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Longboard Horn's Thread for Restaurant Employee Hilarity

Featured Replies

1 hour ago, baboso said:

Bus tub buffet isn't uncommon in restaurant work.

Mrs.LL and I have had long discussions on this.  She has vastly more restaurant experience than I do, but we're both pretty familiar with the practice.  And while there are no "rules"--everything is just an ad-hoc determination--there are some patterns that you can discern.

Soups, pastas, and other dishes in which the customer is going to have to dip a fork or spoon that s/he is continually eating off of back into the food--that shit is right out.

Pizza, sandwiches that the kitchen cuts in half before it hits the table--if there's a whole slice of pizza or a whole half a sandwich that is left behind, that's absolutely free game.

French fries, chips, and other things that get handled one-at-a-time--yeah, those are generally free game.  But cold french fries are gross.  And the reality is that the customer's hands are rummaging through that pile of fries/chips/fried whatever, and that's kind of gross.  But at the same time, if you're a college student, eating a fried shrimp that someone's hand brushed past is far from the grossest thing you're going to do today, soooo . . . .

Things like half a steak or a chicken breast that the customer would've used a knife to cut slices away with the fork only touching the piece that is being cut away and going straight into the mouth (leaving the remaining portion of the steak untouched by any mouth-touching utensil)--this is a real gray area.  If there's the filet half of a prime porterhouse that's left sitting on a plate untouched, I'm eating it.  No question.  

 

The gold mine is the to-go box that the customer leaves behind.

 

I had a buddy in high school that worked at Catfish Parlor as the dishwasher.  He would finish any beers that came back in the bus tub - pitchers and mugs alike.  

1 hour ago, Jerry Callo said:

I had a buddy in high school that worked at Catfish Parlor as the dishwasher.  He would finish any beers that came back in the bus tub - pitchers and mugs alike.  

Yeah GIF

4 hours ago, Jerry Callo said:

I had a buddy in high school that worked at Catfish Parlor as the dishwasher.  He would finish any beers that came back in the bus tub - pitchers and mugs alike.  

Was his name Spaulding? 

10 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

The gold mine is the to-go box that the customer leaves behind.

 

Yes, every now and then if we have some to go items that no one has claimed a manager will let us have at it. Better to have us eat it than throw it away.

It's been many years since I was a busboy. I worked at a couple of different restaurants including a restaurant with good pizza. The Leather Bottle Inn. I never would have thought to eat someone's leftovers. None of my coworkers did that either. Dose nasty. I ain't judgin. But I ain't eatin that either. Maybe because I knew the cooks...

On 2/14/2025 at 9:20 AM, High Plains Drifter said:

Stoners would sometimes give me a bong hit.

I gave out a lot of bong hit tips when I was in school. I don’t recall any delivery driver turning down the offer. 

9 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I gave out a lot of bong hit tips when I was in school. I don’t recall any delivery driver turning down the offer. 

That explains so many things…

  • 9 months later...

So Wednesday we had a new guy at work. During the shift, some of the coworkers were joking around and he took it the wrong way because he thought they were talking about him, which they weren't. He flips multiple people off, becomes belligerent and is hostile towards the managers. Our GM sent him home and fired him. 😅 That's gotta be a restaurant record: firing the new guy 2 hours into his first day on the job. 🤣

On 2/14/2025 at 9:53 PM, Longboard Horn said:

Yes, every now and then if we have some to go items that no one has claimed a manager will let us have at it. Better to have us eat it than throw it away.

The bag of door dashed McDonald's left in front of a closed office an hour ago is up for grabs

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