When rude becomes petty larceny

one guy I know told me he used to take out the chicken from the soup at the
Sweet Tomatoes Buffet in Florida, and take it home to his cat ...
I told him that was tacky...

cuz, what about the next guy that comes in for that chicken soup?  that poor guy gets screwed...

  Eggs-zacktly Ellen!
          I started this thread because some bozo food blogger was actually telling all his readers that they SHOULD ransack the soup.....
      
  Speaking of casinos,  The last time I was at ours, I witnessed a woman filling LARGE plastic travel bottles with free hand lotion and hand sanitizer....

That lady was right about getting stuff smoked in Texas. But yes, for a price. 10-15 bucks comes to mind. My friends had a turkey smoked one year. My Sunday House Smoked Turkey was better though. They smoked it before freezing.
Joe

AHI MPLS


  Eggs-zacktly Ellen!
          I started this thread because some bozo food blogger was actually telling all his readers that they SHOULD ransack the soup.....      

yes, very sneaky and tacky!!! 
 not a very admirable thing to do ...
 

 

I won't go out to eat with one of my friends any longer because she pulls stuff like that. Eating at a buffet with her is intolerable enough as she stuffs her purse to the hilt, but at an order-off-the-menu restaurant it's even worse.

She can't order anything off the menu as is or even just a slight change... some things can't be on the same plate, only half of this, substitute half of that for the other half, etc. If they won't do it she's been known to walk out in a huff, but God help them if they screw up her purposely complicated order. I think she does it just to get items taken off the bill.

What is it about eating at restaurants that makes otherwise stable people lose their minds?

  I know that person!
        WHAT are the odds!?  
 
  I think that most people would literally be SHOCKED at the way some people are while in a restaurant. 
    I myself work in the "biz" because I love food. I want to be around it and I want to have people be happy when they order it. 
  HOWEVER, after about a year of being a server (much more money!) I always have to go back to the kitchen and cook for about a year to get the ME-ME-ME! out of my system. 
  The mentality of SO many people seems to be; "I am paying you to service me, so I demand SERVICE" 
     Which usually means something like, " I see you have scallops, So what I want is scallops done in any possible way that is NOT on the menu" 
  And if the chef/cook screws up the crazy order, I lose money and my good mood. 

The single worst thing I have ever seen in a restaurant is watch a guy put a bug into his own food so that he would get it for free.  This guy smelled so bad, my cousin Curt and I asked to be moved.  Management gave him the meal for free, even though we told him what we saw, because they just wanted to get rid of him.  They told him not to come back.  As we were leaving, we saw the same guy urinating in the parking lot.

I did go on a first date one time and when she stuffed her purse with all the sugars/splendas, there was no doubt there would not be a second date.

     The "bug in my food" phenomenon is legendary, 
     My favorite story about that is while working at Chi-chi's (shut up, I KNOW!)  A man who appeared to be perfectly normal screamed me over to show me the LIVE cockroach that just came out of his (deep fried) Chimichanga; I was appropriately horrified and ran off to get a manager. 
   We went back to the table together to placate and soothe the poor guy, and saw 3 cockroaches (LIVE!) on the floor under his table.  Right next to the baggie of bugs .
     Sigh. 

AHI MPLS
 

  The mentality of SO many people seems to be; "I am paying you to service me, so I demand SERVICE" 

This just in from the Department of Connotation:
 
"I am paying you to serve me" might've been a better way to put it.
 
Brad

buffetbuster


The single worst thing I have ever seen in a restaurant is watch a guy put a bug into his own food so that he would get it for free.  This guy smelled so bad, my cousin Curt and I asked to be moved.  Management gave him the meal for free, even though we told him what we saw, because they just wanted to get rid of him.  They told him not to come back.  As we were leaving, we saw the same guy urinating in the parking lot.

I did go on a first date one time and when she stuffed her purse with all the sugars/splendas, there was no doubt there would not be a second date.

At least she didn't urinate in the parking lot...

Brad_Olson

AHI MPLS
 

  The mentality of SO many people seems to be; "I am paying you to service me, so I demand SERVICE" 

This just in from the Department of Connotation:
 
"I am paying you to serve me" might've been a better way to put it.
 
Brad

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA

  Oops! 
     I have NEVER worked in THAT kind of place!! 

"To get the true measure of a person, observe their behavior around free food."

I read that somewhere, once.

Nothing can compare to the blatent stealing of food that my Dad was telling me about at a Duff's all-you-can-eat restaurant that he used to eat in Stuart, Fl during the '80s when he traveled on his job. This place had rotating steam tables that you waited in your corner to serve food. Little old ladies would come in from condo row across the street with shopping bags and containers. The type that you used to get in a department store and unbashfully fill them up with food with no effort to conceal what they were doing. They got a new manager that cracked down on the practice while my Dad was there, intercepting them and declaring the policy was for all the food they could eat on the premises. According to him they would pitch an indignant fit as if it were their right to take as much food as they wanted for the admission price. They closed down not too long afterwards.

NYPIzzaNut

buffetbuster


The single worst thing I have ever seen in a restaurant is watch a guy put a bug into his own food so that he would get it for free.  This guy smelled so bad, my cousin Curt and I asked to be moved.  Management gave him the meal for free, even though we told him what we saw, because they just wanted to get rid of him.  They told him not to come back.  As we were leaving, we saw the same guy urinating in the parking lot.

I did go on a first date one time and when she stuffed her purse with all the sugars/splendas, there was no doubt there would not be a second date.

At least she didn't urinate in the parking lot...

Yeah, then it would sound more like one of my dates.

Some related items:

• I generally don't like or can't drink the beverage offerings at most restaurants. I do like iced coffee (and will order it if they have cold coffee; when I explain that pouring hot coffee over ice is like pouring hot water into cold coffee, they get it immediately). I do, however carry instant coffee. I ask for a tall glass of cold water, some milk or half-and-half, and please charge me for a coffee, tea, or whatever they think is fair. They often don't, but I have no trouble when they do (and if they don't charge, I add a buck onto the tip anyway).
• Borderline: a relative of mine used to, in burger places with topping bars, instead of piling the toppings on his burger, would put them on the side, and make a salad dressing of mayonnaise, ketchup and relish. He didn't take more than he could fit on top of a burger, however (which is what makes it borderline). 
• A lot of people at Chinese buffets fish the wontons out of the wonton soup. One local buffet just gave up and has the wontons separate from the soup. 

    Bart

bartl

• A lot of people at Chinese buffets fish the wontons out of the wonton soup. One local buffet just gave up and has the wontons separate from the soup. 

   Bart

I've been trying to figure this out.  You're not supposed to eat the wontons in wonton soup?  So basically what you're eating is broth?  Whenever they serve individual bowls of wonton soup, they always have a wonton or three in them.  Why would it be rude to fish them out when you eat some of the soup?  Or is it people who aren't eating the soup?

felix4067

bartl

• A lot of people at Chinese buffets fish the wontons out of the wonton soup. One local buffet just gave up and has the wontons separate from the soup. 

  Bart

I've been trying to figure this out.  You're not supposed to eat the wontons in wonton soup?  So basically what you're eating is broth?  Whenever they serve individual bowls of wonton soup, they always have a wonton or three in them.  Why would it be rude to fish them out when you eat some of the soup?  Or is it people who aren't eating the soup?

They are leaving the broth, and taking the wontons, i.e. they are fixing themselves plates of wantons.

bartl


Some related items:

• Borderline: a relative of mine used to, in burger places with topping bars, instead of piling the toppings on his burger, would put them on the side, and make a salad dressing of mayonnaise, ketchup and relish. He didn't take more than he could fit on top of a burger, however (which is what makes it borderline).

   Bart

That is close to what my coworker Bob would do at the office cafeteria.  Bob would bring a container of plain lettuce for lunch and would then take a trip to the salad bar for dressing.  In time Bob became more brazen, adding croutons, veggies, and meat without paying.  Finally the cafeteria manager confronted Bob, berating him in front of everyone eating lunch.  He had no visible reaction, but stopped stealing food.

I probably don't need to explain where the new guy's lunch was going when it disappeared from the office fridge.

Bob's wife was even worse.

jrp

There's a topic that I don't think that we've discussed jrp. One of the places that I worked for had some communal refrigerators for us to put our lunch. Occasionally somebody would remark that something was missing. Some would bring in pre-packaged frozen meals to keep in the freezers and they too were vanishing. If we had a pot luck or party, the choice left overs would vanish. Turns out it was the administrative asst. that was pilfering the food. This was a woman of means that drove a Beemer and hardly anyone that was impoverished.

When I used to do the office lunch thing, I had to resort to a plastic tool box with holes punched in it and a lock on it to keep my stuff from being pilfered.  (this was a very big office, with a common lunch room for different groups)
 
One of my coworkers used to bring a pack of cold-cuts for the week and put it in the fridge.  He told me of finding a slice with a bite taken out of it in the package. 

MiamiDon
When I used to do the office lunch thing, I had to resort to a plastic tool box with holes punched in it and a lock on it to keep my stuff from being pilfered.  (this was a very big office, with a common lunch room for different groups)
 
One of my coworkers used to bring a pack of cold-cuts for the week and put it in the fridge.  He told me of finding a slice with a bite taken out of it in the package. 

For a couple of years, I worked in a place with a lot of engineers (one of the R&D departments of a major telecommunications company), an overpriced cafeteria, and the nearest restaurants a couple of miles away. The result was about 1/3 of the workforce, even those at executive level, bringing their own lunch. I never saw or heard of food being pilfered from the refrigerators. I do say that if it ever happened to me, I would put something in the refrigerator, clearly labeled, "Do not eat", containing a non-dangerous but horrible tasting substance (bitters, scotch bonnet sauce, or something like that) that would convince people to pay attention to signs.

A lot of engineers on my floor at that time.  The guy with the cold cuts was an engineer.

I always thought it was after hours.  Maybe it was the cleaning staff at night, I don't know.  It just stuck in my mind.

The thing with me was canned sodas, that I had to put in a mini lock-up. 

Ahem. At the "Food Emporium" where I endeavor to give satisfaction (although I stop short of *servicing*. Just.) the list of infractions never ends. 
First, the Salad Bar... 
EVERYTHING on the Salad Bar is supposed to be weighed equally (at >$7.00/Lb.) with the exception of the Soup Bar, where people purchasing tortilla or baked potato soup frequently put their tortilla strips, sour cream & cheese in a SMALL container to take out so the tortillas won't get soggy, etc. I have seen people buy a small soup & then load up a medium size soup container w/a GOOD 14 oz. of sour cream & cheese. The other day someone bought a soup & had an "extra" soup container of "toppings". I don't know what was in it (the cups AND lids are opaque) but it was heavy and solid, and definitely NOT tortilla strips/sour cream/cheese. Maybe a handful of the roast beef from the Salad Bar section? Boy, did I want to open that container! But, by far, the most petty & frequently carried out infraction is the salad dressing. There are 3 ways to convey salad dressing from the Salad Bar: 
#1. Put it ON your salad, where it gets weighed along with everything else.
#2. Put it in a little dressing container & put it inside your salad container, where it gets weighed along with everything else.
#3. Put it in a little dressing container & keep it outside your salad container, where it gets set on top of the salad container & weighed & then the meek & hapless cashier puts it in a small plastic bag & *restrains* it so it won't open up all over the inside of your shopping bag.  
Oh WAIT! There's a FOURTH way:
#4. Put anywhere from one to three little dressing containers filled so full of dressing that the lids ooze and KEEP IT in your cart when you are checking out. Hide it under the plethora of empty sample containers & napkins you have collected while wandering through the Emporium. If the meek & hapless cashier says, "Excuse me, but I'm supposed to weigh the salad dressing with the salad.", become outraged & indignant & assert that "No one ELSE has ever told me that!" & then rattle your Mercedes/Lexus/Escalade/Porsche/ key chain at said cashier.
Oh My. Thank you for letting me vent. 
Coming Soon: Infractions In The Produce Department


 

I thought A&P's Food Emporium was limited to NY. Have they expanded into the DFW  area now? 

Hi Dawn ~~ I just call it "The Food Emporium" for quasi-privacy reasons. It is one of several different up-scale grocery stores in the DullAss area. I didn't even know there was an actual "Food Emporium" (& an A&P derivation, at that!) in existence anywhere...  

 LOLOL! (In a very empathetic way)  
  I feel your pain, I worked at a Ruby Tuesday that had a lunchtime to go special (for mall employees) of one trip through the salad bar - big white styro box, and 2 breadsticks with "honey butter"  
 It was priced at something like $4.76 or something so that the total with tax would be $5.00. Handy 
   Anyhoo, QUITE a few of these folks would HEAP the boxes so full that they left a literal trail of ham bits, cottage cheese, beet slices etc. right out the door.   My favorite was a woman who picked up and dumped the whole bucket of "turkey" into her empty box and then complained that the ham bucket was almost gone.