Whatever your reasoning for going out to eat, a restaurant should provide a sense of comfort, like a "home away from kitchen." A good meal and welcome staff should be par for the course when you walk in the doors. We tend to remember an eating establishment for all the wrong reasons when it doesn't meet those standards, especially the food.
Reddit user, erdaca, wanted to hear the worst of the worst when they asked:
What's the worst food you've ever been served at a restaurant (let's think Kitchen Nightmares)?
That Eatery Was Never Going To Last Long
Went to a pizza place that had just opened near my work. We were the only ones there, which should have been a red flag. I ordered a calzone, and my wife ordered a salad.
Waited about 45 minutes for the food, with no waiter or other employee in sight. I walked into the kitchen to ask about our food, and they said it would be out in a minute. About 15 minute later, they bring my calzone, no salad. I cut it open, and it is very undercooked - raw dough, cold, unmelted cheese, and the sausage is still frozen. Go back to the kitchen again, they say the chef will be right out.
He comes out and asks what is wrong - I show him the calzone and ask about the salad. He says "we don't sell salad." At that point, we got up and left.
Long story short - it's a 5 guys now.
Pick Your Battles
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When I was around 10, a McDonald's hamburger with a large chunk of splintery, soggy wood in the patty. My mom took it back to the counter and got a replacement, but I wouldn't eat it.
The manager later came over and gave me an apple pie.
That, I ate.
A Point Of Pride With Your Buddies
Taco Bell Nacho Bell Grande, wasn't me but my mom. She got about 2/3 of the way through the thing and found a whole molar sitting in cheese, a human molar. It was so big with the root and all, about made me puke.
We called them they asked us to bring it back, my dad refused and stuck it in the freezer for the GM to stop by and look at it. Not sure if he ever did, I was already grown but I remember it being in the freezer for awhile and showing my friends when we stopped by.
At Least They Were Evenly Distributed? Right?
I got a frozen margarita in Venice Beach a few years ago. There were small pieces of hair evenly distributed through the drink where the hair had clearly been chopped and mixed throughout in a blender. We tell the waitress about it and she responds that the bartender is bald.
We look back by the bar and there is a bald man with a ZZ Top sized beard working.
A Fly Trap Bowl
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Big Bowl.
My lettuce wraps had about a dozen dead insects in them. The meat was also undercooked.
Never been back.
At Least He Tried? Right?
A chef once tried to improvise something vegetarian for me - he proceeded to defrost some wok-vegetables in a microwave, add it to a slice of dry bread and charge me 10$ for it.
Hard To Argue With Evidence
My uncle got a wingnut in his pasta and the restaurant staff blamed him and our table for planting it to try to get comped (because it wasn't noticed right away). Of course their story didn't work out when a chef came out with a rolodex that was missing a wingnut.
It's Another Bad Pizza Story
I love pizza. All pizza. Delisio to delivery. I've never had pizza I absolutely hated. Even if it wasn't the best pizza, it was still good enough to eat.
Well, last weekend I made my boyfriend pull into this little mom and pop pizza shop and grab us some slices. He comes back in the car and hands me our slices to hold. I peek in the bag and I'm like "oh no...this pizza is gunna suck I can tell".
I take a bite and am immediately repulsed. It's disgusting. I'm kind of chewing it up slowly and he's like give me my slice! No way it's that bad. He takes a bite and is like holy sh-t that is foul. I literally can't continue to eat the rest of this pizza and spit it out the window.
I am not exaggerating when I say I've never in my life had pizza I couldn't tolerate...this pizza was something else entirely.
It tasted rotten, the dough was like a weirdly flaky pastry dough. The cheese was so sparse and stale. Too much sauce. I'm sure it had been sitting for a bit and was reheated but I've had reheated pizza before and it wasn't even close to as bad as that f-cking pizza was.
He Misheard Us Say "Salt and Pepper"
It wasn't at a restaurant specifically. But at a gathering.
An old man was grilling some beefs outside and these beefs were full of hairs...black and white ones.
I've had one and didn't want to eat anymore when I looked at my beef and so my colleagues had hairs too. Everyone was eating no matter what 😃
It Clucked Its Last Cluck
I ordered a fried chicken sandwich. It was actually a "handshake" sandwich. Picture a piece of fried chicken with a chicken foot still intact and deep fried.
I have never been so mortified in my life. Look it up if you want to see!
When You Know What You're In For, But You Still Go
There used to be this place called The Hurricane in Seattle. They were infamous and people went there on purpose because of how bad it was. The crowd was grungy as f-ck and awesome. Usually it was an eclectic mix of people from all over the city after a night out drinking.
But to give an example of the food, I got an omelette there once, and it was pretty clear they'd just cooked egg into a large pancake and then wrapped it around all the uncooked fillings after the fact. Center was completely cold. The Kraft singles used for the cheese sat unmelted on raw veggies and mushrooms. The meat was ham so hey! It was pre-cooked! Also cold. And the eggs were a rubbery mess. I ate it anyway.
I miss that place. It was a really entertaining sh-tshow.
Use For Cleanup Later
My mom once got nachos that had a rubber glove hidden under the chips. It was clearly placed there by a disgruntled employee.
Wet Burrito. Just. Ugh.
I got a breakfast burrito from some 24-hour diner and it came on a plate that had a good centimeter of dish water still on it...like, the burrito was sitting in a puddle on the plate. It arrived completely soggy.
I can't even fathom how they managed this unless it was intentional, someone had to have just plopped said burrito on a wet dish that was sitting in the sink or something. Needless to say, the group I was with was disgusted and we all got up and left our food without paying.
Least The Dishes Were Clean
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I've received noodles with pieces of steel wool sponge in them. I guess at least the pots and pans were clean?
That's A Stinger
Never really had bad food at a restaurant but I once ordered french fries and there was a fried bee in them. To be fair there were bees everywhere in that island we were at so it wasn't too surprising.
That's The Color Of Chicken, Yeah?
When I was around 10 or so my family and I went to an Applebee's after a basketball game and I bit into my chicken tender and it was rock hard. Pulled the breading off and it was green on the inside...
Who Can Tell The Difference?
"Donut" that was a bagel with icing on it.
"Chicken Foccacia" that was a folded pizza base with fried chicken inside.
And They STILL Go Back
I got horrific food poisoning at Taco Time when I was pretty young, but I don't remember what I ate. The one I remember was biscuits and gravy from a restaurant I'm a regular at, and the biscuits were about the texture of the plate. It was pretty shocking because I'm a regular for a reason.
The owner was horrified when I pointed it out to him. Apparently they'd hired a new cook and the newbie forgot the baking powder in the biscuits that day. He comped me some pancakes instead.
I'm still a regular.
And On This Day, We Were Cursed To Find...
One time I got a pizza from a local place my family has been frequenting since forever. But on this one day, as I bit into my second slice of pizza, I noticed a mystery ingredient in the crust. Some b-tch baked a legit f-cking hairball into the dough of my pizza.
Not a single hair, not a small cluster.
A f-cking hairball
There will be hair toupee!
At Least The Kids Had Fun? Right?
On a school trip (quite a while back), the class went to a restaurant all together. Forgot all the choices, but I remember the one that matters, the chicken. Each serving was half a chicken, all right, nice big portion, no problem so far. It was really dry, not good, but we can muster through. This is where the fun starts. Two guys found spider carcasses in their chicken pretty soon into the dinner. Acutely, the majority of us either shove the plate away from them, while others explore their chicken. One classmate, who hasn't yet taken a single bite, and shoved their plate away went hysteric... As a still alive spider crawled out from under his chicken.
Not recommended, but a fun experience altogether
What's the worst meal you've ever had? Share it with us!
For many childhood memories are overrun by living nightmares.
Yes, children are resilient, but that doesn't mean that the things we see as babes don't follow us forever.
The horrors of the world are no stranger to the young.
Redditor -2sweetcaramel- wanted to see who was willing to share about the worst things we've seen as kids, so they asked:
"What’s the creepiest thing you saw as a kid?"
Serious Danger
"Me and my best friend would explore the drainage tunnels under the Vegas area where we grew up. These were miles long and it was always really cool down there so it was a good way to escape the heat of our scorching hot summers. We went into this one that goes under the Fiesta casino and found a camp with a bunch of homeless people."
"Mind you we are like 11 years old lol. And we just kept going like it was nothing. It wasn’t scary then but when I look back at it we could have been in some serious danger. Our parents had no idea we did this or where we were and we had no cellphones. We could have been kidnapped and never have been found."
oofboof2020
Waiting for Food
"I was at a portillos once when I was 12 and I was waiting with my little brother at a booth while my parents got our food. This guy was standing with his tray kind of watching me then after a couple of minutes he started to walk over really fast not breaking eye contact with me."
"He was 2 feet from the table and my dad came out of nowhere and scared the s**t out of him. He looked so surprised and just said he wanted to see if I’d get scared or not. He left his tray full of food near the door and left. My folks reported him but we never went to that location again since we found a better one closer to home."
nowhereboy1964
Captain Hobo to the Rescue
"When I was a pretty young teen, my friends and I were horsing around in San Francisco and started hanging out to smoke with some homeless guys. Another homeless dude came up and began aggressively trying to shake us down for anything (money, smokes, a ride, drugs- all of it) and wouldn’t take no for an answer."
"We got in over our heads and could tell this guy was now riling the other 2 guys up and they were acting like they wanted to jump us. Some grandfather-looking old homeless man appeared out of nowhere and yelled at us to get the f**k out of here- nice kids like us don’t belong down here at this hour!!"
"Captain Hobo saved our lives that night. My parents sincerely thought we were at a mall all day lol."
FartAttack911
Survival
tsunami GIF
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"I was 7 and survived the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. Witnessed the wave rise way above the already massive palm trees (approx. 40ft?) and my family and I watched/heard the wave crash into the ground from a rooftop."
faithfulpoo
These Tsunami stories are just tragic.
On the Sand
Scared The Launch GIF by CTV
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"We were a group of kids who went to swim in a local lake. And there was a dead body on the beach with their hands raised and their legs bent unnaturally that local police just took out of the same lake. I've never put my foot in these waters again."
oyloff
Be Clever
"I was walking to school and I was about 5 or 6 years old and some guy pulled up beside me in his car and asked if I would get in. He also offered me sweets to do so. I said no. The creepy bit was when he calmly said ‘clever boy’ to me, then drove off. I’ve never even told my parents or anyone else about this as it would most likely freak them out."
OstneyPiz
Bad Jokes
"Dad's side of the family pranked me by burying a fake body on our back property and had me dig it up to find valuables. Was only allowed to use a lantern for light. They stuffed old clothes with chicken bones. Sheetrock mud where the head was... Random fake jewelry as the treasures... I was like maybe 10 or 11.. I remember digging up the boot first and started gagging because it became real at that point."
Alegan239
YOU
Who Are You Reaction GIF by MOODMAN
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"Woke up to find my little brother staring at me in the dark, asking, Are you really you?"
PrettyLola2004
Siblings can really be a bunch of creepers.
No one should talk to others in the dark though.
Not all pet owners have the same relationship with their pets.
While anyone who decides to become a pet owner, or pet parent as some say, love their pets equally, some never ever let them leave their side.
Taking their pet with them to work, running errands, even on vacations.
Many pet parents even allow their pets to share their bed with them when going to sleep.
For others though, this is where a line is finally drawn.
Redditor Piggythelavasurfer was curious to hear whether pet owners allowed their pets to share their bed with them, as well as the reasons why they do/don't, leading them to ask:
"Do you let your pet sleep in your bed? Why/why not?"
The Tiny Issue Of Water...
"Absolutely not."
"I have fish."- Senior-Meal3649
Everyone Gets Lonely Eventually...
"I adopted an eleven year old cat the day before Halloween."
"She has mostly lived in my closet since I got her, and she hasn’t been too interested in coming out."
"Last night, she came out of my closet and jumped up on my bed, and crawled under my covers and curled up by my feet to sleep."
"I was so happy!"- YellowBeastJeep
The Comforting Reminder That You're Not Alone...
"I recently lost my Greyhound but I used to let him sleep on my bed with me."
"The company was nice and he was no trouble to have on my bed."- HoodedMenace3
Hungry Cookie GIF by De Graafschap Dierenartsen
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What Do You Mean Allow?
"I have no choice."
"She is a cat, cats do whatever they want."- Small_cat1412
"He lets me sleep in my bed."- Poorly-Drawn-Beagle
Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way
"I carry my old boy upstairs to bed every night."- worst_in_show
Hug GIF by The BarkPost
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Who Needs An Alarm Clock?
"I let my two cats sleep with me."
"They're so full of love and just want cuddles all the time."
"And so do I."
"We've all developed a lil routine."
"Get to bed, oldest sleeps on my feet to keep them warm, youngest lies in my arm while I lie on my side (she the little spoon), then when I snooze my alarm for work in the morning the youngest paws at my face and meeps loudly to wake me up."- GhostofaFlea_
Whose Bed Is It Anyway?
"Yes."
"They're also kind enough to let me squeeze into whatever space they've left for me."
"Although I do get a few dirty looks off them."- Therealkaylor
"I found this tiny kitten screaming her head off under a car."
"Would not come out."
"Got some food and some water in dishes."
"I stood by the tire so she couldn't see my feet."
"She got curious about the food and water and started gobbling it down."
"I thought she would bolt when I squatted down."
"She was too busy eating."
"I grabbed her by the nape of the neck and all four legs went straight out and she tried to scratch me to death."
"I got her in the door and tossed her toward the couch."
"She ricocheted off the couch as if she was a ping pong off a table and I lost sight of her."
"I put out food and water and a sandbox and did not see that kitten for three days."
"On the third day, I came home and she was on my bed pillow."
"I thought she would bolt when I came near, but she didn't."
"I wanted to sleep so I tried to scoot her little butt off my pillow."
"She would not go."
"I put my head down to sleep and that is the way it was from then on."
"She ran the roost."- Logical_Cherry_7588
sleepy kitten GIF
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Sleeping Is A Prerequisite...
"No, he's a cat and he cannot keep still during the night."
"He walks across the headboard, opens the closet doors, jumps into the windows and rustles the blinds, etc."
"If he would sleep he could stay, but alas, he's a ramblin' man."- Spong_Durnflungle
Saying No Just Isn't An Option...
"'Let'."
"Lol."
"It's a cat's world and I'm happy to be on her good side."- milaren
Felines Only!
"The cat does, the dog doesn't and the horse certainly does not either."- Xcrowzz
Angry Tom And Jerry GIF by Boomerang Official
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Is That My Hair On That Pillow?
"My dog is perfect."
"She comes up, cuddles til we start to fall asleep, then gets down to sleep on her bed so she doesn't get too hot."
"Jumps back up in the early morning for wake up cuddles."
"The hair everywhere is the only downside but she is so cozy, what can you do."- HoodieWinchester
It is easy to understand how some people are able to fall asleep more easily knowing their friend and protector is there, in bed, with them.
Though we can't blame others who don't want to run the risk of being scratched or bitten in the middle of the night either...