We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community who have ever worked in fine dining to tell us some horror stories or behind-the-scenes drama from their jobs. As you can imagine, the anecdotes we received were pretty all over the place and distressing. Here's what people shared:
1. "I managed a fine dining restaurant downtown that was known for having parties for our city’s professional athletes. They would have a private room sectioned off on occasion. NBA and MLB players were the most polite and tipped graciously, usually sitting down to dine together. The NFL players were mostly rude and obnoxious, and they moved tables around, as they were intent on getting wasted, not served. They trashed the place and were overall inappropriate a-holes to the entire staff."
"One player thought it was funny to throw a few coins on the floor for their tip on a bill that was near $1,000! Fortunately, one of the players (#55 was a sweetheart) came in the next day, tipped the entire staff who worked that night, apologized, and thanked everyone."
2. "I used to work for a high-end Kosher caterer in NYC. We would do all types of events for celebrities and other wealthy people. One weekend, we were catering a very large wedding, and everything had to be Kosher! The food was served and all was running smoothly until the dancing started. People started to drink more, and we realized we were running out of wine. You think, 'OK, it’s NYC. There has to be a wine store open that can get us several cases of wine.' But not KOSHER wine! So, what did the caterer do?! He asked the servers to go around and pick up any full or half-drunk glasses of wine from empty tables, take them to the back, refill the wine bottles, then serve them!! This wine with other people’s saliva in it was now being served at this $1M+ wedding. Many of us on the waitstaff refused and lost our jobs that night. Needless to say, the caterer is no longer in business. Thank god!"
—Anonymous
3. "I worked for a very well-known steakhouse franchise as my first restaurant job. There were many shifts where most of the staff did a great job of hiding how hungover we all were because we all got plastered at the bar around the corner the night before. I also got called into work once on a Sunday after switching my shift with someone's on-call, thinking the restaurant wouldn't need me. I got the call halfway through Sunday Funday (like 1:30) after 13 mimosas, two vodka cranberries, and a few more drinks I don't even remember. I got to work and gave my manager on duty the 'full disclosure' and he turned the other cheek while I made myself a 'Black Eye' (two shots of espresso with drip coffee). We also all used to randomly steal a shrimp or two because we had a cooler drawer full of it. Bacon too."
4. "I worked as a server at a country club for a year in college. One night, an elderly lady who had been dining with her family ordered ice cream after her meal. When I brought her a bowl of ice cream, she was furious. She shouted at me to take it away because 'bowls are for poor people!' To this day, I cannot help but wonder how she ate her soup."
—Anonymous
5. "I had a few male customers who were married, had mistresses, and sometimes also had additional girlfriends. I’d have to keep track of their names, preferred tables, wine, etc. — as if they were the only woman in the guy's life! Thanks to my terrific memory and ability to bite my tongue and not vomit, I’d get palmed $50–$100 when the 'gentlemen' would shake my hands. Those types of guys love being recognized and a 'regular.' All over-compensation, I’m quite sure."
6. "Many fine dining restaurants microwave parts of your meal, just like they do at The Cheesecake Factory and TGI Fridays."
7. "I worked in a fine dining restaurant for four years after three years of working in more casual restaurants. You make some of the best friends you’ll ever have working in restaurants — people I still keep in touch with today. But, we were a mess no matter the setting. Always hooking up with each other, stealing food and alcohol, and doing drugs before or at work. But, I learned so much about food and alcohol working there. About half the folks were older professionals who really took the job seriously and were in it for life. The other half of us were younger and just in it for the good, easy money."
"Celebrities and super rich people came in from time to time. One of my wildest memories was ruining someone’s engagement completely by accident. We would get little pieces of paper for each table with info about them: name, how many in their party, any dietary needs, requests, celebrations, etc. One night, I got a table and their paper said 'engagement,' so I congratulated them on their engagement. He hadn’t proposed yet and she looked completely shocked. I really hope they look back and laugh!"
—Anonymous
8. "Best believe all restaurants have bugs, and usually the really fancy ones have the worst infestations. That's just life."
9. "Versace Hotel on the Gold Coast. The management were more pretentious than the customers. One in particular would pour cocktails we made down the sink if they weren’t to her standard and was eventually fired for bullying staff and stealing tips. A friend I made after I worked there told me she worked with her after that, at a different high-end restaurant, and she was fired for charging customers full-price, putting a discount through the system, and pocketing the difference!"
—Anonymous
10. "I worked at a pretty huge steakhouse in Chicago that has since closed. One of the most irritating things that happened fairly often was a basketball player for the Bulls would come in very late, usually after the kitchen would start closing down, with no reservation and like five or six of his friends. He'd sit for hours and order a bunch of food, and then tip 10%. Always 10%. I also overheard him and ALL of his friends trying to figure out how to spell Guatemala. None of them got it right. One of them threw an 'i' in there. Woof."
—Anonymous
11. "I interviewed at an upscale social club in downtown Chicago. The interview went VERY well and the pay was $18 an hour, but they didn't get tips (first red flag.) A few days went by and I got the call that they wanted to hire me, BUT I (black, male) would have to cut my hair (which I had flat-twisted). I swiftly declined. I worked at another place when I had a mohawk where my white manager, upon hiring me, told me he liked my hair (which I had just cut for the interview), but that I needed to 'clean it up.' I buzzed it to appease him, and then proceeded to re-grow my mohawk."
—Anonymous
12. "We 'sampled' so much expensive alcohol. I was fully drunk at work often."
—Anonymous
13. "I used to serve at an upscale wine bar in the Financial District. 900+ bottles of different wines, $50 steaks, etc. I was working happy hour in the lounge one day and there was a woman who got a little too 'happy' with two men on either side of her. I easily heard everything they said because they were sitting near the till where I was inputting orders. One man asked her if she'd every tried a certain drug (often used to drug and assault women), and she said no. The other said, 'Oh, it's so much fun! We should...' and at this point, I went to grab a male manager to tell him this woman was being poached by these men. His response, and I quote, 'Those men spend a lot of money here.'"
"It took me a second to realize what he was saying. He was perfectly fine if this woman was assaulted because the men had money. F that. I told the female bartender to tab her out because her imaginary Uber was here. The woman was so toasted, it wasn't hard to convince her to walk to the front with me. I asked one of the hostesses to keep her there and call her a real Uber. The men just kinda hung at the bar for an hour before leaving. From that day forward, I never went to that manager for anything again."
—Anonymous
14. "I worked at a high-end sushi restaurant. One of the owners hired her best friend to be a hostess. To everyone’s surprise, the best friend was having an affair with the owner’s now ex-husband. At the same time, waitress A was dating the new bartender. However, after one drunken night, our co-worker, waitress B, slept with waitress A’s now ex-boyfriend. All the while, we were all being extorted of our tip money because the restaurant was going under and the owner couldn’t keep up with the bills, yet they were able to fund their three condos and lavish life."
—Anonymous
15. "I didn't work directly in the restaurants, but I worked in the corporate office of a famous fine dining organization. It was the most toxic and chaotic job I've ever had, by far. The chefs were divas who would speak condescendingly to everyone, even when we were doing favors for them. Rumor had it that there were sex workers on payroll for them, too. Corporate leaders were shady and power-hungry. During my time there, I witnessed them literally stealing art for a restaurant, committing financial fraud, micromanaging their direct reports, and publicly humiliating anyone who made even the smallest mistake. I also saw corporate leaders and associates openly gossip about the actual restaurant workers. That bothered me. I didn't think it was classy or appropriate to gossip about someone who earns a fraction of your income and sits far beneath you on the corporate ladder."
"Leaders and associates would have intense public gossip sessions right in front of each other with absolutely no regard for privacy. When I discreetly tried to change the conversation, I was passive aggressively reprimanded. It was disgusting and I did not last long there."
—Anonymous
16. "There's a steakhouse near the World Trade Center that I used to work at. Every day during the lunch shift, we'd see guys from Goldman Sachs and other places in the area come in for 'business lunches.' A lot of people charge all their meals to their corporate cards. There could be a dip in the stock market at any point and here were the people mishandling money and just charging a $300 lunch to their corporate card."
17. "I found out that my boss’s soon-to-be ex-husband was having an affair, even though he denied it for months. They owned several well-known, local restaurants together. He blamed it on past trauma, but he was barely around his family for two years. A previous coworker of his messaged my boss and told her that the girl he was seeing was living in an apartment within a mile of the house they shared."
—Anonymous
18. Finally: "In the restaurant I worked for, while the chef created the menu, it was very rare that they prepared any food. They would expedite during dinner rushes before taking off for the night. What’s more, I’ve found quite a few place opened advertising their famous chef, only to get the chef’s name associated with the restaurant. The chef would leave, and their name wasn't automatically taken off menu or anything."
Dannnggg. If you've ever worked in the restaurant industry, what are some wild stories from your time on the clock?
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.