We asked the BuzzFeed Community to share the wildest thing they'd ever witnessed at a restaurant. Here are some that might make you say, "WHAT THE HELL?"
1. The bottle licker:
"While eating breakfast, I saw a guy at another table put ketchup on his fries, LICK the top of the bottle, and put it back on the table."
2. The cake tragedy:
3. The backwash nightmare:
"This restaurant is known for its brunch. I was waiting to be seated and I saw a member of the staff take a straw out of a half empty glass of orange juice, top it off with fresh orange juice, put a new straw into it, and serve it to a customer. They were confronted, but the manager got defensive and yelled at the person confronting her, eventually throwing her out of the restaurant."
4. The bathroom horror:
"I worked at a restaurant for a couple months. One day I rushed to the bathroom and was shocked by the stinky smell. I used one stall and after I was done, I checked the other one. The whole toilet, wall, door handle, and sink was smeared with poop. That wasn’t a nice break. Had to clean up the whole mess!"
5. The escalated fight:
"I worked at a restaurant and it had been really busy all day, so everyone was getting really irritable. The cooks started arguing about who was working the hardest. They eventually both went outside to smoke and started fighting. One of the cooks bit a chunk out of both ears from the other guy he was in a dispute with. They were both fired immediately."
6. The unhappy customer:
"Once I was in a fast food restaurant and this middle aged, angry drunk man was shouting for no reason about his stolen furniture. At first I thought he was talking to an employee, but the manager eventually had to ask him to leave. He got really upset and walked outside then proceeded to urinate on the front door."
7. The slobber situation:
"There were small children at the table next to us who were SUCKING ON the top of the salt shaker. The parents did nothing, and the staff were oblivious."
8. The birthday nightmare:
"I spent my birthday bartending at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant. It was a relatively quiet night until about 45 minutes from closing. All of a sudden, a panicked man comes out of the bathroom covered in water. Sopping-fucking-wet. He looks at me with horror, disgust, and shame and says, 'Ma'am, the entire urinal has come off the wall, and it won't stop spraying water.' I try to turn off the water. No luck. Boss doesn't know where the main shutoff is because, you know, an entire fucking urinal shouldn't come off the wall. We get it to stop, but it turns out the drain doesn't function because it's so corroded in gunk, so it's coming back up the hole. The final hours of my birthday were spent mopping up a mixture of urinal water and drain sludge."
9. The engagement disaster:
"I was at a restaurant in Philadelphia, where I live. It was somewhat fancy. There was a couple sitting a few tables away from ours, and the man had hid a ring in her champagne glass. When he began to propose, everyone in the restaurant started clapping...and then suddenly went quiet. The girl was crying and everyone assumed it was because she was so happy. She asked the man if they could talk privately, but he was getting frustrated with her. He kept telling her to answer the question. She whispered to him, while in tears, and revealed that she had been cheating on him with his brother for the duration of their three and a half year relationship. I’m not sure how many people were able to hear, but she was mortified."
10. The infection situation:
"My first job was working at a restaurant as a hostess. One day I arrived for a shift and learned that at least half the cook staff, including a manager, had pink eye. I spent my entire shift spraying everything around me with Lysol. Every time customers came through the door, I wanted to tell them to turn around and leave. It drove me crazy to look at all the food going to tables just knowing it had been prepared by germy, pink eye hands. I put my two weeks notice in that day."
11. The life saver:
"I was working a shift at a pub on a busy event night. During the dinner rush, a guy started choking and the two people he was with froze and did nothing. My co-worker jumped in and gave the guy the Heimlich, essentially saving his life as the packed restaurant watched on in horror. He paid the bill and left about a 10 percent tip."
12. The buggy predicament:
"I was having lunch with a group of workmates in Phoenix. As I was eating, a giant cockroach crawled up the shoulder of the woman across from me! Horrifying!"
13. The behind-the-scenes horror:
"The worst thing I ever saw at a restaurant was one of the bakers using his WHOLE DANG ARM to stir a huge vat of cake batter with his hand. He dug straight down to the bottom...up to his elbow. I don't eat store-bought or restaurant cake anymore."
14. The very public foreplay:
"While serving at a restaurant in downtown Chicago, I witnessed a man take off his date's shoe, put her foot on the table, pour ketchup on her toes, and lick it off! This is a scene I will never forget."
15. The fiery accident:
"I was at a restaurant once where every table had a candle on it. There was a grumpy older couple behind us that was being rude and giving me the evil eye. While they were glaring at me, their napkin fell on the candle, CAUGHT ON FIRE, and the fire began to spread on the lady's shawl. She then realized she was on fire and put it out with her husbands napkin."
16. The management nightmare:
"I ordered a cranberry juice from some some little highway restaurant on a road trip and it was definitely spoiled. I asked if I could get something else because it didn't taste right. Instead of letting me get a different drink, the server gets the manager, who proceeds to pick my glass up, take a drink, and tell me it's fine. I was completely stunned."
17. The unintentional flood:
"I was at a Ponderosa a few months ago in the middle of a rain storm. The restaurant was full and the ceiling had begun leaking. Before we knew it, the tiles on the ceiling came down and there was water EVERYWHERE."
18. The health code violation:
"My family and I had gone out for some burgers and fries. When we got our food, there was pickles on my grandma's burger, so she lifted the bun to take them off but was greeted by a DEAD FLY. We called a worker over and she said, 'Oh no worries!' She then proceeded to WIPE the fly off the burger and give it back to my grandma. We haven’t been back since."
19. The polish predicament:
"I used to work at a restaurant where employees had to roll the silverware into napkins for the tables. The gross thing was, the silverware was hardly cleaned properly (if at all) and employees would take a wet dirty dish rag, wipe off the crusted food stuck to the silverware, and roll them into the silverware like it was nothing, which would then immediately go on the tables to be used. They used the same dirty dish rag over and over again until there was no more silverware left to roll. Never ate one meal there the entire time I worked there."
20. The germy situation:
"I worked at a fast food place. If anyone accidentally dropped bread on the floor (a very nasty, dirty floor I might add), our manager would tell us to rinse it off in the sink and put it back. RINSE THE BREAD IN THE SINK. I never actually did this, but I witnessed her do it many times."
21. The wine bottle emergency:
"A server was walking with a wine bottle and slipped and fell. The top portion of the bottle broke leaving the base with shards sticking out. As he fell, his hand landed on the base of the bottle, which pierced his hand and completely severed his finger off. He was bleeding out when the paramedics arrived. Luckily they were able to reattach his finger. I always figured I'd hear about someone chopping their finger, but I never thought a wine bottle would do that."