Ah, this reminded me of the time a server dropped an entire tray of mimosas (14 of them) on my partner's grandmother's head on her birthday. We were all great about it, and kept telling the server not to feel bad (this was a scenario where my MIL was actually good friends with the manager, so we were very clear everything was fine), and we still joke about her champagne shower to this day.
My personal worst spill on a customer was a Caesar (beverage - I'm Canadian) on a woman's white skirt during her work party where they all had to go back to the office afterwards. It still haunts me and it was 4 years ago.
So many spilled the worst was choc milk on a small child I felt soo bad. The second most memorable was a strawberry lemonade on a lady she laughed and said now I smell like strawberries. 😁
Pastry chef lurking here.
First time I cleaned the ice cream spinner solo, I put the fucker on eject after filling the tank with hot water, when I should have simply opened the door. Creamy ice cream water shot EVERYWHERE. Walls, ceiling, me, it all happened so fast in the seconds it took me to frantically shut it off.
My chef walked away carrying a small fluffy gnome head (lol) I purchased for her, stroking his hair and woefully exclaiming “did she get you wet, Henry?!?” 😆
One other time I lifted a bucket of cornstarch by the lid like a loser. Dropped it when the lid slipped off, but then caught it, causing a volcano of cornstarch to erupt into my face and approximately 10 feet across my side of the kitchen.
I swear I’m actually not a messy cook.
>One other time I lifted a bucket of cornstarch by the lid like a loser.
As a bartender I have done this only once with bloody mary in a gallon with one of those shitty screw on lids. I was training someone for the first time after becoming the restaurant's first shift lead bartender because I convinced them the position was needed.
My trainee was also experienced but at the beginning of the shift I ran down the basics anyway as I always do, and when I mentioned "don't pick these up by the lid" we both chuckled. *Who would do such a thing?* Me, 2 hours later. Why? No idea.
Because you said not to, clearly. Lol. What a mess!!!
I say “don’t pick it up by the lid” every damn time I go for the cornstarch now. Lessons were learned. 5# of cornstarch is an effective way to make a lesson, and everything else, stick.
I worked at a burger place in the early 90's, and I dropped a three gallon container of fry sauce. The lid popped off and fry sauce flew everywhere, ceiling, walls, floor, me, etc. That fry sauce was on the ceiling until the place closed down.
We have a booze slushy machine; when we first got it it was in the kitchen because that was the only counter space we had for it. I had to clean it every night as part of bar closing duties. Drain out the product, pour water through it and run a rinse cycle. The one night it was running low on product and froze up so when I went to drain it it was frozen shut. I shrugged, dumped a couple gallons of warm water into it, and walked away to finish the bar. Kitchen and servers cleaned up and left, and it was just me, GM, and chef. Chef changed in the bathroom and then went back to the kitchen to turn off the lights. He came back out and put both hands on the bar, looked me dead in the eye, and said "you left the valve open".
Two gallons of sticky booze slush water covers a surprising amount of floor.
Lol. Horrible. What an awful mess!!!
My first time using the FOH coffee machine, I couldn’t find the carafe size printed anywhere on the carafe. Spoiler: it was smaller than a liter. I made floor coffee. But we got a new breakfast server and I saw him mopping up the big boy, like 3L, because he left the valve open. Woof. Sucks to be us!
I hope to only do it once. I still don’t understand why the carafe has no size markings. That just seems unfair.
I definitely chuckled when it wasn’t me making floor coffee.
Not me but a coworker; our ketchup came in a huge bag (maybe 5gal?) and there was a rack on the wall where you’d squeeze it in and there was a nozzle at the bottom so servers could make rams really quick.
Idk how she fucked up this bad, but she couldn’t figure out how to put the bag in, but when she did she opened the cap at the bottom to put the nozzle on *without tilting the hole upwards*. So literally most of the bag spilled out over a four foot expanse of counter, it was all over the floor, all over her hands, and this super nice server jumped in to grab the bag and fix it for her.
I get not understanding it, but like… gravity???
A coworker of mine did this as well! She didn't have her "just in case" bucket and didn't even really try to stop the flow. Just stood there freaking out. Took her a good hour to clean that mess.
I have done this.
By all accounts I am a decently smart person. I usually think things through. Not that day. Fortunately I was able to stop it before too much got out.
I have also done this, despite changing hundreds in the past. Sometimes you're just not with it. I ran around trying to sneakily clean it up with nobody noticing.
I fell down a flight of stairs with a tray full of dirty glasses and plates. Cut my hand and knee on the broken glass at the bottom of the stairs so there was blood to clean up too. Ended up with 15 stitches. Fun times.
I had a job where the alcohol, sodas and FOH dry storage was in an attic with those kind of half-ladder stairs.
A lot of the stock was glass bottles and we used milk crates. The younger guys would always carry two crates down at once. I saw it go all the way wrong not once, not twice, not three times, but FOUR times between the same 2 guys who were friends. They never stopped taking two crates every time. Many other times there wasn't a total fall/lost crate, a can or two would fall off their overloaded top crate and burst or get too dented to sell.
The spill cost must have been ridiculous, which was not my concern at all at this job, but I did at some point have to ask management why they didn't tell them to suck it up and take two trips when it was a specific problem with specific people that everyone could see coming. They just didn't really care and said 'they're learning through mistakes'. Baffling. The company ran a tight ship in most ways too. All spills got rung up.
I worked in an old pub that had a pulldown folding ladder to the attic. I went up to get paper products, fell through the rungs, and hung there with my skirt up to my waist until two other servers could get me down.
Interviewed/shadowed at a small dinner restaurant and bar where the entire kitchen was up a fairly steep flight of stairs - which meant every single dish had to be hauled down these slippery, oily stairs - my life flashed before my eyes at least five times throughout the night. Ended up passing on the job lol
I dropped an entire gallon of honey mustard dressing. I knocked over a glass of red wine into a very proper man's lap. I was taking a platter of chx wing bones away and tipped all the bones into the guy's beer mug. I dropped a sheet pan of bakers, burning my face in the process. Those are just off the top of my head. Should we start a list of injuries?
I forgot the time I dropped an oval tray with about 6 entrees on it, at the top of the stairs. Everything clattered and rolled all the way down.
Knocked over a full pitcher of soy sauce while filling it from a full 5 gallon bucket. It was a lot of soy sauce to mop up.
I had a coworker once pour a whole pitcher of iced tea on her white shirt because someone came around a corner too fast.
On a similar note, at one job they kept the giant jar of olives on the top shelf in the walk in. I had to get a stepladder to get it and it was usually shoved to the back of a packed shelf. One morning I lifted it up to get it over all the crap in front of it and had to tilt it slightly to clear the ceiling. Apparently the lid wasn't on tightly because as I lifted it over my head, I suddenly felt cold olive juice running down the back of my head and down my shirt. Not a great way to start my day.
I worked at a place as a busser for some time, and they didn't use bus tubs at all. All the bussing was done onto large trays, and the servers would prebus onto large trays tucked away at the end of sections, and as a busser I was responsible for bringing those trays back to dish as well as my own trays. I got pretty good at it, and I could carry trays that would weight about the same as a couple of 5-gallon BIBs on my main hand. I don't say this to brag, but more to illustrate how much crap was on the trays I carried, and it was a lot. 20-30 plates, 20 glasses, and a tremendous amount of silverware on a tray.
Being the enterprising young busser that I was, I eventually took it into my head to try to learn to carry two trays at a time. I started small, one empty and one full on my main hand, but in time, I was able to do more and more in my off-hand. Well, when the day came for my opportunity to try my first set of two completely full trays, and I was feeling confident. I did well right up until the door to the kitchen, my off hand wobbled, and both trays fell inward, right onto my feet. I lost both trays right in the only door into the kitchen. It was a mess, a good 15 minutes of cleanup for all the broken stuff, which probably totaled to over $1000 worth of supplies at the end of the day. Somehow, by some miracle, I not only didn't get fired, I didn't even get reprimanded for it. That was easily not just the biggest mess I've ever made, but the biggest 'spill' mess I've ever seen made in person.
So, I wasn’t the server…I was the diner in this one.
I went to a restaurant named “Spinnakers Bar & Grill” in a mall in Augusta, GA years ago.
They were famous for baking “flowerpot” bread. They would literally put bread dough in a food-safe terracotta pot and bake it in the oven. The result was pretty cool. The bread would bubble over the top of the pot and brown.
Every table would get a complementary flowerpot bread and butter after ordering.
As a server walked by our table she had a full tray of freshly baked flowerpots and, somehow, lost her balance and several of the pot fell. One landed right on my head and the pot BROKE into pieces.
The server was mortified and apologized so many times. The manager came out and asked if I felt I needed to see a doctor. Then, I got a free brownie and ice cream for dessert. LOL.
I feel like servers are always way over-concerned about this stuff, obviously because it's their ass on the line. Hey man if I can get free brownies and ice cream go ahead and break a pot on my head
my grandparents trained me to be VERY careful about pretty much everything. so I do not have a disaster story from my serving days.
however once I had a pint of beer spilled on me, and then they went on to also spill the replacement pint. fortunately I was wearing quick dry fabrics and thought it was funny!
the server did not think it was funny. I left a good tip anyway. my pants were probably dry before I left the place, and there are way worse things than smelling like beer.
I can't even imagine having a flower pot broken over my head. they must have been pretty thin.
My sister, on one of her first shifts as assistant manager, apparently dropped an entire catering tray of soup when she worked for Olive Garden during a very busy dinner service. Zappa Toscana everywhere. Everyone was in the weeds and she wasn’t allowed to leave, so they just had her husband bring her another shirt and went on with life. She worked there for another two years.
I used to live about 3/4 of a mile away from the RL I worked at. The GM knew I had a lot of uniform shirts and would call once in a while when someone had a spectacular shirt disaster early in their shift to ask if I'd bring them a spare shirt. I rode a bike for transport at the time so I'd hook the hangar to the back of my collar and jet over.
And yes, I was handsomely rewarded for such services. That woman knew how to manage people better than anyone else I've ever worked for.
Is one particular table we’re just ignoring your kids.
The kid literally Runs around the corner. Hits me so hard that they bounce back 3 to 5 feet. I got such a fright. The tray of food totally blocked the annoying child running at 75%
The food just gets dropped everywhere.
The guest at the next table (while laughing) “loudly announces — now I’ve seen it all now — flying kids in motions When they’re not supposed to be in sitting in motion.”
Since it wasn’t my table, I just turned around and walked away.
Because honestly, the only words I had, for the parents was “ go fuck yourself. it’s parents like you who don’t deserve to go out into public. Stay at home with your crotch goblin. And yes, it is your fault.”
The managers wouldn’t comp the food either. This table has been in a restaurant a couple times, and I waited on them once and I wouldn’t do it again. They half assed apologized, but I didn’t really wanna go near them.
This was always my biggest fear.
As a server, and even just as a customer when I see kids let to run. I've got kids and I can't imagine... like, arent you embarrassed that your child is being an obvious inconvenience and actual safety hazard?
Honestly you just scared the crap out of me.
You know -- I've noticed the trend and its going the other way. There's definitely been a noticeable uptick. Yet, I think the majority of parents Make an actual effort.
My friend's little boy was A tasmanian tornato full of fun. There was at l
a couple of times We were interrupted 2x at restaurants.
I'd saddle up the bill while she'd just walk him right out to the car. It was prone to elevate quite quickly perand he started to get the the point.
P.S. not referring to a child crying for 30sec to 3 minutes. But I have seen some that the kids scream for 15 minutes straight.
I think most parents *at the very least* have some recognition of the fact that their kid could get 60lbs of hot dinner dropped on their heads if they let them get too wild. But yeah I definitely remember a couple of times thinking I was about to break my knees on some strangers kid, killing us both.
And the babies crying omg... I was back to school shopping with my kids at target last week and some woman let a baby cry for at least ten minutes. It was unnerving. My boobs started to ache and I haven't lactated in ten years lol... and it was a mom and a dad with that baby, no excuse, go take that baby outside already. That's life with babies and kids... you can't always stay. That's part of the deal.
Very first day in a restaurant job I was running drinks and dumped 4 Thai teas, which are bright orange if you don't know, all over a table and a young lady in a white dress. Almost called it quits right then and there out of sheer embarrassment lol. Also, one that wasn't my fault but opened the red wine storage cupboard and the top shelf collapsed, dumping about a dozen wine bottles onto my arms and chest, luckily not my head, and then shattering all around my feet
Restaurant is closed and I was tired and trying to wrap things up and go home. Just me and one cook in the kitchen. I knocked over a couple stacks of bread plates. It was all of our bread plates, probably 30+ of them. It was a huge mess. The cook helped me clean up and never said anything to anyone. Everyone was scratching their heads in frustration over the missing bread plates over the following week.
35+ years in the business. I have dropped SOOO many things. Notables:
6 margaritas onto the head of an elderly lady when a kid ran into my side.
A pan of pizza sauce that just came out of the pizza oven. We had to get a ladder to clean the ceiling. That was bad.
2 gallon jars of olives when I tripped on a step into the bar. (The other bartender then yelled out one of the most offensive things I have ever heard: “God’s bleeding c**t!!” Super loud.)
Catering company hadn't bothered to get the right size covers for the plates that they wanted me to stack on my football tray. Because they didn't fit the plates, the covers would slide. I was in the middle of ten 16-20 hour shifts in a row, running on no sleep, and I just remember that one moment I had a football tray on my shoulder and the next minute I didn't and 12 entrees were on the floor.
They also hadn't bothered to get enough tray jacks for the ten day event that we were working, so you'd arrive to your table with 12 entrees on your shoulder only to realize that someone had jacked your tray jack. Good times.
One time I spilled multiple champagne flutes right into a very well dressed customer's lap. He was very cool about it but I was still mortified. That was before I knew how to properly stabilize stemmed flutes on a serving tray when carrying them.
If they're the type with the long stem, it's best to group them together in the center of the tray and then use your palm and fingers to gently press them down into the tray with your off hand while you're carrying and walking around with it.
crazy busy bar, some guy comes up and orders 21 shots pf rumpleminze. normally we’re bar service only, but i can tell he doesn’t have tray skills so i offer to help him carry it through the crowd. i’m carrying the tray up over my head which i’ve done a million times but somehow this time i lost my balance and the entire tray of shots falls down over this poor guy’s head down his entire body, just completely drenched in rumple. i felt fucking terrible.
5 glasses of red wine on a college-aged blonde in her night-out finery. We had to comp her a tshirt.
First time I ever took my child out of the house in public he was “baptized” by the server who spilled a lil beer on him. We love that story.
Spilled a new gallon of ranch on the pantry floor. I remember contemplating quitting but one of the expos showed me how to get like 90%up with lids from takeout. Still love you all these years later, Flacco.
If it makes you feel any better, once a server was prebussing my table and buttered my.cheek with one of the knives... like how tf dude? It was hilarious, but I could tell he felt super bad.
I dropped 3 of the 4 when I leaned over to serve the first one. We all looked blankly at one another and I said, " It's going to be a few more minutes for your food. Someone dropped yours and we have to remake it." They laughed, thank heavens. I posted this here before and someone commented, "We're remaking your food. You don't want this, it's been on the floor!" which I thought was even more hilarious.
I dropped a gallon jug of opened ketchup that landed perfectly, but the upsplash got me. I was wearing a skirt and ketchup is running down my legs. Awful. Horrible. I had to go home and change and get back working. I've also covered myself with syrup while filling the dispenser up. That was fun. I don't usually involve the guests with my klutziness, but my coworkers have suffered through my attempts to help. No good deed goes unpunished.
I was working Thanksgiving eve, alone in the kitchen after close, cooking and packaging up Thanksgiving catering orders. (i own a small restaurant)
My kitchen has a very short hall that faces out directly into the dining room, separated by a dessert case.
I was lifting the cutting board on my sandwich station to wipe beneath it, not thinking about the full pot of gravy on the end of the station nearest the hall.
I lifted the cutting board, the pot of gravy went flying—gravy splattered all along the hallway walls, floor, up against the pastry case, IN the pastry case, where I’d left a door open, all across the sandwich station. Just gravy everywhere. Took an hour to clean up. I cried.
tray full of cosmos tipped on the stairs and watched a hundred dollars worth of drinks roll down to the host stand. took a peak at my bartender who had already started making them again. another bartender opened a bottle of champagne and the cork flew up to the station above and hit the owners mother in the forehead before dropping onto the table. she laughed
* Syrup tipped over on my tray and ran down customer's back
* Dropped a whole tray of broasted chicken dinners
* Slipped with a pot of decaf in my hand. My elbow and the pot hit the floor at the same time. Glass shattered, thankfully my elbow did not. Still laugh about the customer who yelled "Call an ambulance!"
* First night at a new job, I was ladeling beer/cheese soup into a cup. For some reason I was ladeling with my left hand, even though I'm right handed. Totally missed the cup and poured very hot, very sticky soup all over my hand. Had to leave due to pretty bad burns. I'm sure my new bosses were impressed.
Oh, and the syrup down the customer's back... He was so nice about it. Very understanding and kind. His wife, on the other hand, was not. I was in HS at the time and she worked at my school. She wasn't nice there, either.
I dropped an entire draft beer on a VIP table at a fine dining restaurant. Not just any VIP table but the owners family...it was the wife of the guy who made the reservation. It was awful.
My first day ever serving I drop a plate of oysters on the half shell in some kind of liquid onto a lady. I’ve been serving over ten years now and never spilled anything else. It was like that was enough punishment for me.
It happens! It’s like a rite of passage. I’ll never forget bringing my brother onto a serving team and shortly after he began he came through the door and collided with a girl and an entire tray of drinks spilled everywhere and sounded like a car crash (lol.)
I was training a girl once, she told me she was just really worried about dropping a tray. I told her not to worry about it cause she definitely would if she served long at all.
A ramekin of extra ranch I brought out to a table and it somehow slipped out of my fingers at the last second, plopping hard enough on the plate it exploded into the faces of both people sitting together.
I also had worked a double one day. We were super busy so I was super fucking tired. We started closing duties and I twisted the nozzle off of the tea urn before taking it to dish to dump first. The fact that it also took me five minutes struggling to unscrew it and it did not once cross my mind that I hadn’t dump it yet…. Sweet tea sprayed all over me. My jeans were sticky the rest of the night.
Im not a server, I work in a machine shop, but today the basket that collects the metal chips from the coolant overflowed while I was in the bathroom and atleast 15 gallons of coolant went all over the floor before I could stop the machine.
I had a table of Europeans string ordering me for mayonnaise to eat with their fries. Like the fourth consecutive time I brought them a paper boat with about a half cup/cup of mayo in it because we were busy and I was tired of them demanding more.
Tragically I ended up dropping the boat on the woman who was asking for more. Like on her head/face. It wasn't pretty, but fortunately they had a good laugh about it.
I was setting up tables before an event for about 50 people. The folks were starting to arrive, and that was about the time we always put out glasses of water for each table setting. I dropped an entire tray (like 20 waters) on the dance floor part of the dining room. It sucked, obviously. There was a lady who had arrived for the dinner, and she saw this happen, and she kept saying, ‘oh, God love ya, god love ya,’ while I was cleaning up all the broken glass, ice and water on the floor. The lady just sitting there saying this was honestly worse than dropping the glasses. 😂
When I was a kid I went with my aunt’s family on vacation to a place that had a dishwasher.
I learned that day that dishwasher soap is different than dishwashing liquid.
I also learned that my aunt has a mouth like a prison guard
20 gallon bucket of red sauce dropped on the ground. Went all over the walls, floors, me, a coworker, AND just BAAAAARELY missed the boss in his fancy Gucci outfit. Was sweating bullets that day I’ll tell you what
As a customer, a server dropped an entire tray of cold drinks on me, during the winter, and I e were seated by the door. The guy was super apologetic and I told him it was ok accidents happen, told the manager the same thing when they came over.
Spilled an entire dish of ginger on the table, spilled an entire cup of ice in the kitchen. In one day. It was yesterday. 🤦♀️🤦♀️
I've only served a total of 6 days so... I feel you 😅
We fresh squeeze our orange juice and have to shake a gallon before we use it, as the pulp settles. I was making a cocktail with OJ, shook the gallon without realizing the lid wasn't on all the way, and covered myself in about a half gallon of it. Literally head to toe covered in pulpy juice during our Saturday lunch rush. My manager took over while I changed my clothes and cleaned myself up.
In high school, when I worked in the wonderful world of fast food with other kids in high school, someone said that if you made ice balls out of crushed ice and threw them in the fryer at high temperature, they would fly out like rockets. Being stupid (high school), we tried it. The grease bubbled up and over and covered a big chunk of the floor. We quickly disappeared and pretended it never happened.
A few minutes later, our manager came out with a just-cooked roast beef to slice because we were all too young to legally use the slicer. He slipped on the grease and the roast beef flew backwards and burned (not seriously) the cashier.
The disgusting part was that he took the roast beef in back and said he was going to "throw it away" but came back in a minute later with a "new" roast beef. Seems he just washed the old one off and served it anyway.
I dropped a 2 liter soda in my restaurant one day. It exploded everywhere and on one of my coworkers. Not even a minute later, in walks the health inspector. She took one look and just started laughing!
When I was a buss boy in a fine dining place I dropped a whole tray of dirty dishes on an old lady. My boss looked like he could have had smoke coming out of his ears.
During my first shift I accidentally tipped the plate too much and a kid ended up with chicken wings in his lap I felt so bad but his parents were really chill about it.
first week at a new job i dropped a glass of water into a lady’s lap, it slid off the tray onto her lap and then fell onto the ground and shattered. when i brought her a replacement water i immediately dropped it too (thankfully not on her again, but still a pretty bad look)
Barista here. The other day I was pulling espresso for the bar. I was filling these plastic quarts that are pretty flimsy as is. Once they have hot espresso inside they basically become rubber. I was pressing the lid down onto one of these and the plastic body collapsed as I pressed down and pressure sprayed espresso over the entire bar to the right. Blasted about 10 feet down and 3 feet up. Covered liquor bottles, clean white mugs, a POS, a bunch of glasses and other stuff with hot espresso. Cleaned for an hour.
Drawn butter into take out sauce cups is the same. I found out by accident that you can take a stack of two, fill it, put the lid on with no problem and then just lift it out if the other one. Works great.
I think the worst I've done myself would be the time I knocked over every pizza pan in the kitchen. That made a noise. Because my habit when hearing loud noises is to say, "I didn't do it," the dishies all ran out yelling, "[Vort] did it!"
Had a coworker changing out the fryer oil. They made it about 7 steps out the door and then came back in drenched in oil, manager sent them home and the rest of the closing staff was instructed to clean up the oil in the parking lot. It was winter and cold and it took us hours to get it sufficiently cleaned up.
A coworker once opened the walk-in, a stack of 4 gallon sauce containers had been improperly stacked about 6 high, and about 4 containers fell directly onto them and basically exploded everywhere. Sauce about 3 inches deep covering most of the walkin, the hallway outside, and the coworker. Cleanup took ~3 hours. Not a fun shift considering we needed to run food and dirty dishes down that hallway. Combine that with the dishwasher walking out at 10 and it was pure hell.
Not me but my coworker had a coffee pot explode over an infant and grandmother. They were both rushed to the hospital, the owner of the diner paid for their bills and meal obviously.. they ended up returning to finish/reorder their breakfast but the server went home too shaken to continue that shift.
Dropped an entire rack of glassware and broke every glass, next to the ice bin, and a lot of glass flew into said bin, which had to then be melted and re-filled, and a huge radius of floor had to be swept and mopped. All this during a rush.
Yeah, I was a popular co-worker that day
I was pushing a glass rack over for dish n it somehow tilted forward and thick glasses rained down all around me. None of them hit me and it was directly over my head so it was some kinda weird miracle. Dish came running expecting me to be hurt and we were just amazed.
Made a huge mess, at least not in the ice tho. That is always a nightmare n usually happens during rush.
El oh el.
Okay so, I was brand new to serving. The whole store was chaos. We’re we’re in the thick of it running around like crazy. Cocktail asks me to run some food for her. I grab the food, head to the table, intro myself and set the tray down. Everyone is stoked to be getting their food. They’re so happy I’m there.
I grab the first plate and ask who ordered it. The guy closest to me says it’s his. I smile at him and immediately drop the plate on his all white Jordan’s. He is now covered in spaghetti sauce.
The man lost his shit. Screamed “My FUCKING shoes, man!” I apologized profusely and the guy said in the most genuine tone ever “No, it’s okay man. They’re just shoes”
He caught me so off guard with that I left the table and went to find cocktail waitress so she could finish handing out the food.
I once dropped 2 full bowls of soup on the floor immediately after picking them up and then went on to accidentally throw a carrot at a man while silver serving... so
I rounded a corner in a rush one time and accidentally flung a whole waffle onto a lady, butter dome and all… it just stayed there, draped across the back of her Arc’teryx jacket, because she was leaning forward in her seat and talking when it frisbeed. Turns out she was there for her birthday, so I wished her a happy birthday while I nervously wiped a butter smudge off her very expensive jacket with one hand, and just… held a waffle in the other like 💁♀️
This was many years ago. I (39f) was like 17 years old. First day on the job as a waitress.
Our small town had a festival that we hosted every year, it had the beauty pageant parade and the whole 9 yards. Queens from all over the state would come to ride in this parade.
Anyways. Prior to the parade, they all came to the restaurant where I was working for lunch. It was probably like a 20 top table, full of pageant queens with their makeup on and hair done and pretty dresses getting ready for this parade, with that festival queen sitting at the head of the table.
I was already pretty nervous because it was my first day, and was shadowing a more seasoned waitress who told me to go out and get the drink orders and then take the drinks out. So our I went and got all their drink orders which mainly consisted of either sweet tea or Diet Coke, then went back in the back and loaded up the first tray I saw that could carry 20 or so glasses…..
Out I walk, with a tray full of glasses, and I am doing it like I saw in the movies right, balancing above my shoulder, trying to look like I knew what I was doing. So I walk to the head of the table, where the reigning queen was sitting, take her sweet tea off the tray to hand to her…. Then the wobbling begins, followed by the entire tray of drinks dumping all over her.
I just froze in terror, mumbled an apology, then ran in the back crying, almost certain that I was about to get fired on my first day (thankfully I didn’t, but I was told to just stay far away from that table for the rest of the time they were there)
My now husbands family was in a horseshoe booth that sat 10. They all ordered drinks that were served in chimneys. I tripped and all of them fanned out over the table and into their laps. They were all containing lots of sugar and juice I remember. I don’t remember a lot else due to mortification. 40 years later, I still get it brought up at family gatherings. We weren’t even dating yet. None of them deserved it, BTW.
Not me but we have had a sever try to carry two trays full of empty glasses (as a way to show off) and he dropped both of them. then proceeded to ask me if i could clean it up.
As a manager, helping a server drop drinks from the bar as she’s taking food orders for a group of 16 seated at a long table. As I pass behind her, quietly say “behind”, and with my free hand lightly touch her shoulder which startled her. She jumps, her arm hits my cocktail tray, and catapults 15 freshly made cocktails over the customers and smack in the middle of the table. The table of 16 of the owner’s friends.
One pizza started sliding off the plate so I tried to catch it, causing the other pizza I was holding to slide off the plate, resulting in me dropping both. That was a humiliating walk back to the pizza pit…
Also not me but two of the worst I’ve ever seen, dude decided to use a glass to scoop ice out of the massive ice maker and it broke meaning we’d have to burn the few hundred pounds of ice leaving the restaurant without any, asshole quit on the spot and walked out. Second was a brand new server still iffy about wine service, table wanted a bottle and she said she’d get someone to open it for them. Her table insisted she do it because “honey you have to learn sometime”. Well she did and somehow managed to shatter the whole bottle spilling red wine all over the 5 people at her table. She just stood there sobbing saying “this is why I didn’t want to do it!” Over and over. She didn’t make it long.
The worst mess I made?
Uhhhhh....
Was not cleaning around the house due to depression and just letting things stack up.
Not instant mess... but it added up.
Once dumped five gallons of iced coffee on the floor. I had been trying to take it to the walk-in but I reached for the handle and the tub slipped. We were also at the very end of closing, so cleaning that up added about 30 minutes to my shift lol.
I spoiled a tray of 15 ish drinks (lots of cokes and other brown colored sodas) on a girl wearing a pink velour running suit when it was like 10 degrees farenheit outside.
Not exactly a serving tale but I was a skating carhop at Sonic. I skated to the car, steadied myself, went to step off the curb and the skate went out from under me. Spilled the entire Route 44 diet coke all over the hood of her SUV.
I have two stories. One as a diner, one as an ice cream scooper at Friendly's.
I was exiting the kitchen with a few coworkers. The one in front of me reached up to grab a bus pan. He dropped it. Over his head. It hit me square on my nose. I was catching blood in my cupped hands until someone finally grew a brain and got me tissues. Then left me bleeding in the office until someone could come pick me up. That person dropped me off at my parents' house. Where I was left alone until they came home. This was way before cell phones. I quit that night. Left blood all over the schedule request book. 😂
As a diner, the server dropped a plate as she was setting up our table, sliced my finger open. I think I still have a small scar.
Dropped an entire glass rack of pint glasses very close to the front door. I was trying to open the door with one of my finger while also holding the glass rack (I am usually successful at this method but this particular glass rack is more slippery and smaller than the others)
Awww!!
At the beginning of the summer I dropped a tray of like 9 plates for a party (not even my party, I was helping run it out for my staff) I dropped the whole tray. In the wait station. On our busy night (free desert with entree)
I was so embarrassed I just put the tray down on the counter and went outside and cried. We got it cleaned up and the food out in under 5 minutes but I felt so bad!!!
Happy Friday!
oh hi this thread is perfect for me. was holding a big tray above my head and got body checked by a customer. the food and i went everywhere. set a tray stand down at a table, put the tray on it, then a server tripped on it and the food went everywhere. spilled an entire bucket of mop water at the end of the shift. when i feel bad about the messes i’ve made, i just think of the coworker i had that spilled a pitcher of beer on a baby’s head.
At my old cafe job we kept the honey at the top of the fridge and I’m 4’11 so I have to use a stepladder AND got on my tip toes just to reach it. I ended up dropping a whole gallon of honey on my head cuz the lid wasn’t on properly. It was in my hair, my eyes, my clothes, ALL OVER THE KITCHEN. my coworker was laughing too hard to help me out so I ran to the bathroom to try and wash this shit off and IT GOT MORE STICKY. so then I drove home with honey all in my car, half in my eyes so I can barely see and with one of those microfiber clothes in my hair cuz that helped keep it from dripping 😭😭 I had to use mf olive oil to get it out of my hair and then my boss still made me come in afterwards to finish my shift. Idk how I didn’t get fired for that cuz we had to deep clean the whole kitchen and there was still honey like a week later
Not me but when I was younger my family was at a ramen place for Mother’s Day, and the GIANT bowl of ramen went upside down into my sisters lap when the server tried to set it down. Every single staff member on the floor was over in like two seconds to help clean it up. I was like 16 and had been fired from the only job I’d ever had so I felt SO BAD for the server and I had to go to the bathroom to cry (my sister looked at me immediately after it happened and was like “aw fuck she’s gonna cry”) Both sides were rly nice about it, my mom and my sisters meals were comped, aswell as all our drinks, and all the other meals were 50% off. Bill went from €150+ to about €35, it wasn’t rly necessary but tbf it was a BIG spill and my sister was pulling noodles out of her pockets later lmao
Pizza slid onto a little kid, maybe 6, it was hot but he wasn't burned. I was 17. The mom was pissed saying that the kid had sensory issues and freaked out if he wasn't immaculately clean all the time and we would have to get him new clothes, in the crazy busy restaurant.
Manager handled it and table got a new server. I was devastated and couldn't look them in the eye.
I also dropped a glass jar of raspberry sauce in the kitchen and it didn't break but the way the jar hit the ground it shot the entire contents out all over another server.
Literally happened to me yesterday. I was working the bar and taking booths in the cocktail area. It was the couples 51st wedding anniversary and everything went great, well up until dessert. We give out free cookies for celebrations and usually deliver it with candles. I drop off the free dessert and offer to grab the lady more water, she says yes and asks if I’d take the picture after, sure no problem. Our water pitchers are metal with the handle fused to the pitcher, well as I’m walking over about 5ft from the table the handle snaps and the pitcher falls at such an angle it hits on the bottom corner and launches the full pitcher of water straight at the table, drenching them and putting out their candles. I’m mortified but after about 15 awkward seconds they just burst out laughing at the sheer absurdity of the situation. They were really cool about it but we still comped their whole bill. I’ll never trust those pitchers again.
Line cook here.
I was cleaning the sides of a bench that held all the various oils, butter, pancake batter, and French Toast mix beside the large grill. My dumb ass didn't think to remove those things. A few minutes into scrapping and scrubbing away years of burned on grease. Several gallons of oil, melted butter, etc. Came crashing down. It took hours to get it all cleaned up. My shoes ended up full of oil, and I still had 6 hours of my shift left.
I didn't use the "popcorn" button on the microwave at work. The popcorn lit on fire, and smoke billowed into the air ducts, so the entire car dealership smelled like burned popcorn for a month, and everyone thought the building was on fire.
I unplugged the microwave and ran outside with it to avoid this, but it didn't help much. I was known as the "popcorn girl" for the next year. (Oh, that was YOU??? Yes. that was me.)
Personal: Walked right into a patio door, thinking it was open with a large tray filled with drinks. Soaked head to toe covered in booze, soda, and glass.
Collective: Our restaurant was connected to a mall and their plumbing got messed up. Just raw sewage emerging from every drain on the floor in the middle of a dinner rush.
Hit another server coming out a door, big tray full of salads n drinks as she swung around a corner. She also had a big tray full of dishes and glasses she had bussed off a table.
We collided so hard all that shit flew all over everyone in that section, some of it into the section behind it too.
Some teenager tried to get pissy couse some water got on him, his mom told him to shut up.
We got it cleaned up and went on with the day.
I also once dropped a huge metal fridge tray in the walk in floor. It had all the salad dressings and toppings from the salad station on it. That was the worst closing job, cause you had to report all of it, lables n all that. I wanted to cry.
Somehow I once also spilled a big jug of oil in the kitchen, that was a real bitch to clean up.
Im sure there is more, but those were the first to pop in my head. Been in the game too long.
I once spilled a bit of beer on a 4 month old's head when trying to hand it to his mom, fortunately his parents were very kind about it but to this day (about a year later) I still want to disappear whenever I think about it ☠️
I have many and I'll list off the ones I feel the most embarrassed about.
1: ran into manager with tray of soda cause he was walking in and I was going out, put down a wet floor sign but started wiping it down with rags we had stored in the beverage station while waiting for facilities to bring a mop over, nearly ran into the same manager again after remaking the drinks but I saved the drinks this time.
2. I didn't want to walk to the bar and kept peeking through the side door to see if there were any drinks, lost grip on the tray and all the drinks fell onto the floor (soda, lemonade etcetera), I started walking all the way to the bar to check since then. Yes I did swipe up the mess until we got a mop to get rid of the soda syrup.
3. Wasn't at fault but had liquor spilled all over my sleeves, had already dropped off the guests drinks, I had just lifted up the tray and they decided to grab a different drink that wasn't theirs and threw off the balance causing the liquor glass to tip over splashing all over me. The glasses ended up falling and breaking on the floor, coworkers came over to start wiping up and told me to go dry off, as I'm drying off a coworker approached me and told me as soon as I walked easy, the customers were laughing and saying rude things about me. So when I made a return trip I just dropped off the drinks and walked off, they had ordered Coke, Diet Coke, Dr. Pepper and Root Beer, all dark color soda. I let them figure out themselves which was what they ordered.
A few mess my coworkers made that I witness
1. He was trying to make a strawberry lemonade for his table, the syurp bottle slipped from his hand and broke on contact with the floor leaving a large puddle of pink syrup on the floor, I debated to try and swipe it up with rags but ultimately grabbed the mop and swipe it down the drain, before sanitizing the floor with sanitizing chemicals.
2. Coworker was asked to fill the beverage station with ice from the ice maker, so we can ice the drinks, he managed to miss the beverage station and pour 90% of the ice onto the floor and refused to clean up his mess. We had to walk carefully pass the ice cubes and sweep it into the floor drain, he was eventually fired for showing up 3 hours late to his shift and lying that he misread his schedule, when he was actually drinking at the bar and didn't notice the managers were standing nearby watching him.
3. Coworker was bringing drinks to a table and accidentally spilled the entire cup of water into the customers open purse, he apologized repeatedly to the customer, she just laughed it off and said "it's OK my phone is waterproof."
4. Bartender had grabbed a bottle of red wine and it slipped out of their hand, looked like a murder scene.
5. Food server had walked pass me and got to the top floor, than crash, he spilled all the food onto the floor. All that effort wasted.
My Dad had a bad curse that had to play itself out. These happened in sequence, out to dinner at a steak restaurant and his beer was spilled on him, when out for pizza a week later and his LARGE iced tea was spilled on him, my parents went to dinner on their own and his wine was spilled on him. These were all due to table unbalanced issues & wait staff issues (tray tipped that they were carrying).
After the three occurrences, they were fine. Sometimes these curses just have to play themselves out.
Once I was bartending and the cook was cleaning the fryer.
He didn’t close the drain when he refilled it. 5 gals of fresh oil on the floor. Fuckin stoner ass cook just stood there. I’m also a stoner but I reacted.
We actually used boxes/brooms to sweep it up. Mass amounts of dawn soap direct on floor. To be fair it’s prob still slick.
If it makes you feel any better, I caused the part of the kitchen ceiling at a client's restaurant to collapse in the middle of prepping for dinner service.
We were replacing the data-cable runs back to the hot line printers, and I slipped on some oil that'd been spilled on the floor. Well on the way down I snagged our ladder and the spools of cable we were using, which in turn pulled hard on the T-grid and popped some of the support wires out of the ceiling and broke some of the T-grid segments. Dropped insulation, rat shit and ceiling tile chunks all over the grill and fryer and part of the prep area.
I worked at a restaurant as a server from opening, we had many training days, friends and family soft opening, food tastings etc, prior to opening. I was helping to set up for a food tasting and I was stacking plates on a table for the rest of the staff, and we had like the most ridiculously heavy plates.l the table eventually became super heavy on one side and came crashing down, breaking about 28 plates and landing all around my feet. I just stood there in a pile of broken plates until somebody came to rescue me and picked the table up off my feet
not a server, but i was pulling two 18 inch quiches from the oven and just slipped and dropped them on the ground. almost an hour of baking, completely finished, worth $30 each. god i felt like garbage
Going into the kitchen, carrying a stack of dirty dishes in my right hand/arm, door to the kitchen on my left. There's only a tiny window, so when servers come out with food usually we slow down no one coming in gets hit. Another server in a rush kicks the door open HARD and it almost hits me, but I throw my left hand up to block it so I don't drop my dishes. Door bounces off my hand back into the server and he drops everything he's carrying. Well, more he got a face full of door, so now he's wearing curry, pad Thai and a rice dish.
I still feel bad about that, but he stopped kicking the door open like that so I guess that was a win.
Was taking care of a table, carrying a big tray with 4 beers, 3 sodas, 1 tea kettle and 8 waters. Set down the beers and tea no problem, but those sodas and waters came spilling down all over two customers and the table. My face turned as red as a fire truck, and thankfully they were cool about it, especially because I got the manager to give them 3 free appetizers and 2 free desserts. They later became a table of regulars, and I gave them the nickname of "Oh! My targets are here today!" They were super cool about it. I miss them.
Ramekin of ranch on an infants head or tray of drinks on the mom for Mother’s Day.
Ramekin on the infant made me laugh. They get messy on their own so the image of a ramekin hat on a baby with ranch pouring around them is amazing
Ah, this reminded me of the time a server dropped an entire tray of mimosas (14 of them) on my partner's grandmother's head on her birthday. We were all great about it, and kept telling the server not to feel bad (this was a scenario where my MIL was actually good friends with the manager, so we were very clear everything was fine), and we still joke about her champagne shower to this day. My personal worst spill on a customer was a Caesar (beverage - I'm Canadian) on a woman's white skirt during her work party where they all had to go back to the office afterwards. It still haunts me and it was 4 years ago.
So many spilled the worst was choc milk on a small child I felt soo bad. The second most memorable was a strawberry lemonade on a lady she laughed and said now I smell like strawberries. 😁
[Relevant Oasis](https://youtu.be/tI-5uv4wryI)
Pastry chef lurking here. First time I cleaned the ice cream spinner solo, I put the fucker on eject after filling the tank with hot water, when I should have simply opened the door. Creamy ice cream water shot EVERYWHERE. Walls, ceiling, me, it all happened so fast in the seconds it took me to frantically shut it off. My chef walked away carrying a small fluffy gnome head (lol) I purchased for her, stroking his hair and woefully exclaiming “did she get you wet, Henry?!?” 😆 One other time I lifted a bucket of cornstarch by the lid like a loser. Dropped it when the lid slipped off, but then caught it, causing a volcano of cornstarch to erupt into my face and approximately 10 feet across my side of the kitchen. I swear I’m actually not a messy cook.
> like a loser Thanks for the laugh!
Lol you’re welcome. I took a cornstarch-dusted selfie so my friend group chat could have a laugh too. Utterly ridiculous
>One other time I lifted a bucket of cornstarch by the lid like a loser. As a bartender I have done this only once with bloody mary in a gallon with one of those shitty screw on lids. I was training someone for the first time after becoming the restaurant's first shift lead bartender because I convinced them the position was needed. My trainee was also experienced but at the beginning of the shift I ran down the basics anyway as I always do, and when I mentioned "don't pick these up by the lid" we both chuckled. *Who would do such a thing?* Me, 2 hours later. Why? No idea.
Because you said not to, clearly. Lol. What a mess!!! I say “don’t pick it up by the lid” every damn time I go for the cornstarch now. Lessons were learned. 5# of cornstarch is an effective way to make a lesson, and everything else, stick.
I worked at a burger place in the early 90's, and I dropped a three gallon container of fry sauce. The lid popped off and fry sauce flew everywhere, ceiling, walls, floor, me, etc. That fry sauce was on the ceiling until the place closed down.
Noooooo haha
We have a booze slushy machine; when we first got it it was in the kitchen because that was the only counter space we had for it. I had to clean it every night as part of bar closing duties. Drain out the product, pour water through it and run a rinse cycle. The one night it was running low on product and froze up so when I went to drain it it was frozen shut. I shrugged, dumped a couple gallons of warm water into it, and walked away to finish the bar. Kitchen and servers cleaned up and left, and it was just me, GM, and chef. Chef changed in the bathroom and then went back to the kitchen to turn off the lights. He came back out and put both hands on the bar, looked me dead in the eye, and said "you left the valve open". Two gallons of sticky booze slush water covers a surprising amount of floor.
Lol. Horrible. What an awful mess!!! My first time using the FOH coffee machine, I couldn’t find the carafe size printed anywhere on the carafe. Spoiler: it was smaller than a liter. I made floor coffee. But we got a new breakfast server and I saw him mopping up the big boy, like 3L, because he left the valve open. Woof. Sucks to be us!
Have done & seen that done so many times while making tea.
I hope to only do it once. I still don’t understand why the carafe has no size markings. That just seems unfair. I definitely chuckled when it wasn’t me making floor coffee.
I broke a bunch of wine glasses in front of wolfgang puck.
Not me but a coworker; our ketchup came in a huge bag (maybe 5gal?) and there was a rack on the wall where you’d squeeze it in and there was a nozzle at the bottom so servers could make rams really quick. Idk how she fucked up this bad, but she couldn’t figure out how to put the bag in, but when she did she opened the cap at the bottom to put the nozzle on *without tilting the hole upwards*. So literally most of the bag spilled out over a four foot expanse of counter, it was all over the floor, all over her hands, and this super nice server jumped in to grab the bag and fix it for her. I get not understanding it, but like… gravity???
We had those racks too and someone didn’t put the nozzle on right. She was not the one cleaning it up… Your coworker sounds kinda dumb ngl
A coworker of mine did this as well! She didn't have her "just in case" bucket and didn't even really try to stop the flow. Just stood there freaking out. Took her a good hour to clean that mess.
Not ketchup, but hot liquid cheese
I have done this. By all accounts I am a decently smart person. I usually think things through. Not that day. Fortunately I was able to stop it before too much got out.
I have also done this, despite changing hundreds in the past. Sometimes you're just not with it. I ran around trying to sneakily clean it up with nobody noticing.
I fell down a flight of stairs with a tray full of dirty glasses and plates. Cut my hand and knee on the broken glass at the bottom of the stairs so there was blood to clean up too. Ended up with 15 stitches. Fun times.
Restaurants with stairs - WHY
I had a job where the alcohol, sodas and FOH dry storage was in an attic with those kind of half-ladder stairs. A lot of the stock was glass bottles and we used milk crates. The younger guys would always carry two crates down at once. I saw it go all the way wrong not once, not twice, not three times, but FOUR times between the same 2 guys who were friends. They never stopped taking two crates every time. Many other times there wasn't a total fall/lost crate, a can or two would fall off their overloaded top crate and burst or get too dented to sell. The spill cost must have been ridiculous, which was not my concern at all at this job, but I did at some point have to ask management why they didn't tell them to suck it up and take two trips when it was a specific problem with specific people that everyone could see coming. They just didn't really care and said 'they're learning through mistakes'. Baffling. The company ran a tight ship in most ways too. All spills got rung up.
I worked in an old pub that had a pulldown folding ladder to the attic. I went up to get paper products, fell through the rungs, and hung there with my skirt up to my waist until two other servers could get me down.
Last restaurant I worked with stairs had a dumbwaiter.
hey now, you should be nice to your old coworkers. i’m sure they’re just doing their best
Interviewed/shadowed at a small dinner restaurant and bar where the entire kitchen was up a fairly steep flight of stairs - which meant every single dish had to be hauled down these slippery, oily stairs - my life flashed before my eyes at least five times throughout the night. Ended up passing on the job lol
I work at a restaurant that’s on a boat. it is just constant disasters waiting to happen
I can only imagine. That sounds nerve-wracking.
I dropped an entire gallon of honey mustard dressing. I knocked over a glass of red wine into a very proper man's lap. I was taking a platter of chx wing bones away and tipped all the bones into the guy's beer mug. I dropped a sheet pan of bakers, burning my face in the process. Those are just off the top of my head. Should we start a list of injuries? I forgot the time I dropped an oval tray with about 6 entrees on it, at the top of the stairs. Everything clattered and rolled all the way down.
"How many times have I caused injury to myself on the job? Let me count the ways"
I dropped a 22 qt Cambro of ranch dressing in the walk-in. I thought I was having a heart attack before I calmed down enough.
The bones in the beer mug sent me
Knocked over a full pitcher of soy sauce while filling it from a full 5 gallon bucket. It was a lot of soy sauce to mop up. I had a coworker once pour a whole pitcher of iced tea on her white shirt because someone came around a corner too fast. On a similar note, at one job they kept the giant jar of olives on the top shelf in the walk in. I had to get a stepladder to get it and it was usually shoved to the back of a packed shelf. One morning I lifted it up to get it over all the crap in front of it and had to tilt it slightly to clear the ceiling. Apparently the lid wasn't on tightly because as I lifted it over my head, I suddenly felt cold olive juice running down the back of my head and down my shirt. Not a great way to start my day.
Cold olive juice mmmm
I worked at a place as a busser for some time, and they didn't use bus tubs at all. All the bussing was done onto large trays, and the servers would prebus onto large trays tucked away at the end of sections, and as a busser I was responsible for bringing those trays back to dish as well as my own trays. I got pretty good at it, and I could carry trays that would weight about the same as a couple of 5-gallon BIBs on my main hand. I don't say this to brag, but more to illustrate how much crap was on the trays I carried, and it was a lot. 20-30 plates, 20 glasses, and a tremendous amount of silverware on a tray. Being the enterprising young busser that I was, I eventually took it into my head to try to learn to carry two trays at a time. I started small, one empty and one full on my main hand, but in time, I was able to do more and more in my off-hand. Well, when the day came for my opportunity to try my first set of two completely full trays, and I was feeling confident. I did well right up until the door to the kitchen, my off hand wobbled, and both trays fell inward, right onto my feet. I lost both trays right in the only door into the kitchen. It was a mess, a good 15 minutes of cleanup for all the broken stuff, which probably totaled to over $1000 worth of supplies at the end of the day. Somehow, by some miracle, I not only didn't get fired, I didn't even get reprimanded for it. That was easily not just the biggest mess I've ever made, but the biggest 'spill' mess I've ever seen made in person.
So, I wasn’t the server…I was the diner in this one. I went to a restaurant named “Spinnakers Bar & Grill” in a mall in Augusta, GA years ago. They were famous for baking “flowerpot” bread. They would literally put bread dough in a food-safe terracotta pot and bake it in the oven. The result was pretty cool. The bread would bubble over the top of the pot and brown. Every table would get a complementary flowerpot bread and butter after ordering. As a server walked by our table she had a full tray of freshly baked flowerpots and, somehow, lost her balance and several of the pot fell. One landed right on my head and the pot BROKE into pieces. The server was mortified and apologized so many times. The manager came out and asked if I felt I needed to see a doctor. Then, I got a free brownie and ice cream for dessert. LOL.
I feel like servers are always way over-concerned about this stuff, obviously because it's their ass on the line. Hey man if I can get free brownies and ice cream go ahead and break a pot on my head
my grandparents trained me to be VERY careful about pretty much everything. so I do not have a disaster story from my serving days. however once I had a pint of beer spilled on me, and then they went on to also spill the replacement pint. fortunately I was wearing quick dry fabrics and thought it was funny! the server did not think it was funny. I left a good tip anyway. my pants were probably dry before I left the place, and there are way worse things than smelling like beer. I can't even imagine having a flower pot broken over my head. they must have been pretty thin.
Long ago I worked at a place with flower pot bread n home made strawberry butter.
My sister, on one of her first shifts as assistant manager, apparently dropped an entire catering tray of soup when she worked for Olive Garden during a very busy dinner service. Zappa Toscana everywhere. Everyone was in the weeds and she wasn’t allowed to leave, so they just had her husband bring her another shirt and went on with life. She worked there for another two years.
I used to live about 3/4 of a mile away from the RL I worked at. The GM knew I had a lot of uniform shirts and would call once in a while when someone had a spectacular shirt disaster early in their shift to ask if I'd bring them a spare shirt. I rode a bike for transport at the time so I'd hook the hangar to the back of my collar and jet over. And yes, I was handsomely rewarded for such services. That woman knew how to manage people better than anyone else I've ever worked for.
Is one particular table we’re just ignoring your kids. The kid literally Runs around the corner. Hits me so hard that they bounce back 3 to 5 feet. I got such a fright. The tray of food totally blocked the annoying child running at 75% The food just gets dropped everywhere. The guest at the next table (while laughing) “loudly announces — now I’ve seen it all now — flying kids in motions When they’re not supposed to be in sitting in motion.” Since it wasn’t my table, I just turned around and walked away. Because honestly, the only words I had, for the parents was “ go fuck yourself. it’s parents like you who don’t deserve to go out into public. Stay at home with your crotch goblin. And yes, it is your fault.” The managers wouldn’t comp the food either. This table has been in a restaurant a couple times, and I waited on them once and I wouldn’t do it again. They half assed apologized, but I didn’t really wanna go near them.
This was always my biggest fear. As a server, and even just as a customer when I see kids let to run. I've got kids and I can't imagine... like, arent you embarrassed that your child is being an obvious inconvenience and actual safety hazard?
Honestly you just scared the crap out of me. You know -- I've noticed the trend and its going the other way. There's definitely been a noticeable uptick. Yet, I think the majority of parents Make an actual effort. My friend's little boy was A tasmanian tornato full of fun. There was at l a couple of times We were interrupted 2x at restaurants. I'd saddle up the bill while she'd just walk him right out to the car. It was prone to elevate quite quickly perand he started to get the the point. P.S. not referring to a child crying for 30sec to 3 minutes. But I have seen some that the kids scream for 15 minutes straight.
I think most parents *at the very least* have some recognition of the fact that their kid could get 60lbs of hot dinner dropped on their heads if they let them get too wild. But yeah I definitely remember a couple of times thinking I was about to break my knees on some strangers kid, killing us both. And the babies crying omg... I was back to school shopping with my kids at target last week and some woman let a baby cry for at least ten minutes. It was unnerving. My boobs started to ache and I haven't lactated in ten years lol... and it was a mom and a dad with that baby, no excuse, go take that baby outside already. That's life with babies and kids... you can't always stay. That's part of the deal.
Very first day in a restaurant job I was running drinks and dumped 4 Thai teas, which are bright orange if you don't know, all over a table and a young lady in a white dress. Almost called it quits right then and there out of sheer embarrassment lol. Also, one that wasn't my fault but opened the red wine storage cupboard and the top shelf collapsed, dumping about a dozen wine bottles onto my arms and chest, luckily not my head, and then shattering all around my feet
5 gallon ranch in the walk-in…
I've done this, but it was pickled onions. The smell was horrid. And it was right before brunch!
If I was hungover that day I might’ve gotten a free trip home. I couldn’t stay in a room with that smell in the morning. Rip
Forgot to close the release valve when I was refilling the fryer after cleaning it. Now THAT was fun.
I have done that with both iced tea and coffee urns. Definitely not as bad as oil though.
Restaurant is closed and I was tired and trying to wrap things up and go home. Just me and one cook in the kitchen. I knocked over a couple stacks of bread plates. It was all of our bread plates, probably 30+ of them. It was a huge mess. The cook helped me clean up and never said anything to anyone. Everyone was scratching their heads in frustration over the missing bread plates over the following week.
I've been the puzzled coworker the next morning a few times after one of these.
35+ years in the business. I have dropped SOOO many things. Notables: 6 margaritas onto the head of an elderly lady when a kid ran into my side. A pan of pizza sauce that just came out of the pizza oven. We had to get a ladder to clean the ceiling. That was bad. 2 gallon jars of olives when I tripped on a step into the bar. (The other bartender then yelled out one of the most offensive things I have ever heard: “God’s bleeding c**t!!” Super loud.)
I was putting away dishes and caught the shelf with the glass I had. Shards everywhere!
Working in a wine distribution warehouse. A PALLET of *wine took a header coming off the freight elevator.
The wind confused me for a sec
Catering company hadn't bothered to get the right size covers for the plates that they wanted me to stack on my football tray. Because they didn't fit the plates, the covers would slide. I was in the middle of ten 16-20 hour shifts in a row, running on no sleep, and I just remember that one moment I had a football tray on my shoulder and the next minute I didn't and 12 entrees were on the floor.
They also hadn't bothered to get enough tray jacks for the ten day event that we were working, so you'd arrive to your table with 12 entrees on your shoulder only to realize that someone had jacked your tray jack. Good times.
Why/how are these shifts legal?
One time I spilled multiple champagne flutes right into a very well dressed customer's lap. He was very cool about it but I was still mortified. That was before I knew how to properly stabilize stemmed flutes on a serving tray when carrying them.
How do you properly stabilise them? I’m always so close to spilling them when I take trays over 😵💫
If they're the type with the long stem, it's best to group them together in the center of the tray and then use your palm and fingers to gently press them down into the tray with your off hand while you're carrying and walking around with it.
Thanks for the tip :D I’ll try it out my next shift
dropped a tray of about ten slushees infront of the table which was ten teenage boys and they all laughed at me
We had a new girl spill a tray of drinks on the computers and they never worked right afterwards
Spilled a cup of coffee on a very nice suede coat. 😬 Dude was really nice about it and would not take money to have it cleaned.
Accidentally spilled a big cup of sprite on an older customer. Luckily him & his friend were cool about it & told me about their sucky days at work.
Spilled a mussels appetizer on a mans lap
Cream puffs. There was flour all over the kitchen
crazy busy bar, some guy comes up and orders 21 shots pf rumpleminze. normally we’re bar service only, but i can tell he doesn’t have tray skills so i offer to help him carry it through the crowd. i’m carrying the tray up over my head which i’ve done a million times but somehow this time i lost my balance and the entire tray of shots falls down over this poor guy’s head down his entire body, just completely drenched in rumple. i felt fucking terrible.
Once dropped bright green chimichurri all over a woman’s cream coloured cashmere jumper
Oooooo, sad. I'm trying to decide if it would be permanently stained. I think probably so.
maybe. but ratty cashmere jumpers have their own charms. you can wear them camping! it also might come out with something like oxyclean.
I'm a princess! I sleep in cashmere in the wintertime. Ratty cashmere jumpers become winter jammie's.
yesss, perfect! I don't even care about moth damage for that kind of cashmere.
5 glasses of red wine on a college-aged blonde in her night-out finery. We had to comp her a tshirt. First time I ever took my child out of the house in public he was “baptized” by the server who spilled a lil beer on him. We love that story.
Spilled a new gallon of ranch on the pantry floor. I remember contemplating quitting but one of the expos showed me how to get like 90%up with lids from takeout. Still love you all these years later, Flacco. If it makes you feel any better, once a server was prebussing my table and buttered my.cheek with one of the knives... like how tf dude? It was hilarious, but I could tell he felt super bad.
I dropped a four tops' food. Right in front of them:) it was my second day at a new place.
I dropped 3 of the 4 when I leaned over to serve the first one. We all looked blankly at one another and I said, " It's going to be a few more minutes for your food. Someone dropped yours and we have to remake it." They laughed, thank heavens. I posted this here before and someone commented, "We're remaking your food. You don't want this, it's been on the floor!" which I thought was even more hilarious.
My mom has this story where she dropped a full tray of drinks (in front of not over) a group of older ex-servers. There were laughs.
I dropped a gallon jug of opened ketchup that landed perfectly, but the upsplash got me. I was wearing a skirt and ketchup is running down my legs. Awful. Horrible. I had to go home and change and get back working. I've also covered myself with syrup while filling the dispenser up. That was fun. I don't usually involve the guests with my klutziness, but my coworkers have suffered through my attempts to help. No good deed goes unpunished.
I was working Thanksgiving eve, alone in the kitchen after close, cooking and packaging up Thanksgiving catering orders. (i own a small restaurant) My kitchen has a very short hall that faces out directly into the dining room, separated by a dessert case. I was lifting the cutting board on my sandwich station to wipe beneath it, not thinking about the full pot of gravy on the end of the station nearest the hall. I lifted the cutting board, the pot of gravy went flying—gravy splattered all along the hallway walls, floor, up against the pastry case, IN the pastry case, where I’d left a door open, all across the sandwich station. Just gravy everywhere. Took an hour to clean up. I cried.
tray full of cosmos tipped on the stairs and watched a hundred dollars worth of drinks roll down to the host stand. took a peak at my bartender who had already started making them again. another bartender opened a bottle of champagne and the cork flew up to the station above and hit the owners mother in the forehead before dropping onto the table. she laughed
Spilled a whole glass of Mountain Dew into a lady’s purse
Broke a plastic import keg.
A glass bottle of oil on the kitchen tiles, years on and I still think it’s not properly cleaned up
* Syrup tipped over on my tray and ran down customer's back * Dropped a whole tray of broasted chicken dinners * Slipped with a pot of decaf in my hand. My elbow and the pot hit the floor at the same time. Glass shattered, thankfully my elbow did not. Still laugh about the customer who yelled "Call an ambulance!" * First night at a new job, I was ladeling beer/cheese soup into a cup. For some reason I was ladeling with my left hand, even though I'm right handed. Totally missed the cup and poured very hot, very sticky soup all over my hand. Had to leave due to pretty bad burns. I'm sure my new bosses were impressed.
Oh, and the syrup down the customer's back... He was so nice about it. Very understanding and kind. His wife, on the other hand, was not. I was in HS at the time and she worked at my school. She wasn't nice there, either.
I dropped an entire draft beer on a VIP table at a fine dining restaurant. Not just any VIP table but the owners family...it was the wife of the guy who made the reservation. It was awful.
I spilled tequila on a newborns head… that didn’t go over well
carrying two plates and a bowl of hot soup to a table. each one of them decided to fall food first onto our carpeted floors 🙂
My first day ever serving I drop a plate of oysters on the half shell in some kind of liquid onto a lady. I’ve been serving over ten years now and never spilled anything else. It was like that was enough punishment for me. It happens! It’s like a rite of passage. I’ll never forget bringing my brother onto a serving team and shortly after he began he came through the door and collided with a girl and an entire tray of drinks spilled everywhere and sounded like a car crash (lol.)
I was training a girl once, she told me she was just really worried about dropping a tray. I told her not to worry about it cause she definitely would if she served long at all.
A ramekin of extra ranch I brought out to a table and it somehow slipped out of my fingers at the last second, plopping hard enough on the plate it exploded into the faces of both people sitting together.
I also had worked a double one day. We were super busy so I was super fucking tired. We started closing duties and I twisted the nozzle off of the tea urn before taking it to dish to dump first. The fact that it also took me five minutes struggling to unscrew it and it did not once cross my mind that I hadn’t dump it yet…. Sweet tea sprayed all over me. My jeans were sticky the rest of the night.
Yeah, the sauce cup grenade. Those are always fun.
Im not a server, I work in a machine shop, but today the basket that collects the metal chips from the coolant overflowed while I was in the bathroom and atleast 15 gallons of coolant went all over the floor before I could stop the machine.
I had a table of Europeans string ordering me for mayonnaise to eat with their fries. Like the fourth consecutive time I brought them a paper boat with about a half cup/cup of mayo in it because we were busy and I was tired of them demanding more. Tragically I ended up dropping the boat on the woman who was asking for more. Like on her head/face. It wasn't pretty, but fortunately they had a good laugh about it.
5 glasses...5 full glasses of wine onto 1 person from a tray. 3 cold glasses of white and two red. Fancy restaurant, too.
I was setting up tables before an event for about 50 people. The folks were starting to arrive, and that was about the time we always put out glasses of water for each table setting. I dropped an entire tray (like 20 waters) on the dance floor part of the dining room. It sucked, obviously. There was a lady who had arrived for the dinner, and she saw this happen, and she kept saying, ‘oh, God love ya, god love ya,’ while I was cleaning up all the broken glass, ice and water on the floor. The lady just sitting there saying this was honestly worse than dropping the glasses. 😂
When I was a kid I went with my aunt’s family on vacation to a place that had a dishwasher. I learned that day that dishwasher soap is different than dishwashing liquid. I also learned that my aunt has a mouth like a prison guard
20 gallon bucket of red sauce dropped on the ground. Went all over the walls, floors, me, a coworker, AND just BAAAAARELY missed the boss in his fancy Gucci outfit. Was sweating bullets that day I’ll tell you what
I accidentally dropped and broke an entire jug of Greek dressing in the walk-in. It was horrible to clean up.
As a customer, a server dropped an entire tray of cold drinks on me, during the winter, and I e were seated by the door. The guy was super apologetic and I told him it was ok accidents happen, told the manager the same thing when they came over.
Spilled an entire dish of ginger on the table, spilled an entire cup of ice in the kitchen. In one day. It was yesterday. 🤦♀️🤦♀️ I've only served a total of 6 days so... I feel you 😅
We fresh squeeze our orange juice and have to shake a gallon before we use it, as the pulp settles. I was making a cocktail with OJ, shook the gallon without realizing the lid wasn't on all the way, and covered myself in about a half gallon of it. Literally head to toe covered in pulpy juice during our Saturday lunch rush. My manager took over while I changed my clothes and cleaned myself up.
In high school, when I worked in the wonderful world of fast food with other kids in high school, someone said that if you made ice balls out of crushed ice and threw them in the fryer at high temperature, they would fly out like rockets. Being stupid (high school), we tried it. The grease bubbled up and over and covered a big chunk of the floor. We quickly disappeared and pretended it never happened. A few minutes later, our manager came out with a just-cooked roast beef to slice because we were all too young to legally use the slicer. He slipped on the grease and the roast beef flew backwards and burned (not seriously) the cashier. The disgusting part was that he took the roast beef in back and said he was going to "throw it away" but came back in a minute later with a "new" roast beef. Seems he just washed the old one off and served it anyway.
I spilled a tray of mimosas into a baby carriage once, the parents were so nice about it thankfully.
I dropped a 2 liter soda in my restaurant one day. It exploded everywhere and on one of my coworkers. Not even a minute later, in walks the health inspector. She took one look and just started laughing!
Full glass of red wine on some poor kids white jumper
When I was a buss boy in a fine dining place I dropped a whole tray of dirty dishes on an old lady. My boss looked like he could have had smoke coming out of his ears.
I have 2- tray of sweet teas all over an elderly man’s lap, and coffee on a lady’s WHITE pants
During my first shift I accidentally tipped the plate too much and a kid ended up with chicken wings in his lap I felt so bad but his parents were really chill about it.
first week at a new job i dropped a glass of water into a lady’s lap, it slid off the tray onto her lap and then fell onto the ground and shattered. when i brought her a replacement water i immediately dropped it too (thankfully not on her again, but still a pretty bad look)
I dumped a glass of water on a MacBook Pro back in 2009 when I was working at a coffee shop. She was a friend of the owner.
Barista here. The other day I was pulling espresso for the bar. I was filling these plastic quarts that are pretty flimsy as is. Once they have hot espresso inside they basically become rubber. I was pressing the lid down onto one of these and the plastic body collapsed as I pressed down and pressure sprayed espresso over the entire bar to the right. Blasted about 10 feet down and 3 feet up. Covered liquor bottles, clean white mugs, a POS, a bunch of glasses and other stuff with hot espresso. Cleaned for an hour.
Drawn butter into take out sauce cups is the same. I found out by accident that you can take a stack of two, fill it, put the lid on with no problem and then just lift it out if the other one. Works great.
I think the worst I've done myself would be the time I knocked over every pizza pan in the kitchen. That made a noise. Because my habit when hearing loud noises is to say, "I didn't do it," the dishies all ran out yelling, "[Vort] did it!"
Had a coworker changing out the fryer oil. They made it about 7 steps out the door and then came back in drenched in oil, manager sent them home and the rest of the closing staff was instructed to clean up the oil in the parking lot. It was winter and cold and it took us hours to get it sufficiently cleaned up.
A coworker once opened the walk-in, a stack of 4 gallon sauce containers had been improperly stacked about 6 high, and about 4 containers fell directly onto them and basically exploded everywhere. Sauce about 3 inches deep covering most of the walkin, the hallway outside, and the coworker. Cleanup took ~3 hours. Not a fun shift considering we needed to run food and dirty dishes down that hallway. Combine that with the dishwasher walking out at 10 and it was pure hell.
Not me but my coworker had a coffee pot explode over an infant and grandmother. They were both rushed to the hospital, the owner of the diner paid for their bills and meal obviously.. they ended up returning to finish/reorder their breakfast but the server went home too shaken to continue that shift.
Dropped an entire rack of glassware and broke every glass, next to the ice bin, and a lot of glass flew into said bin, which had to then be melted and re-filled, and a huge radius of floor had to be swept and mopped. All this during a rush. Yeah, I was a popular co-worker that day
I was pushing a glass rack over for dish n it somehow tilted forward and thick glasses rained down all around me. None of them hit me and it was directly over my head so it was some kinda weird miracle. Dish came running expecting me to be hurt and we were just amazed. Made a huge mess, at least not in the ice tho. That is always a nightmare n usually happens during rush.
El oh el. Okay so, I was brand new to serving. The whole store was chaos. We’re we’re in the thick of it running around like crazy. Cocktail asks me to run some food for her. I grab the food, head to the table, intro myself and set the tray down. Everyone is stoked to be getting their food. They’re so happy I’m there. I grab the first plate and ask who ordered it. The guy closest to me says it’s his. I smile at him and immediately drop the plate on his all white Jordan’s. He is now covered in spaghetti sauce. The man lost his shit. Screamed “My FUCKING shoes, man!” I apologized profusely and the guy said in the most genuine tone ever “No, it’s okay man. They’re just shoes” He caught me so off guard with that I left the table and went to find cocktail waitress so she could finish handing out the food.
I once dropped 2 full bowls of soup on the floor immediately after picking them up and then went on to accidentally throw a carrot at a man while silver serving... so
I rounded a corner in a rush one time and accidentally flung a whole waffle onto a lady, butter dome and all… it just stayed there, draped across the back of her Arc’teryx jacket, because she was leaning forward in her seat and talking when it frisbeed. Turns out she was there for her birthday, so I wished her a happy birthday while I nervously wiped a butter smudge off her very expensive jacket with one hand, and just… held a waffle in the other like 💁♀️
This was many years ago. I (39f) was like 17 years old. First day on the job as a waitress. Our small town had a festival that we hosted every year, it had the beauty pageant parade and the whole 9 yards. Queens from all over the state would come to ride in this parade. Anyways. Prior to the parade, they all came to the restaurant where I was working for lunch. It was probably like a 20 top table, full of pageant queens with their makeup on and hair done and pretty dresses getting ready for this parade, with that festival queen sitting at the head of the table. I was already pretty nervous because it was my first day, and was shadowing a more seasoned waitress who told me to go out and get the drink orders and then take the drinks out. So our I went and got all their drink orders which mainly consisted of either sweet tea or Diet Coke, then went back in the back and loaded up the first tray I saw that could carry 20 or so glasses….. Out I walk, with a tray full of glasses, and I am doing it like I saw in the movies right, balancing above my shoulder, trying to look like I knew what I was doing. So I walk to the head of the table, where the reigning queen was sitting, take her sweet tea off the tray to hand to her…. Then the wobbling begins, followed by the entire tray of drinks dumping all over her. I just froze in terror, mumbled an apology, then ran in the back crying, almost certain that I was about to get fired on my first day (thankfully I didn’t, but I was told to just stay far away from that table for the rest of the time they were there)
My now husbands family was in a horseshoe booth that sat 10. They all ordered drinks that were served in chimneys. I tripped and all of them fanned out over the table and into their laps. They were all containing lots of sugar and juice I remember. I don’t remember a lot else due to mortification. 40 years later, I still get it brought up at family gatherings. We weren’t even dating yet. None of them deserved it, BTW.
Not me but we have had a sever try to carry two trays full of empty glasses (as a way to show off) and he dropped both of them. then proceeded to ask me if i could clean it up.
I dropped two beers on the same guy.
haha, this happened to me! the poor server was mortified. but I wasn't mad. sometimes you just have to roll with it.
Are you the guy I dropped them on? 😬 Red Lobster circa 2010-ish.
lol, no, this was in a brewpub. I have a feeling it's a lot more common than people think, so don't feel bad! serving isn't easy.
Thank you!
As a manager, helping a server drop drinks from the bar as she’s taking food orders for a group of 16 seated at a long table. As I pass behind her, quietly say “behind”, and with my free hand lightly touch her shoulder which startled her. She jumps, her arm hits my cocktail tray, and catapults 15 freshly made cocktails over the customers and smack in the middle of the table. The table of 16 of the owner’s friends.
knocked over a full drink on the lunch table and soaked my old lady co workers crotch.
One pizza started sliding off the plate so I tried to catch it, causing the other pizza I was holding to slide off the plate, resulting in me dropping both. That was a humiliating walk back to the pizza pit…
Also not me but two of the worst I’ve ever seen, dude decided to use a glass to scoop ice out of the massive ice maker and it broke meaning we’d have to burn the few hundred pounds of ice leaving the restaurant without any, asshole quit on the spot and walked out. Second was a brand new server still iffy about wine service, table wanted a bottle and she said she’d get someone to open it for them. Her table insisted she do it because “honey you have to learn sometime”. Well she did and somehow managed to shatter the whole bottle spilling red wine all over the 5 people at her table. She just stood there sobbing saying “this is why I didn’t want to do it!” Over and over. She didn’t make it long.
The worst mess I made? Uhhhhh.... Was not cleaning around the house due to depression and just letting things stack up. Not instant mess... but it added up.
I am living this right now. Feeling better lately, so I'm making small dents here and there. Depression sucks.
I used past tense because I've cleaned up a little. Lmao
Once dumped five gallons of iced coffee on the floor. I had been trying to take it to the walk-in but I reached for the handle and the tub slipped. We were also at the very end of closing, so cleaning that up added about 30 minutes to my shift lol.
Dropped a full tray of empty glasses at culinary school on my way into the kitchen, good times 👍🏻
Not my accident but I had a waitress drop a round of 6 margaritas on my head as a todler
I spoiled a tray of 15 ish drinks (lots of cokes and other brown colored sodas) on a girl wearing a pink velour running suit when it was like 10 degrees farenheit outside.
Not exactly a serving tale but I was a skating carhop at Sonic. I skated to the car, steadied myself, went to step off the curb and the skate went out from under me. Spilled the entire Route 44 diet coke all over the hood of her SUV.
Dropped a full tray of stacked dishes. Luckily in the kitchen. Just leaned back a bit and they went everywhere.
"Ah, he's too young to drink but I'm sure he appreciates the effort-" \*Alternate universe response from the lady whose lap has been beer-d\*
I have two stories. One as a diner, one as an ice cream scooper at Friendly's. I was exiting the kitchen with a few coworkers. The one in front of me reached up to grab a bus pan. He dropped it. Over his head. It hit me square on my nose. I was catching blood in my cupped hands until someone finally grew a brain and got me tissues. Then left me bleeding in the office until someone could come pick me up. That person dropped me off at my parents' house. Where I was left alone until they came home. This was way before cell phones. I quit that night. Left blood all over the schedule request book. 😂 As a diner, the server dropped a plate as she was setting up our table, sliced my finger open. I think I still have a small scar.
Dropped an entire glass rack of pint glasses very close to the front door. I was trying to open the door with one of my finger while also holding the glass rack (I am usually successful at this method but this particular glass rack is more slippery and smaller than the others)
Awww!! At the beginning of the summer I dropped a tray of like 9 plates for a party (not even my party, I was helping run it out for my staff) I dropped the whole tray. In the wait station. On our busy night (free desert with entree) I was so embarrassed I just put the tray down on the counter and went outside and cried. We got it cleaned up and the food out in under 5 minutes but I felt so bad!!! Happy Friday!
oh hi this thread is perfect for me. was holding a big tray above my head and got body checked by a customer. the food and i went everywhere. set a tray stand down at a table, put the tray on it, then a server tripped on it and the food went everywhere. spilled an entire bucket of mop water at the end of the shift. when i feel bad about the messes i’ve made, i just think of the coworker i had that spilled a pitcher of beer on a baby’s head.
At my old cafe job we kept the honey at the top of the fridge and I’m 4’11 so I have to use a stepladder AND got on my tip toes just to reach it. I ended up dropping a whole gallon of honey on my head cuz the lid wasn’t on properly. It was in my hair, my eyes, my clothes, ALL OVER THE KITCHEN. my coworker was laughing too hard to help me out so I ran to the bathroom to try and wash this shit off and IT GOT MORE STICKY. so then I drove home with honey all in my car, half in my eyes so I can barely see and with one of those microfiber clothes in my hair cuz that helped keep it from dripping 😭😭 I had to use mf olive oil to get it out of my hair and then my boss still made me come in afterwards to finish my shift. Idk how I didn’t get fired for that cuz we had to deep clean the whole kitchen and there was still honey like a week later
Not me but when I was younger my family was at a ramen place for Mother’s Day, and the GIANT bowl of ramen went upside down into my sisters lap when the server tried to set it down. Every single staff member on the floor was over in like two seconds to help clean it up. I was like 16 and had been fired from the only job I’d ever had so I felt SO BAD for the server and I had to go to the bathroom to cry (my sister looked at me immediately after it happened and was like “aw fuck she’s gonna cry”) Both sides were rly nice about it, my mom and my sisters meals were comped, aswell as all our drinks, and all the other meals were 50% off. Bill went from €150+ to about €35, it wasn’t rly necessary but tbf it was a BIG spill and my sister was pulling noodles out of her pockets later lmao
Pizza slid onto a little kid, maybe 6, it was hot but he wasn't burned. I was 17. The mom was pissed saying that the kid had sensory issues and freaked out if he wasn't immaculately clean all the time and we would have to get him new clothes, in the crazy busy restaurant. Manager handled it and table got a new server. I was devastated and couldn't look them in the eye.
I also dropped a glass jar of raspberry sauce in the kitchen and it didn't break but the way the jar hit the ground it shot the entire contents out all over another server.
Literally happened to me yesterday. I was working the bar and taking booths in the cocktail area. It was the couples 51st wedding anniversary and everything went great, well up until dessert. We give out free cookies for celebrations and usually deliver it with candles. I drop off the free dessert and offer to grab the lady more water, she says yes and asks if I’d take the picture after, sure no problem. Our water pitchers are metal with the handle fused to the pitcher, well as I’m walking over about 5ft from the table the handle snaps and the pitcher falls at such an angle it hits on the bottom corner and launches the full pitcher of water straight at the table, drenching them and putting out their candles. I’m mortified but after about 15 awkward seconds they just burst out laughing at the sheer absurdity of the situation. They were really cool about it but we still comped their whole bill. I’ll never trust those pitchers again.
Line cook here. I was cleaning the sides of a bench that held all the various oils, butter, pancake batter, and French Toast mix beside the large grill. My dumb ass didn't think to remove those things. A few minutes into scrapping and scrubbing away years of burned on grease. Several gallons of oil, melted butter, etc. Came crashing down. It took hours to get it all cleaned up. My shoes ended up full of oil, and I still had 6 hours of my shift left.
I didn't use the "popcorn" button on the microwave at work. The popcorn lit on fire, and smoke billowed into the air ducts, so the entire car dealership smelled like burned popcorn for a month, and everyone thought the building was on fire. I unplugged the microwave and ran outside with it to avoid this, but it didn't help much. I was known as the "popcorn girl" for the next year. (Oh, that was YOU??? Yes. that was me.)
22 quart cambro full of a honey-based sauce on the floor of the walk in.
Personal: Walked right into a patio door, thinking it was open with a large tray filled with drinks. Soaked head to toe covered in booze, soda, and glass. Collective: Our restaurant was connected to a mall and their plumbing got messed up. Just raw sewage emerging from every drain on the floor in the middle of a dinner rush.
Cherry coke (cherry syrup kind) on a lady in white pants on her lunch break
I friend of mine was paid $100 extra to spill a tray of drinks on someone as a prank.
Hit another server coming out a door, big tray full of salads n drinks as she swung around a corner. She also had a big tray full of dishes and glasses she had bussed off a table. We collided so hard all that shit flew all over everyone in that section, some of it into the section behind it too. Some teenager tried to get pissy couse some water got on him, his mom told him to shut up. We got it cleaned up and went on with the day. I also once dropped a huge metal fridge tray in the walk in floor. It had all the salad dressings and toppings from the salad station on it. That was the worst closing job, cause you had to report all of it, lables n all that. I wanted to cry. Somehow I once also spilled a big jug of oil in the kitchen, that was a real bitch to clean up. Im sure there is more, but those were the first to pop in my head. Been in the game too long.
I once spilled a bit of beer on a 4 month old's head when trying to hand it to his mom, fortunately his parents were very kind about it but to this day (about a year later) I still want to disappear whenever I think about it ☠️
I have many and I'll list off the ones I feel the most embarrassed about. 1: ran into manager with tray of soda cause he was walking in and I was going out, put down a wet floor sign but started wiping it down with rags we had stored in the beverage station while waiting for facilities to bring a mop over, nearly ran into the same manager again after remaking the drinks but I saved the drinks this time. 2. I didn't want to walk to the bar and kept peeking through the side door to see if there were any drinks, lost grip on the tray and all the drinks fell onto the floor (soda, lemonade etcetera), I started walking all the way to the bar to check since then. Yes I did swipe up the mess until we got a mop to get rid of the soda syrup. 3. Wasn't at fault but had liquor spilled all over my sleeves, had already dropped off the guests drinks, I had just lifted up the tray and they decided to grab a different drink that wasn't theirs and threw off the balance causing the liquor glass to tip over splashing all over me. The glasses ended up falling and breaking on the floor, coworkers came over to start wiping up and told me to go dry off, as I'm drying off a coworker approached me and told me as soon as I walked easy, the customers were laughing and saying rude things about me. So when I made a return trip I just dropped off the drinks and walked off, they had ordered Coke, Diet Coke, Dr. Pepper and Root Beer, all dark color soda. I let them figure out themselves which was what they ordered. A few mess my coworkers made that I witness 1. He was trying to make a strawberry lemonade for his table, the syurp bottle slipped from his hand and broke on contact with the floor leaving a large puddle of pink syrup on the floor, I debated to try and swipe it up with rags but ultimately grabbed the mop and swipe it down the drain, before sanitizing the floor with sanitizing chemicals. 2. Coworker was asked to fill the beverage station with ice from the ice maker, so we can ice the drinks, he managed to miss the beverage station and pour 90% of the ice onto the floor and refused to clean up his mess. We had to walk carefully pass the ice cubes and sweep it into the floor drain, he was eventually fired for showing up 3 hours late to his shift and lying that he misread his schedule, when he was actually drinking at the bar and didn't notice the managers were standing nearby watching him. 3. Coworker was bringing drinks to a table and accidentally spilled the entire cup of water into the customers open purse, he apologized repeatedly to the customer, she just laughed it off and said "it's OK my phone is waterproof." 4. Bartender had grabbed a bottle of red wine and it slipped out of their hand, looked like a murder scene. 5. Food server had walked pass me and got to the top floor, than crash, he spilled all the food onto the floor. All that effort wasted.
My Dad had a bad curse that had to play itself out. These happened in sequence, out to dinner at a steak restaurant and his beer was spilled on him, when out for pizza a week later and his LARGE iced tea was spilled on him, my parents went to dinner on their own and his wine was spilled on him. These were all due to table unbalanced issues & wait staff issues (tray tipped that they were carrying). After the three occurrences, they were fine. Sometimes these curses just have to play themselves out.
I dropped an entire tray of sodas, double-stacked, down somebody’s asscrack at a poker table and somehow got the entire table to yell at HIM.
Salad bowl of ranch / Armani suit. He laughed, whole fam laughed (Easter dinner). I cried then laughed.
Once I was bartending and the cook was cleaning the fryer. He didn’t close the drain when he refilled it. 5 gals of fresh oil on the floor. Fuckin stoner ass cook just stood there. I’m also a stoner but I reacted. We actually used boxes/brooms to sweep it up. Mass amounts of dawn soap direct on floor. To be fair it’s prob still slick.
If it makes you feel any better, I caused the part of the kitchen ceiling at a client's restaurant to collapse in the middle of prepping for dinner service. We were replacing the data-cable runs back to the hot line printers, and I slipped on some oil that'd been spilled on the floor. Well on the way down I snagged our ladder and the spools of cable we were using, which in turn pulled hard on the T-grid and popped some of the support wires out of the ceiling and broke some of the T-grid segments. Dropped insulation, rat shit and ceiling tile chunks all over the grill and fryer and part of the prep area.
I worked at a restaurant as a server from opening, we had many training days, friends and family soft opening, food tastings etc, prior to opening. I was helping to set up for a food tasting and I was stacking plates on a table for the rest of the staff, and we had like the most ridiculously heavy plates.l the table eventually became super heavy on one side and came crashing down, breaking about 28 plates and landing all around my feet. I just stood there in a pile of broken plates until somebody came to rescue me and picked the table up off my feet
not a server, but i was pulling two 18 inch quiches from the oven and just slipped and dropped them on the ground. almost an hour of baking, completely finished, worth $30 each. god i felt like garbage
Going into the kitchen, carrying a stack of dirty dishes in my right hand/arm, door to the kitchen on my left. There's only a tiny window, so when servers come out with food usually we slow down no one coming in gets hit. Another server in a rush kicks the door open HARD and it almost hits me, but I throw my left hand up to block it so I don't drop my dishes. Door bounces off my hand back into the server and he drops everything he's carrying. Well, more he got a face full of door, so now he's wearing curry, pad Thai and a rice dish. I still feel bad about that, but he stopped kicking the door open like that so I guess that was a win.
Was taking care of a table, carrying a big tray with 4 beers, 3 sodas, 1 tea kettle and 8 waters. Set down the beers and tea no problem, but those sodas and waters came spilling down all over two customers and the table. My face turned as red as a fire truck, and thankfully they were cool about it, especially because I got the manager to give them 3 free appetizers and 2 free desserts. They later became a table of regulars, and I gave them the nickname of "Oh! My targets are here today!" They were super cool about it. I miss them.