"All you can eat buffet workers, what are your horror stories?"
Just... How?!?!?
"Years ago, I worked at an all-you-can-eat country buffet in South Carolina.'
"I was a busboy."
"One day, I went to a table."
'It was a mess, as per usual."
It looked to be a large family/group of families of around 12 people or so."
"The thing that stuck it in my memory is that whenever they had finished with what they were going to eat, they would scrape their plate and use it again.'
'Scrape their plates... onto the floor next to their chairs."
"So next to each chair, there was a 6inch to 18 inch pile of chicken bones, crab legs, mashed potatoes, remnants of backed potatoes, etc."- OdessaVNixon
Cover Your Mouth!!!!
"I work in a hotel's restaurant, and at breakfast, it was a serve your self carvery."
"Anyways, this happened at the beginning of March, the COVID-19 anxieties were on the rise, we had a dance party in all weekend, and they were heading home today, because it was a Sunday."
"We, all the staff, were wearing gloves as we had gotten severe, even bloody, cases of dermatitis from overwashing."
"Not ideal, but we were clearly going out of our way to protect ourselves and our guests."
"Back to the story, this ady walks up to the carvery and starts coughing."
"Spluturing everywhere all over the food."
"Not even covering her hand."
"Then she put her pudgy fingers in and picked up a sausage and ate it as she made her way down."
"Touching the counter etc."
"There was glass covering the carvery, but it only went halfway down to allow them to serve themselves."
"The head waitress of the time saw out of the corner of her eye as she was busy serving coffee or something, and the rest of us were elsewhere."
"The breakfast chef was also elsewhere bringing out food or something."
"It was another busy shift."
Sick Seth Meyers GIF by Late Night with Seth MeyersGiphy"We got the food in ASAP and it all had to get thrown away."
"It was such a waste."
"We then got so many complaints, because there was no food, as the chef was having to recook everything."
"Unsurprisingly the coughing lady was one of the many who complained, but there was very little we could say to her."
"We all got a mouthful of abuse for not having someone watching the carvery at all times, which wasn't possible due to us been deliberately understaffed."
"A**holes ."- SaveMePls22
There Is, Indeed, A Wrong Way To Eat Sushi!
"I saw a dude nearly empty a sushi buffet and took it to the hot plate and told the dude to stir fry it and add extra grease."
"The sushi dude literally threw a knife into the sink and left."-Jellcat
Classic Conditioning
"One time I went to a Golden Corral with my friend and his girlfriend."
"My friend's girlfriend had a lot of edibles before we went and long story short, she was 'too high to tell' that she was full and ate so much that she vomited alllllll over our table."
"Not a little, but a lot."
"My friend had stepped outside for a smoke a couple minutes before this happened, and I called him quickly and told him his girl just exploded all over our f*cking table and we needed assistance, and he didn't believe me."
"He thought I was messing with him so we went back and forth for a couple minutes while I convinced him I wasn't kidding, all the while we're sitting in a packed restaurant with our table covered in puke."
"A waitress came up and started to ask us how we were doing until she noticed the mess in front of us."
"It was a bad time."
"I have not been back to a Golden Corral since."- wozordmotors
There's A Reason It Tasted Like Rubber...
"There was this one time when a customer ate all our shrimp and two plastic lobsters."- balloonmax
Manners don't seem to be taught at these schools...
"Watching hundreds of twelve to thirteen-year-olds take on an all-you-can-eat buffet is a horrifying experience because usually there are other large groups from schools doing the same thing."
"The people who work there to attempt to control this madness are saints."
"The kids go crazy like they never have seen food before."
"Putting spaghetti in the chocolate fountain, eating crazy combinations of food, etc."
"The 3 hour ride back to school after dinner is always dreadful."- RoseTheChief
Ex-Employee
"Ex buffet worker, STORY 1- so its peak season, and a fairly busy day, I was working in a zone and there was a family that just by looking at them you could see any sort of problem, has usual I go to their table to ask if they want a drink to start their lunch (like a martini), and when I look to my side i see a lady bragging about the size of her plate (best way to describe it is a mountain about 20cm tall, which consisted of fish rice potatoes, meat, etc... we had basically 2 dishes of meat and 2 of fish, plus fried stuff so you can imagine how her plate was), also I should mention that it usual to have people ask for a bag with leftovers for the dogs, but this lady decided it was a good idea to bring a bag made of fabric that absorbed all the liquids from the food, at some I have a coworker entering the kitchen and ask for a plastic bag for her, since she had her bag inside her purse and everything was soggy."
"STORY 2- I always share among friends is that time I thougth I was going to be slapped because of a bottle juice, we usually had 1liter or 2liter bottles of juice for the customers and there was always someone o thought they could have the bottle and take it home, one day enters a couple with 2 daughters, a coworker was doing their zone and from he told me it was a bad service he did due to wrong information, they ended their meal and went out to relax for a bit in the sun, I was serving the bar and it was my duty to ask them if they wanted something to drink, and so I go, has soon has I get out the door I see one of the daughters hide a 2 liter bottle of ice tea almost full, I ask them if they want something, they very rudely tell me no!, and so I get back to a superior to ask if its permitted to take bottles now, they told that I needed to get that bottle since our boss gets mad over it, has soon has get to the table and say they can not take the bottle home the mother stood up and got her body against mine and started yelling and I could see her hand getting ready to hit me."
"Additional facts: theres always someone trying to force you to get free stuff. Our coffee mugs were branded so you could see when someone steals them. Theres always someone willing to start an argument because we didn't have what they wanted for that day. Sometimes we had people take and entire tray of food, usually desert to the table(literally the tray) and then we used to get additional charge because it was an entire cake so they argued about it."
"There were outstanding costumers that I loved serving them and fortunately there are more that I liked than the ones that did this sort of thing."
"STORY 3: It was a busy day and we hosted tour buses during summer, and this was a group of elder people that come every year from a big city, it's all organized by this priest, they had 12 tables in a space that had 16 so I needed to let them know that they need to stand together, my coworkers told he has the habit to get a bit close and touchy with females so they wanted a guy who can handle himself with 60 people so everything can go accordingly, so there I was, helping people find a place to sit, when everybody had a place to sit I was finding a place for the bus driver and chatted for a bit with him, this priest comes over next to me asks me if theres everything ok, he then proceeds to tap me on the back and the make is way down squeezes my butt and walks away immediately. Needless to say that I was shocked and thinking if I could count this has being "blessed"
C0ldKing·
When you have free reign over even the tiniest thing, it's hard not to feel like you have free reign over everything.
But next time you find yourself at an all-you-can-eat buffet, just remind yourself that you are out in public, and not at home.
And it's the, likely underpaid, employees who will clean up your mess after you, not the buffet elves.
Also, if you want to get your sushi stir-fried, just don't!