Because you can not make this up...

About a quarter to 3 this afternoon, a customer parked his pickup out front...wanted a bottled water and a marinated cheese steak...Gave him the water and sent him to the picnic tables behind my place to wait for the sandwich.Took me 5-6 minutes to toast a roll and grill a 1/2 lb of top round and melt a three cheese blend and plate it...I walked back to the serving end and looked to the tables where and where his water bottle sat-no one there. But out front were two police cars-a white one in front of his pickup and a black one behind...and two detectives were busy handcuffing my customer (who had not yet paid).
Turns out the local PD had asked him to meet them near my place about selling (possibly hot) speaker systems. El Moron had bought them online and had the paperwork to prove it-but he came to the local's jurisdiction to clear himself and hadn't bothered to close his ashtray with a pipe and half a joint clearly visible...
The detectives mention the order might be better prepared "to go" and a third marked car transported my customer...long story short an hour was wasted while they photographed and took serial numbers from electronic stuff in the customers truck and I'll tell you right now that no one stops by during a bust...
I put the guys water in the fridge along with the sandwich and sure enough he showed up around five full of apologies and hungry for the sandwich he missed two hours before. He tipped well but I could have done better without him...
So give me YOUR best story.

Oh God, where to start? Mine are primarily about kitchen staff and one particular owner. The owner was a small time gangster (Boston) who did the shopping at the "market" (Boston's East End) who would come back to the restaurant and tell me "this fell off the back of the truck." Wink wink. Same restaurant, Immigration came in and hauled away all my Brazilian dishwashers. One of my line cooks filled up one of the pot-washing sinks with cold water, got undressed and got in. Once they coaxed me into the walk-in.....that's where we could go to talk and noone could hear......and they LOCKED me in. Every once in awhile there would be a brawl in the bar and all the guys would leave the kitchen and go out and participate. I would be alone to cook the orders. It was a regular circus. Of course we would have the regular cast of gangsters come in to eat who never ordered from the menu but always wanted something special. It was the most fun job I've ever had......we would do 350 covers every night. One night one of my cooks showed up for work and didn't have any uniforms so he put an apron on in the front and one in the back and came to the line that way!

For all of you Bostonians this nonsense happened at Bambino's in Malden, owned by George Tecce, brother of Joe Tecce that has the famous restaurant in the North End. Almost everything we had was stolen....I didn't care, I was getting cash under the table!

My wife hired a short order cook..He asked at the end of his first week (he was excellent) to be paid in cash. We thought it strange, but we did it. After getting his pay, he never showed up again. Two days later, US Marshalls came to the restaurant with his picture..He was a wanted felon.

Obviously, my wife never bothered to check the guy's references...

I had a waitress call out because she told me a a rat had eaten her dentures while she was sleeping. I asked her how did she know it was a rat that took them, she said, and I kid you not, she woke up to see the rat scurrying off carrying her dentures, then she could hear the rat munching on them in the wall...she wasn't embarassed to tell me the gory details, she didn't want to work with no teeth, I heartily agreed.
PS. About 2 months later, her dog performed the same trick!

Was serving dogs during the Meck-Dec (Mecklenburg Declaration fo Independance) day celebration in uptown Charlotte. They always have civil war re-enactors with canons, 21 gun salutes, etc. They pull the horse trailer right behind my cart and proceed to prep the horsey for his walk up the street. I have about 10 folks on lline when Mr. Ed decides to drop yesterday's oats, hot and steamy, no more than 7 feet from me. Tah Dah....the line dissapeared like David Blaine was around. Tasty!

quote:

Originally posted by lleechef

For all of you Bostonians this nonsense happened at Bambino's in Malden, owned by George Tecce, brother of Joe Tecce that has the famous restaurant in the North End. Almost everything we had was stolen....I didn't care, I was getting cash under the table!

From now on I would send one of the Bus Boys out to start your car. Just tell them you want to let it warm up.

chiliman, i never laughed sooo hard!
butcatnhat wins, paws down... awesome story

Had the police impound our dumpster.

The dinner time grillman evidently didn't have time to stash his crop of freshly harvested weed before work, two or three garbage bags, so that's where he "hid" them.

Someone saw him and for some reason thought it odd that an employee would throw trash bags from their vehicle into a dumpster at work...I wouldn't have, people do it all the time.
(I think he had a bit of a "reputation")

They called the sheriff, he found the pot, grill guy confessed (for some unknown reason) and they took the whole dumpster away on a roll off car carrier...go figure that one out.
The trash people did get it back about two months later and the big boss still had to pay the monthly fee.

It's a war on trash and it just stinks I tell ya!