Restaurants are special places for many people. It’s where they break bread with loved ones, celebrate triumphs, or spend a lovely evening with their significant others.
However, not all date nights are smooth-sailing. Some end up so disastrously, you would want to bury them further down your memory bank. And through all that tension, you likely aren’t noticing that the staff has been watching from afar the entire time.
These restaurant employees are sharing the worst dating fails they’ve witnessed firsthand. If you have your own experiences, feel free to share them below!
This happened when I was around 18 or so. I am mostly Native American. (This is an important factor to the story) A guy and his date get sat in my section and he immediately asked to speak to my manager. This was before I even took their drink order so I was perplexed but went and grabbed him right away.
The dude then asked my manager for a “nice white server instead.” Right in front of me. While giving me a rather disgusted scowl.
His date was so horrified she stood up and said “Oh hell no. That racist s**t don’t work with me honey. You can sit me at the bar sweetheart this date is over.”
The manager made the man leave and comped his date’s food. She left the manager $100 tip for me with a note that said “You are beautiful and worthy of respect. Always remember that.”
Her date was a disaster but she made my night.
Guy1 and GF are fondling each other at my bar. Guy2 joins them at the bar and they quickly separate and behave. The three go off into the casino but stop back for drinks a few times.
Early AM Guy2 does a shot and walks away; I can tell he isn’t happy. He comes back and says he has a couple of hours to k**l before his plane leaves. We get to chatting and he tells me he just broke up with his GF as suspects she snuck up to the room and nailed his best friend when he couldn’t find either of them for an hour. I ask if it was Guy1 and GF, he confirms it and I let him know he is making the right choice as they were making out at the bar before he came down.
He thanks me for confirming, leaves a huge tip, and lets me know what is happening in case there is any confusion with the hotel.
An hour or so later Guy1 and GF are at the bar whispering and arguing. I casually ask if everything is okay, they say they are locked out of their room and can’t find their friend who paid for the room. They tried to charge the bill to the room too but my computer showed the room was empty. I told them Guy2 had been in earlier but checked out and his flight was already in the air. Then I watched the meltdown.
Guy2 had paid for his bff and GF to spend a week in Vegas with him. They cheated and got caught. He checked out and flew home and they had no where to stay for the week and no money for even basic food. Their luggage had been packed and left in the baggage hold. They did everything they could to get out of paying for their drinks as they were hella expensive, left no tip, and didn’t have a place to sleep or even change clothing at 5AM.
TLDR; Don’t cheat on the person paying your way if you can’t pay your own way.
Not a disaster but it could have been.
Guy hires private room in the very fine dining establishment i’m working in.
Dinner for 2, champagne, proposal dinner.
Gives us instructions to bring the champagne when she says yes.
I jump the gun and poke my head into the room holding the champagne, just to check i havent missed it.
Guy sees me, has a panic fit and throws up, all over the table.
Woman is very concerned goes over to see if he’s ok.
He hits “f**k-it” and pulls out the ring, drops to 1 knee and proposes, with vom still on him and the table.
She bursts out laughing, says yes and kisses him (on the head)
Get them a new table in a different room and serve the champagne.
MFW i hope i find love like that one day.
I (22m at the time) was bus boy at a 200 seat restaurant that was part of a sporting club. I’d been there for long enough to have a feel for the personalities of the customers.
On this particular night one of my tables was a first date. The girl was lovely, all smiles and very pleasant. The guy was sort of normal, seemed a bit quiet. He put off some fairly clear signals that he would prefer to be left alone though. That’s OK, some prefer minimal service.
What I did notice though, was that the guy was talking to her quietly, but forcefully, and almost non-stop, sometimes gripping her arm firmly, in a way that suggested that she wouldn’t be able to pull away easily. I couldn’t hear a word that was said, but the lady was looking more and more terrified all the time. Like, nearly about to wet herself terrified. A complete change from her pleasant nature when they had walked in.
I told the waitress on the adjacent section that I wasn’t sure about what was going on and asked if she wouldn’t mind checking on the table to let me know her thoughts.
Waitress went to the table, said a few quick words and came back to me. Out of earshot, she said “Yeah, I think we have to get her out of here.”
We let the manageress know what was going on. The guy had booked his table. Good. We had his name.
Outside at the taxi rank, by some miracle, there was a female cabbie in the line. I ignored the protests of the other drivers. I hopped in and told the cabbie the situation, and offered her $20 to wait around the back of the restaurant. I said, “Please don’t wait for a destination, just drive, something’s really wrong with her date.”
The cabbie didn’t need the 20 bucks.
We had the front desk call the guy over the PA for an ‘urgent call’. This would delay him while they tried to figure what the ‘call’ was, and then ‘realize’ in that he had actually won a meat tray – they were raffled off at various intervals through the night. (“Just wait here while we fetch it for you!!”)
As soon as creepy guy was out of sight, I asked his date if she needed to get out of here. She just trembled and nodded. Figuring that she probably wasn’t in the mood to trust a male at that point, my waitress friend escorted her though the kitchen and out to the waiting cab where she slipped away quick as you please.
The guy came back to an empty table, and staff seeming to be oblivious to where his lady friend had gone.
We didn’t get much of the story, other than the the lady was set up on a blind date by a mutual friend who told her that this guy was OK.
This happened to a friend of my wife…
She met a guy on a dating site, they agreed to meet at a strip mall parking lot and go to dinner together from there. He asks if he can drive her car, because it’s a Camero and he’s never driven one. So they go together in her car, to a restaurant a couple miles away.
Dinner goes ok, nothing too crazy. Then he gets up to go to the bathroom and never comes back. after 10 minutes, she gets up to check on him, and her car is gone. He’s dashed on the bill and stolen her car.
She pays the bill, and gets an Uber home, and calls the police to report her car stolen. Turns out the guy just left it in the parking lot where they originally met, and seems to think he did nothing wrong. Last I heard he’s still being charged with auto theft.
My favorite was a couple who asked to be seated on the patio, and chose the furthest table from other guests. I go over to greet them with a smile and some good energy, and the woman locks eyes with me and says “This is not going to be a fun evening.” The guy with her then tries to order a margarita and she said “You can have a coke,” and proceeds to order a cosmo for herself, and they both get burgers. I go in to tell the hosts not to seat anyone near them, and for the next hour this woman lays into the guy while he sat there and took it. Clearly he had f****d up in a major way, from the snippets I heard, and she was explaining to him in great detail the way he had f****d up, lost her trust, and it was over. She was incredibly civil, unflinchingly polite, and so confident. She finished, handed me her card, and walked away with him still at the table after she left me a solid 30% tip.
She was awesome. I want to be her when I grow up.
Not my story, but my partner just told about this happening at his work.
We live in a pretty large university college and one time a guy came in with a plant for a date. He sat with it at the table, ordered it food, drinks, and dessert. He was a total gentleman to the plant.
Turns out he lost a bet with his frat brothers.