Waiters In Upscale Restaurants Reveal The Most Ridiculous "Rich Person" Thing They've Seen

A Quirky Palette

I worked in a high class restaurant in a nice hotel (for my town anyway) for a few years. We had a couple come in with their lap dog, religiously every Tuesday evening for dinner. Due to health code, they were not allowed to bring their (non-service) purse poodle into the restaurant.

Their solution? Request a special table be set up in a private nook of the hotel lobby so they could dine in style with their fur child. Also, they saw the menu as more of a 'mix and match' situation, rather than a thought out, cohesive guide to ordering, with each component of each dish tailored to complement everything else on the plate. They chose whatever sides and sauces on the menu struck their fancy, and paired them with their chosen protein, and they often ordered two different mix and match entrees each, plus a starter - They ALWAYS ordered the cheese and cracker board, no crackers, sub gluten free bread (Double toasted. The lady sent the first round of bread back every time. We could've sent the first round out burnt, and she would've sent it back to be toasted more, or re-sent the bread she had just sent back without doing anything to it and it would be 'just divine' the second time around), and they subbed all 4 or 5 of the local, artisan cheeses for Brie, which wasn't even one of the cheeses that came on the board to begin with. We started keeping a wheel on hand specifically for them. Oh, and a 'lightly seasoned, grilled chicken breast' for the dog.

They were polite, and delightfully odd (plus they tipped through the nose) so once we got used to most of their quirks, we were more entertained than annoyed, and enjoyed their weekly visit.

whatscookin1993

Ignore Him, He's Just The Help

Working nights at a hotel many years back - not super high class, but certainly no budget hotel either - a lady came in to reception. I say 'lady' because she definitely was - she just reeked of old money. She had a guy in tow, wearing a grey suit - as this was about midnight on a Friday, I immediately clocked him as a chauffeur/aide type deal. No problem, I've seen that before.

She asked if we had a room for the night. 'A decent one, please. A suite, ideally.' No problem, we had a suite available. I told her the price - as night manager I had the freedom to charge pretty much whatever I liked, if it meant making a sale. But for her I charged full price. Screw it, she looked like she could afford it. She didn't bat an eyelid.

Then it came to her chauffeur guy. 'Do you have a servant's quarters for my driver?'

'Um, no, sorry madam. Just the standard rooms.'

I gave her the price for one of our standard rooms, and she screwed up her face. 'Oh no, that's too much. Don't you have, like, a staff house or something he could stay in? I'd really rather not spend money on an actual hotel room for him.'

All this with the guy standing right next to her. I felt really bad for the poor guy and wondered if this was usual for him.

After a few more questions and her considering whether to have him sleep in the car (yes, really), we eventually settled on him having a standard room for rock bottom price (I think about £30 or so) - that was as much as she was willing to spend on him, and less than a tenth of what she was paying for her own room. TBH I'd have given him a room for free rather than having him sleep in the car - but clearly I had more compassion for the guy than she did.

TheAngryBad

Even A Villa Is Meaningless

I currently live in an old yet nice and comfy apartment in Giza (around 20 minutes from the pyramids complex). The landlady is a very nice old lady, probably in her 60s, and is filthy, filthy, filthy rich.

Last year my car had to be repaired after a minor crash for more than a week, and when the landlady found out from the bawabs (doormen) about my situation, she sent one of her English-speaking maids to give me car keys for a BMW 520i, Mercedes-Benz S600, and a brand new Land Cruiser. "The madam insist you use her car until yours is repaired". I was shocked, of course, and asked her if she still could go around with her lending this much cars to me. "No worry, madam has 12 cars in al-Qahirah". Okay, I guess... I ended up only using the Land Cruiser because it's the cheapest one (I think).

Another story is when she knew I would graduate from college soon. She asked me to come visit her place, I did as she asked, and she just gave me a set of keys and some money. "Here, I have nice villa in Ain Sokhna. Go visit it with friend and family, food and drinks is on me, I have maids and cooks there. Car you can use mine, the money is for fuel. Happy graduation." I told her that I just couldn't take it, but she just shooed me away and told me to return her keys only after I really visited the villa. Haven't gone to the place yet, but I will soon enough when I have time.

ezadskoo

Rules Of Engagement

I interviewed at a large hotel attached to a casino and while I was being shown around the front desk, a woman walked up, said nothing, and got room keys after being greeted by the front desk agent. She immediately turned and walked away. Then the manager who was interviewing turned to me and said, "That's Mrs. Richladypants. You never ask her for her name, her ID, or god forbid a credit card. She stays here comped once or twice a week because her husband spends so much in the casino. If you upset her she will yell at you and then hand the person working next to you a $100 bill just to spite you."

I ended up turning down a job there, thankfully so because apparently she wasn't the only guest of her type there.

arnber420

What On Earth Is Expensive Water

My uncle works at a very upscale restaurant on a very well-to-do and desirable vacation island in the Atlantic Ocean.

One of their regular customers is a billionaire oil guy. My uncle has told me:

• he arrives on a yacht that tows a smaller yacht. The smaller yacht is still big enough to have a helicopter.
• he demands to have his dogs seated at the table and feeds them foie grass and expensive water.
• when he takes humans to eat my uncle has never seen him with the same woman twice, and often it's a table of women.
• if he really liked the meal he will go through the restaurant and, in front of everyone, peel off crisp 100s from a giant roll of money in his pocket and tip every service person whether they helped or not.
• one time the owner got a call from health inspectors saying they received a complaint that dogs were seen eating in the restaurant. All the owner did was speak the billionaires name and the health inspector said, "Oh okay, bye."

Auto_Fac

That Chicken Was Surrounded By Money

I worked for a resort in the Seychelles for 4 years. I have hundreds of stories which would fit this post but one that stands out was a very wealthy Canadian family who stayed at one of the private residences for a couple of weeks.

They brought their own staff including two personal chefs but also asked for a hotel chef to assist their team with prep and local ingredient knowledge. A chef I was friendly with was selected to spend the two weeks with them.

One day, another member of their staff came down to one of the restaurants and purchased two bottles of wine for €11,000+ each. Now we had far more expensive bottles on the list but this was still a notable sale and later that night, I asked my mate what they had cooked to accompany the wine.

Turns out they had poured both bottles into the pot while making a Coq au Vin.

diarm

We Need More Kind Rich Folks

Late to this party but I have a positive one to throw in amidst all the negative.

I'm loosely aquainted with someone who is obscenely rich. He dated my best friend for a while back when we were in college. As you can imagine, he bought her fancy things all the time, took her on expensive family vacations with his folks, ect ect. He was a stereotypical rich kid, but he was also kind and still very down to earth.

They dated about a year and in the spring we went spring breaking in his family's condo at a famous spring break beach location and there was just me, my best friend, him and a couple of his friends. The group decided we wanted good old fashioned Waffle House breakfast after a night of revelry. After eating, I noticed he was lingering behind the group. He'd said he had to take a leak, but he stopped back by the table on his way out to the car. Curious, I ran back to the restrooms just so I could pass by the table to see what he'd done.

He left the waitress a small pile of Benjamins as a tip. Had to be 4 or 5 hundred dollars. I couldn't quite tell because they were folded and rumpled from being in his wallet.

My mouth fell open when I saw it and I forgot I was even heading to the restroom. I looked out by the car and he was watching me through the glass windows, held up his finger to his lips mouthing, "shhhh," and beckoned me back out to the car.

I didn't tell, but my eyes were glued to the table as we pulled away in his car. The waitress collapsed into the seat of the table when she saw it. Pretty sure she was crying.

Letting that guy get away was the dumbest thing my best friend ever did in her life.

WifeyP

Kind, Yet Insane

I operated a premium chain restaurant in Canada. One day this Indian gentleman started coming in, at first by himself. On the first day he spent $200 on wine and tipped $1000. The next day he did the same again. When we saw him the third time I had servers fighting over him.

Anyway, one evening he got drunk on wine and Brad the busboy made the mistake complementing his watch. Mr. S. takes off his Tag and gives it to Brad. The next morning Mr. S comes back to get his car and asks if Brad is there, I say yes and go get him, Brad knows what's up and is removing the watch as he walks over to Mr. S. Mr. S says, "Brad I'm really sorry I got drunk last night and gave you my watch." Brad is chuckling as he is removing the watch and says it's no problem and he was just holding the watch until Mr. S returned. The next thing Mr. S. said, I could not believe: "Brad you don't understand, I'm sorry because it was very rude of me to give you a used gift." And at that moment Mr. S pulled out a box with a brand new Tag Heuer inside and handed it to Brad.

alex-manutd

Whoops Times Five Million

My son in law was working as a waiter in a fancy restaurant in Dubai. A very tipsy customer ordered a bottle of pomerol bordeaux 1960 valued at $15000. He was trying to impress his lady friend. My son in law confirmed the price with him and asked him if he's sure that he wants to open their most expensive wine in the house. Yes yes was the reply. The following day when the customer sobered up phoned in to say he made a mistake and wanted his money back. Too late, was the answer from the restaurant. They also found out that his lady friend was in fact a call girl.

Sotomagic

"Proper" Thanks

I'm none of the above, but a soldier. We held an annual ball at a local marina hotel restaurant/bar, and had it reserved for the evening. Barkeep/host grabs our commander a few hours into the event and says "There's a guy, he's a daily regular for the past fifteen years, wants to grab his usual nightcap. Do you mind?"

The commander agrees and the gentleman comes in, sits at his spot, and proceeds to enjoy the show while "occasionally" covering costs for those of us grabbing drinks, in exchange for a little small talk about what we do. After about three hours, he grabs his coat and heads out.

He then returns about an hour later, and proceeds to shut down the joint with us, still covering drinks "here and there."

The next day when I came in as part of the clean-up crew (grabbing drunkenly abandoned uniform or materials), the host gave me the breakdown after I asked how long their charges normally take to process, as I hadn't seen my bar tab hit my account yet.

Turns out the regular owned a chunk of the marina, and covered a combined $12,000 bar tab as "thanks to the servicemen and women." I had a tab of over $450 waiting on my card, completely covered that night. It was glorious.

KodakBear88

The Beach Club

Long time lurker here,

Worked abroad at a high end beach club in Greece where all our clients had to speak English as all the staff were Brits. Now this place is fairly top end, tabs at the end are often £20,000 after a week kind of place.

I worked all over but mostly in the restaurant and we had some great ones:

-asked to turn down the volume of the insects in our outdoor restaurant

-had a competition with his mate to see if he could get the biggest bar bill of the week

-bought a bottle of rosé costing £60+ just to have a glass

-their villa was 5/10min walk from the club so paid extra for a private driver for the week

-paid for a in-villa host for 3 meals a day for 2 weeks, just for when they wanted to eat in, my friend was the host and she made 5 meals in total

All I can think of at the minute, was a brilliant place to work though, and all in all the guests and staff were brilliant to work for/with, going back this summer!

IamNotaTelephone

Even Rich People Are Wannabes

I worked at a luxury vacation rental property in a small, affluent mountain town (you can probably narrow it down to a couple places already). Being a vacation rental meant we provided hotel-like services to guests on behalf of the owners. These were full ownership condos (not time share, one person owned it, in some cases owned several) with an average value of about $2M (for a one bedroom unit).

I only say this to beat down stereotypes and make a point (wait for it, though, there's a story coming), as most of our owners were actually relatively down-to-earth and kind people who made their money through a LOT of hard work (I got to know some of them - yes, a few were heiresses, but many more were self-made business people or executives in major corporations).

I worked in the film industry, previously, and one of the same rules apply there. The shittiest people are the ones who have ego issues, the ones who WANT to be hot shit, but know they aren't, but are rubbing elbows with those are truly successful. On to the story, there was a tradition at our property that we put out warm cookies near the time the lifts close.

We only made a certain number each day - those that waited around or made it a point to get them always got one, and often we'd make another batch if enough demand was there, though some days we'd just give them away to neighboring businesses' staff because so many would be left. You never really knew, but did your best. Well, one day a lady and her daughter come looking for the cookies an hour after they were put out (they had been gone about 50 minutes now).

She asked about the cookies, and I explained those are put out at a certain time, and was literally opening my mouth to offer to make one specially for her daughter, but before I could exhale a word, she launched into a tirade. "So my daughter doesn't get one!? Are you for real? You're a joke! You're worthless, your job is worthless, and you shouldn't be working here. You are a fucking piece of shit!" All this in front of her young daughter, no less. In spite of this, I smiled and offered to make one for her daughter, as I had originally intended to offer. She repeated how worthless I was and how I should never bother showing up to work again, and stormed off. I didn't say a word to her the rest of her stay.

enlguy

Show Me The Juice

i see a lot of bad stereotypical stuff in here.. so let me brighten your day.

i used to work at a high class hotel restaurant and one of the regulars there would always order VERY expensive bottles of wine. i'm talking about very good and expensive juice, rare and delicious. he would always go through the same routine. he order the first bottle, taste it, and declare it either corked or just plain bad. he would then call the manager and tell him he would still pay for the bottle on the condition that all the serving staff would take turns at his table with a glass to taste it and 'learn what makes a wine taste bad' (we're talking about wine bottles worth in the hundreds if not thousands) he would then order his own bottle and drink this one.

thing is, the first bottle was perfect.

both the sommelier and the waiters were in on it. only the manager didn't (officially but probably did) know about it.

so every now and then, we could have a taste of wine worth a couple of dozen dollars a sip just because this guy knew his juice, wanted to share the pleasure with us, and was loaded with money.

yupynut

To The Skies

So, not a restaurant or a hotel, but a travel agent. Client is a dick. Client can't drive and crashes car. Client walks out of police station after filling out all paperwork following the crash and decides to.. commandeer the first helicopter he sees to get him where he wants to go. Because rich people logic.

Footnote: there was a pilot to go with the helicopter, to eliminate any confusion on that count. Client definitely would not be able to manage a helicopter on his own. Hell, he couldn't even manage his own travel plans.

ebzywebzy

Squid Ink In My Eye

Not a high class restaurant or hotel, just a nice little shop selling fresh house-made pasta and sauces to take home and boil/heat up yourself. We got the stereotypical rich people due to the location smack in the middle of Marin County CA. This was in the late 80's and food trends were plentiful and rapidly evolving.

Many people were very interested in being on the cutting edge of the latest trend, be it the latest hot restaurant or that month's fabulous must have menu item. Not that they were actually into food, but just to be "in the know" and brag about how you simply must try the most fabulous tiramisu at (latest hot restaurant). We actual restaurant folk would stoically refrain from rolling our eyes in their presence and carry on.

So at the pasta shop one evening, a typical Marin Matron arrived in her jeweled slippers, clattery jewelry and a cloud of perfume. She pushed past the other patrons in front of her and said she needed some squid ink pasta. "I'm sorry," I replied, "we don't actually make a squid ink pasta, but you may be able to find it at (fancy grocery store in the same plaza), they carry several very good imported items."

She gaped at me and started moaning "OHHHH NO NO NO NO NOOOOO", of course now everyone in the place was staring at her. She then told me that she HAD TO have squid ink pasta because she had her "gourmet friends" coming for dinner and they HAD TO have squid ink pasta.

I apologized again, explaining that we didn't make squid ink pasta and again suggested the fancy grocery store, only to be cut off by her loud wailing "OHHHH NO NO NO...." again. I just stood and watched along with everyone else in the place as she paced up and down before the display case, clutching her head and repeating "Squid ink pasta...gourmet friends! SQUID INK PASTA...GOURMET FRIENDS!" over and over at the top of her lungs, as if this incantation would magically call forth a hidden cache of squid ink pasta.

Needless to say, we could not provide said SQUID INK PASTA so I don't know what she served to her GOURMET FRIENDS that fateful evening. The whole thing was just so bizarre and over the top. Anytime we encountered some delusional, entitled weirdo, we'd mutter "Squid ink pasta!" and cackle to each other.

disqeau

-Cue Dramatic Theme Music-

Positive stereotype incoming:

I worked at a nice steakhouse in Houston. Once a year one of the biggest telenovela stars from Mexico would come in to town to shop at the galleria, and she always ate at our restaurant. After dinner, she would walk through the kitchen spending about a half hour laughing, taking pictures, and talking with the kitchen staff (in Houston about 90% of BOH are Hispanic). She was very aware of her status, very well dressed, and very kind to the hardest working and worst paid staff at that restaurant. Maybe doesn't fit here, idk, but it was cool to see year after year.

RadicaLarry