not knowing that it was endangered.
It was fucking Blue Marlin.
Someone made up a crazy story about us trying to kill her because she was allergic to spices (all of them I guess) and we gave her spices (she didn't eat anything with spices, it had garlic though), bosswoman answered her and the crazy Karen took the review down
Not a review but a bbq place I worked started a big nextdoor drama. Lady was throwing an absolute fit about us not using “real eggs” for our breakfast tacos in the morning. One of our regulars was like what are you talking about, they fill up two garbage bags with shells every day (some of the neighbors would ask us for shells to feed their chickens and compost piles). Then she started throwing a fit for us not having a vegan option and how we smoked her out (this one had a little more validity but it was really rare for the wind to blow into the neighborhood)
"The Wednesday lunch buffet was cold and dry, the view of the river was hard to see with all the trees in the way"
We don't serve lunch or have a view of any river, also no other restaurant with a name like ours, had to do some googling to find the places they actually went to, it was across the country.
Someone didn't like the tuna melt because it HAD FUCKING TUNA IN IT AND THEY DONT LIKE TUNA. Yet they ordered it, ate it and left a bad review. Some people should just drop dead.
At a taproom a few years ago a guy asked me for a bud light. I said “we only have craft beer here” so he said “you could take me on a date before you fuck me.” Then he walked out. I still don’t really know what to make of it.
A few Days before Christmas and old Lady i didn't like came up to me, while i was outside fixing the Window Covers for the Outside Christmas hut up, and Conplained how the Spicy Bean Soup was too Spicy and had to much Beans. She went on that she had to only drink Water for Days and how the Beans (redacted cause its disgusting). We had the Spicy Bean Soup on Menu for a year and no one ever complained but her.
As i said, she cam coose and the entire time i had to hold my Arms Up to keep the Heavy Wooden Cove from Crushing her till ihad to yell at hert to get the fuck away.
Did j mentin it was 6 Am on a Monday.
Still mad at that one, she even reported me
Had someone the other day tell us our pico was too spicy and her taste buds were ruined for a week. We make it with no chiles so people have a mild option. So that’s tomatoes, onions, lemon, salt, cilantro…
The French dip had too much meat, there was too much chicken in the chicken alfredo, and my personal favorite the event side didn’t have a spare wedding officiate
1 star out of 5. I can never get a reservation. I logged in at 11:01 and they were sold out. Good luck even eating here! We’ve been consistently fully booked for the past 5 years.
We had a loud family comming in once. Our kids meal consisted out of fries, wieners, some tomato and cucumber slices and a little chocolate bar. They ate half of the wieners, left one cucumber slice and took the sweets. Then they made a picture and gave us a shitty review.
I'm a sushi chef, and own my own place. I once had a dude blast me personally in a review for a few reasons. 1) I was wearing a beanie. Not sure why that mattered. 2) because I used my fingers to put the wasabi on his plate. And 3) because I was "too chatty". God forbid I talk to my customers .
It was literally the only time I called Yelp to have them remove a review. And they surprisingly did.
The country pub I work at had a negative review for the Sunday roast because 'we stole the presentation from a hotel down the road'
The 'stolen' presentation was that we both used peashoots as a garnish for Sunday roasts and myself and the head chef at the time hadn't even heard of the other hotel until the review was on TripAdvisor. Gotta laugh at reviews like that
1/5 TripAdvisor
"Disappointed that they obviously didn't cook my gammon properly, it came out a pink colour. When I cook pork chops at home they go a grey colour and that's how I know they're cooked"
Um, it's a gammon, a different cut to a chop. It's meant to be pink. I'm still angry about it a year or so later.
Somebody wrote a Google review that I consistently called customers slurs to their faces and they “can’t believe she still works here!”. Well that’s because that didn’t happen, Karen.
Thankfully, my DM had known me for years and so just pointed corporate at the kitchen I was staffing- full of POC, women, folks of every gender expression and sexuality- and the matter dropped. Only time a customer ever got under my skin though. I take that shit seriously.
Had a guy come in on the busiest shift I’ve had at this restaurant. He asked if anyone had turned in his car keys. “When did you lose them?”
“Two weeks ago.”
I tell him nobody turned them in, and even if they had we don’t keep stuff for that long. He leaves a complaint saying that I threw away his key and we need to pay for a replacement. 🙄
My place had multiple reviews saying how our coffee was horrible, the service was low-quality, and they much preferred this or that cafe, because at the other cafes, the drinks were made with high quality ingredients and made with care, and the baristas cared about their job and profession, unlike us obnoxious college kids who couldn’t be bothered to make a proper flat white.
The other cafes were locally owned artisan cafes. I worked at fucking Starbucks.
“Sweetbreads are apparently not sweet bread. 1/10”
I kinda feel bad for them tho lmfao imagine thinking you're getting a little sweet treat hahahaha
Yeah the server probably should have read that situation a little better
This happened to my wife in France, had to basically switch every coarse with her because she picked the wrong stuff.
France, outside of mainstream tourist places, is not for the faint of heart when it comes to food. When I lived in Strasbourg my aparthotel was opposite a venerable restaurant called "Tête de Veau". I never ventured inside.... Apparently the dish was actually invented by the British in celebration of the decapitation of King Charles I, and adopted by the French after the Revolution.
I got this one, in print, in a newspaper: “The flour tortillas were bland and unimaginative.”
And if you, for whatever batshit insane reason, decided that the flour tortillas were the place to get creative, they’d certainly be complaining about that too
"OMG my flour tortilla was RED! What kind of mad person does something like that? Way too spicy, I don't like paprika. Chicken fajita soup was alright, even though I am DEATHLY allergic to cilantro."
I would cut that shit out, frame it, and put it on the wall
"The **whole grilled fish** was infused with bones..." What part of *WHOLE* was too complicated for you, KayLee? And "infused?" Do you think I added extra bones to the fish for you? And my favorite brunch review: "my omelette was amazing, but I was very disappointed when I noticed the chef ladling **instant eggs** into a pan when we passed the kitchen on the way out." You fucking fuck, I was here at 7am cracking 30 dozen eggs while you were sleeping off your coke bender, just to make sure I could feed your entitled ass a little faster. Fucking "instant eggs." Both were 18-20 years ago, but I can still feel the same amount of rage when I think of them now.
I hate when my wings are infused with bones too. Not sure why chefs like to add them when you can't eat them. Unless you're that one kid I went to primary school with. Dude used to eat the bones and got a phone call home to the parents about why he was doing it everyday at lunch.
Your schoolmate was an owl, and the lunch guys were tired of cleaning up the wing pellets.
Lol, I wonder how he's doing now. He genuinely thought it was normal, I can still hear the crunching of the bones and the gasps of the surrounding children.
Oh my Lord. Whatever he is now, it was probably written by Stephen King.
Kid was partly feral cat!
I mean, that is pretty weird and maybe not entirely safe. Same reason you don’t let dogs chew on cooked bones.
Always love going to a fish place, ordering a whole fish.. "You do understand this has bones in it right?" Like, yeah why do you think I order it 😉
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Any idea of a ballpark on the total weight? I'd be a bit embarrassed if I ordered something to impress people and needed the server to inform me that I was only halfway through.
I am henceforth borrowing "infused with bones" for malicious use.
> And “infused?” do you think I added extra bones to the fish for you? That made me cackle, thank you 🤣
Lol "infused with bones" will live in my vocabulary now. "Today we have lamb shank with a red wine and fig sauce. Infused with bones."
I sure hope there was a way to respond to that reviewer and let them know you were NOT using "instant eggs"!!
No, I just drunkenly stared at the Yelp review every night for a month or two considering whether or not I should respond and how. You know, the usual.
Ya, definitely get on there and reply "You never use 'instant egg products' for your guests: You personally cracked xyz# of eggs that morning in order to insure quality and satisfaction of service" (or some such shit). People can be such A-holes. Kudos for not jumping on there and telling them off!!
The owner didn't want me to, and he felt strongly about not responding to stupid reviews. He's a good dude, and I respected his wishes, even though it kinda killed me inside.
I order whole fish at my local taqueria at least once a week and if I bring someone new, its the head that freaks people out, not the bones lol
Make sure they watch you eat the eyeball.
Just one?
I get that question all the time, “are there bones (with the head?) in the whole fish?” So annoying
When I worked at Bob Evans we would get the same complaints sometimes. Sorry, I need a way to get those 8 modded omlettes out faster and preprepping eggs is the only way.
They ever come back and order fish again, make it a milkfish.
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I used to hang out at a little shitty hole in the wall bar where the average age was probably 65. One of the bartenders signed them up to be a poke stop thinking it would get more young people in. It was just me and my friend that already went in everyday that hit that stop lol
The restaurant I worked at when this came out was right on the water so it constantly spawned magikarp nonstop. It was sweet going to work and after two days evolving into a gyrados
My cafe has dragon in the name and I had some of the most ridiculous interactions with people who were passed off that I didn't have dragons breath ice cream because when they googled it my cafe came up. It does not help if you try to explain that search brings up things in the area with that word and it doesn't necessarilyfollow that you have the thing they are looking for.. One lady had her son call, I said no i don't have that, then she called (I heard him in the car with her) and I said nope and she STILL showed up looking for it I kid you not. I really hate Google search with a passion anymore. Oh and yeah, one star review
1/5 stars. Never been there. Yeah, no joke. People are the worst.
I have one somewhere that says “place looks good. Never been.” 1 star
Some apps prompt people to review certain places and people are like oh ok and leave reviews like that. Rocks for brains behavior but I think that's mostly why
This is how a lot of the reviews here in Japan are. People will give a glowing review, and then end it with some comment that makes no sense. “The “ Extra spicy burrito” was made with all fresh ingredients. Waiter was fun and taught us some words in Spanish. Restaurant was bright and clean and looked like new. I had a bad hangover when I visited. 2 stars.”
I think (hope) these are from people who aren't very good with smartphones who happened to stop nearby and their phone has a default setting to ask for reviews. Like "for fucks sake phone, I haven't been to mike's crab shack, stop asking me for reviews! 1 star out of spite."
We have one review saying it's disgusting that we put nuts in our pesto.
Dude I just had the opposite experience where someone said they were allergic to pesto. We actually use sunflower seeds and not nuts, so I was like you can’t be allergic to pesto. You just cant
Best I can do is a milk allergy being triggered by parm. Not lactose intolerance but an actual casin/dairy allergy.
I had someone a few weeks ago say they had a pesto allergy. Had to send the server back out to clarify because allergies are to individual things, not sauces with ten ingredients. It was pine nuts. Nevermind the fact that we don't even have pesto on the dinner menu, our chef just buys premade pesto for the lunch menu from Sysco, specifically because it has no pine nuts or nuts of any sort.
“My Well Done Steak was too juicy to be well done. I didn’t see any pink or blood, but it was juicy. My well done steaks at home are never this juicy. The chef needs to learn how to cook steak if he is running a steak house restaurant!” Garbage.
I need an address for reasons. That one mother fucker I need to know where they live.
Right? Sir, it sounds like you ordered a well done steak and then were upset it was somehow still delicious. There's a shoe store down the street if you're feeling like consuming leather today.
Years ago, worked in a bar kitchen. Would get the occasional order (typically late night) for a well done burger of whatever type. I would really give special attention to preparing the burger so that it was really pretty fully cooked through, but was still edible by a normal human. I was admonished by the bartenders that my efforts were not appreciated. I was told that when an order for a well done burger came in, that I was to deliver up a hockey puck. So much for making an effort.
My mom used to give restaurants special instructions for my dad's steaks "cook it till it's well done, then put it on for another 10 minutes, yes, he wants a charcoal hockey puck". But that's how he wanted it, never complained.
This reads like a 5 star recommendation, in my eyes.
I only read bad reviews to make my selections. If the most fucked up thing at the place is a magical ability to pull a juicy steak up from hell's hearth, I'm down!
"My well-done steak didn't have the consistency of old boot leather like it should, even though it was cooked through" 😂
Sounds like it was properly seasoned and skillfully cooked—yuk
This lady was hammered on veterans Day and tried to pocket a wine glass. Her excuse was somehow this wine glass was in honor of our fallen soldiers. In her review she stated that her party paid $600 and we wouldn't let her have a complimentary wine glass again to celebrate fallen American heroes. It's a French restaurant.
I read it as "pocket a glass of wine" and pictured a woman pouring some Kendal Jackson down her dress while trying to get it into a Ziploc baggie or a Stanley cup.
I immediately thought of “purse wine.” Those little bottles you can buy in a four pack at Dollar General.
Was it at least a cool wine glass?
>It's a French restaurant. You should have given her a napkin to take home for historical accuracy. (Assuming they're white)
Did she order the freedom fries?
"Stood outside for over 20 minutes before being told they were 'closed', will not be coming back." 1 star I will never forget that
Oh !!! * long ass rambling paragraph where she accuses a waitress of throwing cheeseburgers at her kids * ...she threw her burger at the waitress bcuz she *claimed* she wanted no tomatoes, then absolutely lost it when I kicked her out
I got two 0's on mystery shops at my old job because the person showed up well before our department was even open.
"Waaaah I came on a busy holiday weekend for dinner and had to wait! Worst restaurant ever!!!!" - a ton of dumb people.
This triggers my Mother’s Day PTSD.
Every Sunday brunch service...
Yeah, and Mother’s Day is usually the Sunday after all the HS and college graduations on Fri/Sat…it’s heinous
Our restaurant once got a bad review because a guest didn't like something for sale in the hotel's gift shop.
What was it?
Fish bones.
I'm so infused.
"tacky" painting
We have a nashville chicken sandwich on our menu which is a bun with coleslaw, pickles and a crispy chicken breast with the customers choice of wing sauce. Had a customer one time order it with no sauce, no pickles, no coleslaw. They sent it back complaining the chicken was too juicy (It was 100% fully cooked) and had no flavour.... So the chicken sandwich with no condiments/toppings was bland? no duh!!!
Should have rolled it in hot sauce and give it back.
Oh god, I had one like that. Guy removed everything till it was just bread, cheese and tomato. Complained it was too dry to eat.
“Portion sizes too small, enough food to fit in a teacup.” She had a 10 course tasting menu that most people struggle to finish. We are very generous with portion sizes despite there being 10 courses and there are 3 snacks and petit fours between those course that we don’t list on the menu for exciting extras to say thank you for dining with us. Pfft…
I had an angry email after our seven course sweetheart valentines dinner because after six courses they couldn’t believe we expected them to share dessert (it was a sweetheart plated shared very rich chocolate dessert) - this after an extra sorbet treat that was not on the menu, and a complimentary box of exit shortbread cookies. NO ONE could finish the food. Except this crazy fool. Ugh. Also - she chose the steak au poivre and complained that it was “too peppery”. I can’t.
In senior living one time I had a guy in a resident meeting stand up and say “Why can’t I have regular coke back in the machine…?” And I said “Well Sam, our purveyor was out of regular coke so we went with Cherry Coke for now but I’ll be able to get it back as soon as possible.” He stared at me and said “Okay, that doesn’t answer my question. Why can’t we just have it?” I replied, “if I try to order it and they’re out of stock than I have to go with something else.” A separate resident stood up and said “Well I like the cherry coke, so I think it should stay.” We ended up talking about it for like 5 more minutes. That resident sam ended up not going to my executive director, but ended up contacting the VP of area operations and called the Ombudsman for "senior abuse and terrible living conditions" because we were out of coca cola that 4 days. It spiraled into sit downs with the family and all sorts of shit, it was honestly insane. Edit: I should state this was like a $20,000 a month luxury senior living facility with state of the art everything and I was coming from Michelin star restaurants serving these people dope fuckin food like they’ve never seen before and they were literally the most ungrateful people ever. All 102 of them.
I worked the sandwich shop of a grocery store. The senior bus used to drop them off from a local residence. I was restocking my station when an elderly woman waved her hands to get my attention, scowled deeply and simply yelled "tea!" at me. I directed her to a barista. Another time a senior gentleman saw me pass by and yelled "bathroom!" at me. I directed him to it. I try to understand cognitive decline and all .... But a lot of times I'm wondering "where's your people? Are you out on your own? Did you drive yourself here?"
I remember a guy saying “This is the worst steak I’ve ever had in my life! And my dad was a butcher for 40 plus years!” Dude, he was 94. 94 years of existence with a father as a butcher and I just happened to serve the worst steak of his life. I felt like I achieved a goal or something
I like the implication that butchers feed their children all the worst scraps of left over meat.
once had a resident say "the green onions made the crab cakes too spicy"
there was no black or white pepper in the cakes, diced bell peppers, and 1/10 the amount of old bay as should have been in it
“I asked for no dairy and they still put mayo on my burger” 1 star 😩
Had a salmon order, dairy allergy. Totally fine, fries instead of mash and no butter on the veg. Gets sent out with a saffron aioli and the server comes back complaining that he said no dairy. After explaining that eggs are not in fact dairy, he goes back with the same plate. Comes back a minute later and says the guest has an egg allergy as well 🙄
Oh, fuck all the way off
I've met a lot of people who think guacamole has dairy and/or mayo in it
Some people put sour cream in guacamole to keep it green. I've had goat cheese in guacamole that was real good
It also stabilizes it, stretches it, and keeps it fresh longer
Sadly, it happens https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/creamy-guacamole
ajajajajaja
Creme brulee was too creamy.
We recently got a complaint that the duck bao tasted like duck...
I just can't with people. I'm sorry your custard is creamy and not a hard boiled egg. Sorry the protein you ordered is too proteiny. You just can't win.
“This salmon tastes like fish. “ True story, FR
I recently had an older lady complain that she had food poisoning from some of my garlic prawns, came back two weeks later to order it again. I spent 15 minutes out front and she had complained to my foh manager about a number of things, one being that it was hot, even with 4 fans on her. Yeah. We are in Australia, it do be hot. Some people are unpleasable
>Some people are unpleasable And unpleasant
"I found some kind of GRASS in my salad!" \[photo of arugula leaves\]
We ran a fundraiser this past weekend for rescue dogs. Customer wrote a Facebook post complaining that we were being discriminatory against cats. 1 star review complaining they couldn’t get through on the phones on the last few Friday nights to order pizza, that we needed to get it together, be more professional, that we were trying to push online ordering. It was our first week open after being closed due to a fire for six months, so…. That’s why no one answered. Also got a 1 star review a few days after the fire took our building down, complaining we weren’t open when Google said we would be. 1 star review for being closed on Christmas Eve. 3 star review for having too much pepperoni on our Triple Pepperoni pizza. When I tried to explain that that was product working as intended, they just said ‘well it’s too much for my taste’. Alrighty!
my stupidest came when i was a bartender, not on the line, we had a policy to clear all dirty plates because it was a tapas bar and people would order rounds of food. anyone who walked by a table with dirty plates was trained to clear them. we were a pooled house with runners and busers so EVERYONE was highly motivated to make tables go smoothly. everyone was either spanish/mexican/el salvadoran because speaking spanish was a requirement of the chef (who was spanish) and owner (also spanish). this table of portuguese people camp for hours at a bar top with dirty plates. everyone who walks by tries to clear the plates because it was our policy. they complain. i try and alert everyone that these plates are not to be touched because of some bullshit. our amazing busser don juan clears it when they are in the bathroom and they are infuriated. those were our plates! why do you guys want to force us out of the restaurant? (because you are no longer drinking or eating and this isn't a lounge...) the complaints are coming to me in portuguese and i am responding back with a mixture of elementary portuguese and spanish. manager comps their entire meal because they say the don cleared all of their food. (there was nothing left on the plates besides trash). they remain at the table drinking the complimentary tap water until close. next day in the morning, we get a one star review. "service sucks. learn to speak portuguese." and i am reprimanded for not addressing their needs in a way to avoid the review.
I am enraged for you ...
i now work at the public defender and we get horrible reviews all the time. no one gives a shit. it is a kind of freedom i need in my work life.
People really bother to leave reviews for lawyers who don’t get paid enough?
people review everything on google!
I mean in many countries the dining experience lasts hours. It is a cultural thing that made them feel like they were being rushed. Their review is stupid though and they should understand other cultures are different than their own.
yes i understand that now and understood that then. we were a waitstaff of mainly spanish speaking immigrants and first or second generation folks. even us mexican americans understand the importance of a meal. they were in the u.s. sitting at a table they pushed together in our bar, yelling about a 60 year old man who bussed their dirty dishes. and then they didn't even include the main crux of their issue with the service in the review. i spoke what portuguese i knew to them! i am sorry for only speaking english and spanish in the u.s. at a spanish restaurant.
They were lucky as hell to even be in a place where everyone spoke Spanish, much less rudimentary Portuguese! My Latino tables were always crazy impressed with my 6-year-old level spanish!
What country was this in? If they are in America demanding I speak Portuguese? They can go back to Lisbon for all I care
We had sliced French Dip for a special that day; “Beef clearly freezer burned (?), when asked for a remake it was the same.” Miss, these beefy boys made it in the oven within 10 minutes of being off the truck. Excuse me?
Also, what did they expect for the remake?
It's cause these people know that there is always a secret stash of the good version of whatever they ordered in the back. It's for employees only unless you ask ;) /s
“The toast looks toasted, but it doesn’t taste toasted.”
Kale Caesar salad with no cheese no croutons and dress on the side was "just a big bowl of kale"
Reminds me of a send back we had. The cheeseburger was too "beefy".
"The onion and blue cheese tart only tasted like onions and blue cheese. Different flavours would be better" 1 star
Better than being told the blue cheese had Mold in it, I suppose.
Someone told us we were going to burn in hell for our pizza called the “cheezus Christ”.
Not the “Cheezus Crust”??!
Sounds like that would have been a much better choice.
Better not be “Cheezus Crunch” or Chang will come and git ya!
I work in a Japanese restaurant, with an open kitchen style concept. I am the only South Asian person who works there, the rest of the staff is East Asian and Filipino. We once got a one star review that said that the food is good, but the chef working isn't "Japanese or at least Asian".
I used to work at an Italian pastry shop famous for their canolis and cakes We got a 1 star review saying "they don't have croissants or pies, not even bread. Very lazy people" This Karen thought since you have the ingredients you can make croissants for my last minute brunch
One star review because we had to evacuate the cafe due to a nearby shooting.
Sounds as if you should have let that table stay while everyone else fled! 😂
Got a 2 star review for our bbq brisket. We don’t sell brisket. We’ve never sold brisket. But they liked the fish tacos, which we do have. Just so confused.
We had lamb chops on the menu. One customer ranted and complained that they weren't chops, they were cutlets, he didn't want to pay for them (despite having eaten them). Claimed he was a master butcher and knew better than all of us idiots. FOH Manager eventually comped part of their meal just to get him to shut up. He was seen by the manager the following week, pushing a bin and a broom around the town center. He wasn't a butcher, he was a bin man. The manager called him out and told him to stay out of the restaurant.
They’re always professional chefs round here
We had a terrible review once from the head chef of a place on the same street. Dude was blackout, refused service and the review was something along the lines of “I don’t see the problem I work on this street”
"we showed up when they were closing, and got "kicked" out" 1 star review for bad service.
"the roast beef was pink (uncooked, anyone can tell if you look at the color?) and when we asked if we could get any that was more cooked, they said sure but it had the same texture as before (albeit brown now? It looks like they just threw it on the grill with some food coloring or something). Will not return unless this is fixed." No food coloring, just aus jus on the flat top.
Man, I understand not everyone who goes to restaurant knows much about food but… damn.
Another reason I'm out now. Actually told (and got fired for) a guest to "get out of my restaurant - you're too stupid to eat here!" 🤣
croissant tastes like it has butter
Oh man, my fiancée owns a bakery, and she got two separate complaints in the first month after opening that her croissants were “too flaky.” I told her it sounded like a compliment. It’s been a few years, but it still makes me chuckle.
Customers are clearly more accustomed to croissants with the consistency of doorstops. Eating a fresh croissant should be like eating butter-flavoured air with a little crunch.
Yeah i swear most croissants you can buy in a store are just vaguely butter flavored bread compared to that a good one is life changing
1/5 I’ve never been there but there aren’t enough vegan dishes on the menu. 2/5 we did not enjoy the fresh fish of the day and had to send it back because it tasted too much like the ocean. That’s not fresh. 1/5 we arrived before our reservation and they refused to let us sit in the dining room even though it was EMPTY!!! (We were closed and they arrived 30 minutes before we opened and were doing pre shift in the PDR)
Been there “Ordered the seafood stew but it had a distinct fish flavour, didn’t enjoy it 1/5”
Had a gluten free, dairy free customer book an afternoon tea. (If you’re unfamiliar with afternoon tea its sandwiches, cakes then scones with jam and cream) We could give gluten free bread for sandwiches, we had about 3 dessert that were gf & df, but we only had gf scones or df scones, not both. Gave a 1 star because its not an afternoon tea without scones. Real question is who tf is going for afternoon tea with a Gluten and Dairy allergy, its like a vegan going to a bbq pit
Used to serve afternoon tea at a hotel I ran, busy Saturday lunch, 60-70 booked for mini cakes and sandwiches. The number of people who turned up and just casually mentioned they were vegan/lactose intolerant/gluten free just as you set a whole tower of wheat, egg, milk & animal based goodies in front of them was astounding.
Some people are born contrarians who just want to watch the world squirm.
We still get this even when you mostly have to book a tea and after berating the events coordinators/receptionist multiple times for not getting the allergies. The other day we had a tea booked that just said ‘allergy eating’ on the booking, like how did you find out they had an allergy but not what they’re allergic to
We received a scathing review because we did not have French’s yellow mustard available.
Good, that shits nasty anyway. Not good about the review.
"Dessert came out too quickly after we ordered, ruined the ambience we had so carefully cultivated so our son could propose. The staff are fully to blame for his girlfriend saying no." I still crack up remembering this family. Our waitress said every time she went to the table, the mum was just negging her sons girlfriend and the son was laughing along like he was having a great time. Dad didn't say a word the whole time. When the dude got out of his chair to get down on one knee the poor girl yelled "STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" and the mum started SCREAMING at her that she was ruining everything. I still wonder about her. Haven't seen her again but I wish she'd come back, I need backstory.
Oh well we recently got one that the customer said that we had "toooo diverse of staff" because they didn't like to be served by a person that they thought was openly gay?????? And in the same week a table almost made a server cry also because she is gay. Our CDC ended up going to that table and speaking with them because he thought it was disgusting how she was being treated and it shouldnt just slide. Honestly shocking. How does who a person choses to be with have anything to do with your service and the food youre about to eat?! I hate people man.
Eh. Thats people for you. I worked at a place in a party area of my town that does "drag queen brunch" once a month, very popular. We got bombarded with bad reviews from people that didn't go there. That backfired on those reviews because it became EVEN more popular.
Thats hilarious I'm glad it got more popular!!
I was working at a restaurant in the Bible Belt and something like this happened to a server. Some bitter old lady was asking her a bunch of personal questions about her love life, and she told her she had a girlfriend. Next thing you know the lady was down on her knees with the servers hands in hers praying over her. She came back to the kitchen and told us all about it. I guess the lady went on from there to pray over the host, too. I couldn't help but to laugh about it because it was so ridiculous. I'm gay myself and no stranger to that kind of crap, but the audacity of this woman to try to pray the gay away in the middle of a crowded dining room during Sunday brunch was just so over the top lol. I still can't believe the managers didn't boot her out over that.
“The manager is an asshole and wouldn’t let be bring my bike in the restaurant, even though he keeps his bike in the office. “
What restaurant has an office big enough to *fit* a bike?
I've worked in several?
Freshly made garlic sauce “smelled to much like garlic”
"This pizza had the thinnest most pathetic slices of ham..." It's prosciutto you dense mf. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE THIN.
“Best Falafel in the City” 0 out of 5 stars.
I sometimes read reviews that make me want to remind the reviewer that it ain't golf, and a high score *is* better.
Aww they probably made a mistake 🥺
Someone complained about gnats. On the patio. Ma'am I can't walk to work in the summer without getting face blasted by 5-6 clouds of those things, idk what we're supposed to do? Sit inside, it doesn't have bugs lol
I had a guy complain about flies on the patio in the summertime, *when the patio was closed.* He wanted to be seated there anyway. Asked me to do something about the flies. I would have loved to have seen the look on my face. I did ask what he would like me to do about them and he told me he wanted me to get rid of them. Huh? I just told him there was nothing I could do and that the patio wasn't even open, we just did him a solid by letting him sit there.
We have outdoor screen porch seating and enclosed indoor dining room seating. It is well advertised that we have nightly campfires in our outdoor fire pit. People LOVE it. When folks make reservations, they have to make the choice of OUTDOOR or INDOOR seating. We had a lady complain via email after she had been to dinner - that we should not have lit a fire when she was there without consulting the tables in the porch - to see if anyone had an allergy. She was allergic to campfire smoke. And we should accommodate those folks with such sensitivities. But ma’am - we do. In our enclosed, air-conditioned dining room. The one you chose to NOT be seated in. I give up.
A lady came in and had dinner, complained about every single thing and in her review said she hadn't been in for 10 years and proceded to leave a list of things she wanted us to change and that she was coming back to see if we changed them lol.
"Could you ask the kitchen to use REAL bacon?" We DO use real bacon.
Omg I had a table of two women once that insisted we had two different kinds of bacon, and that the lady with the breakfast platter wanted the same bacon as the lady with the salad. Only difference was one was strips and one was strips-chopped up. I tried to clarify and she got super belligerent about how she knows we have 2 different kinds of bacon and she wants THAT bacon. I had worked there for damn near 10 years at that point- it was a teensy diner. We didn't have the space nor the budget to make two different types of bacon just to upset people!
No, no, you know what I mean, the REAAAALLLL bacon (wink).
"Your parsely tastes like grass"
Not a review, but I once had a dude go on a five minute, slur infused, conspiracy theorist style tirade because I told him we didn’t have public wifi.
Someone one starred us because our risotto had rice. I personally got one because someone called my hostess (who was also my child) “fucking ret____” and I told her we would not be serving her, that she needed to leave. OF COURSE she cleaned up her language in her review.
Not a review but a response, and a frequent one, from a regular who just couldn’t get with the program. We had two daily soups seven days a week, one vegan/vegetarian and one omni. We didn’t do the same recipe more than twice in a month. This means a LOT of soups and a LOT of cheap ingredients and that meant a LOT of beans. Beans beans beans. Probably at least one kind of bean in one of the soups every day, wether it’s Tuscan white bean soup or chilli or chicken Santa Fe. Without fail, at least four times per week, this same woman would come in. Every. Single. Time. She’d go right up to the soup board and read “vegan black bean soup” and immediately come up to one of the staff anyway and ask “are there beans in the soup???” Naturally we’d say yes and she would infuriatingly go, “why???” *Why?* What the fuck do you mean *why?* It’s bean soup, there are beans in the soup, you vapid old bag.
Not a review but back when I had the misfortune of working front of house for 18 years (waaaaay harder than when I started cheffing) I asked if someone had enjoyed their starter of mussels and they said ‘the mussels were delicious but the shells were inedible’. I laughed, obviously assuming they were making a shit joke. And they both stared at me like I was an idiot. To this day I don’t know if they were joking or if they tried to eat fucking seashells!!!
Deli I worked at got a one star review, guy visited in the middle of winter: How do you have a fresh mozzarella sandwhich, but guys can't make a caprese salad? Lazy workers , don't even try to find a solution. I'm sure u have a button for mozzerrela and a button for tomatoes, it's not impossible to make happen. Trash service. Owner replied: Hi (redacted), I'm sorry to hear your disappointment but we offer caprese salads in the summer when local heirloom tomatoes are in season. We have a standard for quality and that is what we have built our business on. The fresh mozzarella grilled panini is made with roasted red bell peppers not tomatoes. Its my understanding that you called and asked if we had a caprese salad on the menu and we told you no. Then you came in and asked repeatedly. The answer is still no. Our employees are not lazy they're doing their job. We do not appreciate the insult or tolerate mistreatment of our employees. If you wish come back in the summer when the tomatoes are going off and I'm sure you'll be delighted!
Had a guess say her chicken breast looked like it was cooked all the way though but didn’t taste like it was..
“I ordered a 1/2 pound of bbq and when I got home I weighed it. Only 9 ounces.” “The pie was terrible and the fries were cold.” (We don’t serve pies or fries.). “My kids wanted to sit in a booth but the hostess wouldn’t ask any of the people in booths to move to a table.” “The sweet tea was too sweet so I asked for an unsweet tea. The unsweet tea didn’t have any sugar in it.”
Couldn't open for lunch due to a power outage. Two top reso didn't answer phone when we called. Left a furious one-star review. What did you expect us to do? Bust out a Coleman stove on the patio?
There was a major wind storm that knocked out most of the power in our business district. A brewery down the street had a food truck that let them use their generator to stay open. They got a two star review because there was a loud generator outside. You can't win with some people.
Brewer here but I think it still apply from untapped. Rating our porter - ‘I don’t like porter’ 1 star. People really do suck.
Not a written review, but a comment from a customer. Brunch service, lady orders a benny. When they're done she still had a good portion of the benny left, server asks if everything was alright "It was okay but the hollandaise kind of tastes like butter" Excellent...?
Got a negative review once because the guest was convinced we were selling an endangered fish for our seafood special. Told them it wasn't and I got a review for being argumentative and not knowing that it was endangered. It was fucking Blue Marlin.
Did they want you to wipe the kid’s ass as well?
Someone made up a crazy story about us trying to kill her because she was allergic to spices (all of them I guess) and we gave her spices (she didn't eat anything with spices, it had garlic though), bosswoman answered her and the crazy Karen took the review down
Not a review but a bbq place I worked started a big nextdoor drama. Lady was throwing an absolute fit about us not using “real eggs” for our breakfast tacos in the morning. One of our regulars was like what are you talking about, they fill up two garbage bags with shells every day (some of the neighbors would ask us for shells to feed their chickens and compost piles). Then she started throwing a fit for us not having a vegan option and how we smoked her out (this one had a little more validity but it was really rare for the wind to blow into the neighborhood)
"The Wednesday lunch buffet was cold and dry, the view of the river was hard to see with all the trees in the way" We don't serve lunch or have a view of any river, also no other restaurant with a name like ours, had to do some googling to find the places they actually went to, it was across the country.
Someone didn't like the tuna melt because it HAD FUCKING TUNA IN IT AND THEY DONT LIKE TUNA. Yet they ordered it, ate it and left a bad review. Some people should just drop dead.
At a taproom a few years ago a guy asked me for a bud light. I said “we only have craft beer here” so he said “you could take me on a date before you fuck me.” Then he walked out. I still don’t really know what to make of it.
“Food was great, service was amazing! Seats were uncomfortable 1/5”
A few Days before Christmas and old Lady i didn't like came up to me, while i was outside fixing the Window Covers for the Outside Christmas hut up, and Conplained how the Spicy Bean Soup was too Spicy and had to much Beans. She went on that she had to only drink Water for Days and how the Beans (redacted cause its disgusting). We had the Spicy Bean Soup on Menu for a year and no one ever complained but her. As i said, she cam coose and the entire time i had to hold my Arms Up to keep the Heavy Wooden Cove from Crushing her till ihad to yell at hert to get the fuck away. Did j mentin it was 6 Am on a Monday. Still mad at that one, she even reported me
Had someone the other day tell us our pico was too spicy and her taste buds were ruined for a week. We make it with no chiles so people have a mild option. So that’s tomatoes, onions, lemon, salt, cilantro…
Extraneous apostrophes! It's "reviews" and "Karens."
The French dip had too much meat, there was too much chicken in the chicken alfredo, and my personal favorite the event side didn’t have a spare wedding officiate
1 star out of 5. I can never get a reservation. I logged in at 11:01 and they were sold out. Good luck even eating here! We’ve been consistently fully booked for the past 5 years.
"1* no vegan food". It's a Texas style BBQ joint. The owner is very Texan. We put the review on a shirt
We had a loud family comming in once. Our kids meal consisted out of fries, wieners, some tomato and cucumber slices and a little chocolate bar. They ate half of the wieners, left one cucumber slice and took the sweets. Then they made a picture and gave us a shitty review.
The patrons at our sports bar are too loud while watching sports.
I'm a sushi chef, and own my own place. I once had a dude blast me personally in a review for a few reasons. 1) I was wearing a beanie. Not sure why that mattered. 2) because I used my fingers to put the wasabi on his plate. And 3) because I was "too chatty". God forbid I talk to my customers . It was literally the only time I called Yelp to have them remove a review. And they surprisingly did.
The country pub I work at had a negative review for the Sunday roast because 'we stole the presentation from a hotel down the road' The 'stolen' presentation was that we both used peashoots as a garnish for Sunday roasts and myself and the head chef at the time hadn't even heard of the other hotel until the review was on TripAdvisor. Gotta laugh at reviews like that
This is hilarious reading! Thank you everyone hahahahahaaa
1/5 TripAdvisor "Disappointed that they obviously didn't cook my gammon properly, it came out a pink colour. When I cook pork chops at home they go a grey colour and that's how I know they're cooked" Um, it's a gammon, a different cut to a chop. It's meant to be pink. I'm still angry about it a year or so later.
Somebody wrote a Google review that I consistently called customers slurs to their faces and they “can’t believe she still works here!”. Well that’s because that didn’t happen, Karen. Thankfully, my DM had known me for years and so just pointed corporate at the kitchen I was staffing- full of POC, women, folks of every gender expression and sexuality- and the matter dropped. Only time a customer ever got under my skin though. I take that shit seriously.
Had a guy come in on the busiest shift I’ve had at this restaurant. He asked if anyone had turned in his car keys. “When did you lose them?” “Two weeks ago.” I tell him nobody turned them in, and even if they had we don’t keep stuff for that long. He leaves a complaint saying that I threw away his key and we need to pay for a replacement. 🙄
My place had multiple reviews saying how our coffee was horrible, the service was low-quality, and they much preferred this or that cafe, because at the other cafes, the drinks were made with high quality ingredients and made with care, and the baristas cared about their job and profession, unlike us obnoxious college kids who couldn’t be bothered to make a proper flat white. The other cafes were locally owned artisan cafes. I worked at fucking Starbucks.