21 Waiters Confess The Most Messed Up Things They've Overheard While Waiting Tables

As a waiter, you sometimes have access to some of the most private and intimate conversations between patrons. Not that you should be eavesdropping, but sometimes one can’t help but overhear things while serving tables.

In a recent Reddit thread, waiters were asked what were some of the most fucked up things they’ve overheard while working. The thread blew up with stories both horrific and hilarious, not only from waiters but bartenders and other different kinds of servers in the restaurant industry.

Check out the tales below. As with everything else on Reddit, be sure to take these tales with a grain of salt.

Whale Vaginas

This tween boy was for some reason talking about whale vaginas in frightening detail. His older brother told him to “stop being a little immature shit.” The younger brother responded with “I thought you liked whale vaginas, isn’t that why you’re still dating Evelyn?”

I fucking lost it and quickly shuffled back to the kitchen before exploding with laughter.

I know, dear.

Older couple at Bob Evans.

“I just wish I could die already.”

“I know, dear.”

The Scumbags

I had my back to two guys who’d just arrived and were about three beers in. They start talking about a girl and what they’d do to her, nothing I haven’t heard a thousand times until this.

“Bet if we roofied her she’d do all of it,” followed by laughter.

I just chalk it up to shitty humor until one suggests just dropping it in her next drink.

I stepped out of the bar, had my manager call the cops, and kicked them out when the cops got there. Searched and sure as fuck they had oxy and roofies on them.

Never ask a nurse about their day

My favorite was a group of nurses though. Pouring waters as one says the sentence “so a guy came in for an adult circumcision yesterday…”

Miss the rest of the story, return with drinks just as she’s saying “Yeah, so Grace pulls back the foreskin, yea, he cums…”

Never ask a nurse about their day. It was worse than yours.

In walks a clown

Party of five or six, it’s a group of friends having dinner. In walks a clown. Clown starts randomly walking around the restaurant doing balloon animals for kids and shit like that. I have no idea what the fuck is going on, we didn’t hire this guy.

He walks over to the table of five or six and selects a man from the table to perform a magic trick for.

He did the trick, a small flash of smoke and fire happens, and then magically there is an engagement ring on a rope. The man takes the ring and the woman gets on her knees and asks the man to marry her. The man says no, tells her to get up and they continue dinner. This table now has the attention of the entire restaurant (like 300-400 people on our busiest night).

Everybody just turned away and started awkwardly eating like nothing happened.

Shut up, Harvey.

I had a summer job at Gilligan’s, which is a shitty seafood place around the Charleston area. I seat this obese black couple who were actually pretty funny. They reminded me a lot of Chef’s (from South Park) parents.

Anyways, I bring them their drinks and ask if they’re ready to order. I can’t remember what the husband ordered, but the wife didn’t like it. So he looks at her and says “Woman, I’ll still eat that ass of yours when you eat chili, so don’t give me no shit for ordering what I want”.

She immediately replied “Harvey, I’ma just need you to shut the hell up.”

Then they both started laughing. Best table ever. And they tipped me like $20.

If I had to choose

Shucker at an oyster bar here. I can say with out a doubt the most fucked up thing I’ve ever heard was a man sitting with a woman who was getting more and more distraught and the man looks at her and says “Look I told you when this whole thing started if I had to choose between you or my wife, I’m picking my wife.”

Left-handed

Saw a mother take her knife and with the flat part of it wack the hand of her 2-year old child because she was drawing something with her left hand.

She yelled at her “No, use your right hand. Good girls don’t write with their left hand.”

This was as I was standing there taking their order and writing with my left hand.

Rules

This was over 10 years ago and I had no idea what swinging and wife-swapping was… working breakfast fairly early at a downtown hotel in a big city.

Husband is clearly upset and wife is acting half-sheepish/half-annoyed and they’d instantly get very quiet whenever anyone approached. Their conversation was clearly heated and the restaurant was pretty empty with high ceilings and marble walls (old bank) … so even slightly raised voices carried.

I’m walking towards the table and they didn’t see me coming…

Husband: “How could I not be upset?! You let him fuck your ass! Why did we even talk about rules if they don’t matter?”

“Don’t say another word, Peter.”

I approached table with a family of five to take their order. Two adults and three kids from about ages 5 to 10 or so. One of the kids starts to say something and the father (strong Irish accent) cuts him off by saying, “Don’t say another word Peter. Nobody says a f-ing thing until princess Mommy makes up her f-ing mind and decides what she wants for dinner.”

Followed by long awkward silence and me leaving.

Chug

“You chug that mojito like you’re gonna chug me when we get back home.”

Just picture Mr. Magoo

Restaurant manager. One day I was greeting guests walking in the front door. An elderly man came hobbling in. Had to have been at least 90 years old, just picture Mr. Magoo and you will have my vision. I say, “Sir welcome, how are you doing today?”

He turns to me and with the straightest face says, “Well, I got the pussy.”

I glance at my hostess who has gone bright red, and turn back to him, “I’m sorry what?”

“I’ve got the pussy, you know, when you feel great but look like shit.”

Winks at me and scuttles down to his table. I can honestly say I have never laughed as much at a guests joke in my life.

My son loves Billy Bob Thornton

I waited tables for 10 years at this small family owned restaurant in rural Ohio that had a “Famous” sandwich. It was on a few Food Network shows and stuff like that.

A family comes in, mom, dad, two little kids. I take their drink orders and as I am getting the drinks, the dad pulls me aside.

Dad: My son is obsessed with Billy Bob Thornton. We told him that Billy Bob comes here and eats from time to time, so could you just play along.

Me: Yeah of course, no problem.

I return with the drinks and the son, who is about 5 years old, starts asking me questions about Billy Bob Thornton. Like what he orders, if he is nice, stuff like that. I make shit up, because I want a good tip and don’t want to ruin this little kid’s life. He is so excited to hear that Billy Bob comes to the same place he is at.

I can only imagine other scenarios where Billy Bob Thornton has appeared in this kid’s life.

Oh, Buddy

Ex waiter. I’m walking down a long hallway carrying a tray of food. A kid comes running from an perpendicular hallway and run face first into the wall without putting his hands up. He starts crying. The dad walks behind him very calmly and kneels down and says,”Buddy, you just can’t go running into walls.” I muffled my immediate laugh with my hand. It brought tears to my eyes.

Grandpa is paying

Family of like eight or so, Grandpa is paying. He has the check and credit card in hand, and is trying to insert the card into the little plastic sleeve inside the check presenter.

As I walk up he says, “It’s too tight, I can’t get it in…(smiles and elbows his wife)…sure haven’t said that in a while.” She turned bright red, said his name in that “you’re in trouble” tone and gave him a much harder elbow.

Tales of a bartender (part. 1)

I was at the bar, not waiting tables, but I have two. The first was a couple that sat down directly in front of where I was washing glasses. This was during the NBA Finals so I thought it was a bit odd they seemed so sad while everyone else was enjoying the game. They spent at least four hours there and from what I was able to hear they were discussing having another kid to fix their relationship.

I guess she had cheated on him because she felt ’empty’ but didn’t want to end their relationship as they already had kids together. The guy was clearly very upset but said he’d support her if this is what she wanted.

The other was last week during a huge fundraiser we hosted. A group of three or four ladies were noticeably uncomfortable and when I asked if they were okay they told me that one of them had a stalker who constantly shows up at her house, work, etc., and calls her repeatedly.

He just showed up to the bar. She had threatened to call the police if he didn’t leave her alone, so what did he do? Naturally he bought her a drink as an apology.

Tales of a bartender (part. 2)

While bar tending a man once told me he was going to kill his boss because an accident at the cement plant killed his friend, and nothing was done to fix the problem.

I also had a guy come to the bar, order a bottle of O’Douls non-alcoholic beer and a shot of vodka. He did this several times and would stand between the bar and his table and pour the vodka in the beer, then go back to his table.

“You’re in trouble.”

We had a couple who would come in regularly and always asked to be seated in my coworker’s section. They were probably in their 60s and were always really affectionate and cute with each other. My coworker would joke around with them all the time.

One day the man came in with a different woman than usual, and my coworker jokingly told him “Ooooh, you’re in trouble. I’m going to tell your wife you were here with another woman.”

Woman said, “Excuse me? I am his wife. Who the fuck has he been coming here with?” Dead awkward silence while she death-glares at her extremely uncomfortable-looking husband.

My coworker just turned around and walked away.

“He took it like a vitamin.”

When I was a waiter, people often pretended that I wasn’t there. The stories they told were crazy and personal. One woman at a table of six lunching ladies told the story of how her husband was recently prescribed Viagra. “He took it like a vitamin – one pill every morning. He kept having erections at work and didn’t understand why.”

Happy anniversary

Had a guy confess to banging his SO’s sister when I brought their drinks to them. It was an anniversary. I guess he thought it would be the least likely place for her to cause a scene. She caused a scene.

What do you think really happened?

Late one night I had this couple who were maybe in their late 30s. The guy looked a little like a ‘roid-head and had a lot of tattoos, tough looking guy.

From the moment they came in, the woman was crying the whole time. Not like, a little bit crying but straight up bawling. She hadn’t talked to me the entire time, but the guy was very chatty. He explained to me how he had just found out that he only had a few months left to live and how she, his “angel” was gonna take care of his boy for him and all this shit. Anyway, I felt pretty genuinely bad cause that’s a pretty fucked up thing to hear.

Then I saw them come in again over a year and a half later — acting totally normal. They didn’t remember me, but how do you forget the face of someone that told you they were dying.

My theory is that he was abusive and was making up some cover story as to why she was crying that night. Either that or he miraculously survived without looking sickly at all, which in that case good on him.