Weird Restaurant Stories 12/4

I will be honest.  Last week’s batch of restaurant stories was pretty lame.  Apparently everyone took a week off of doing really stupid things in restaurants.  No need to worry though because this week people nationwide made up for their restraint last week.  I am willing to go so far as to say that this may be one of the best installments of this series yet.  Enough of me yappin, here is what I mean.

Before we get started, here are a couple of updates on stories featured in previous weeks.  The discrimination lawsuit against McFadden’s that I have been discussing over the last month has been settled out of court.  The General Manager who (allegedly) sent the text, “We don’t want black people we are a white bar!” has been fired. Also Omaha is the newest city to be warning of fake health inspectors.  Has anyone googled, “scam ideas that are more obvious than an email from Nigeria” to see if any information on this pops up?

Now onto this week’s stories.  Chad and Steve wanted to have a nice meal for Steve’s birthday.  Which obviously means ordering snails.  When Steve went to put his fork into a snail it… let me use Steve’s words, “We had no reason to expect that when we put the fork into the escargot, it would explode — literally jump 2 to 3 inches off the plate.”  Apparently snails are capable of jumping, but only after they are dead, cooked in butter, and stabbed with a fork.  Either that or someone needs to explain to Steve what “literally” means.  (San Rafael, CA)

I am an anti-patio guy.  I do not like sitting outside to eat.  I have seen several meals ruined by bird droppings.  I have yet to see one ruined by birds dropping.  Apparently the 50 or so dead birds that fell on this restaurant were a better alternative than a little bird poop.  Might want to rethink the poison game plan here.  (Venice, FL)

I love sticking it to celebrity chefs.  Gordon Ramsey usually gets a pass because I am actually a fan.  It has been a bad week for the Chef as he made the news twice.  First his New York restaurant fails to pay its trash bills.  Then the winner of this year’s Hell’s Kitchen does not actually get to work at the Savoy Hotel in London.  On a related note, Escoffier has stopped spinning in his grave.  (New York, NY)

While Ramsey’s trash might be sitting for a while, others have taken it upon themselves to remove any number of items from restaurants.  These include meat (Labelle, FL) grease (Springfield, MO), and even an industrial dishwasher (Susquehanna Township, PA).  You know cash spends really easily.  Most everyone takes it.  I am not sure that WalMart accepts payment in used fryer grease.  Maybe next time look for some of that green paper lying around.  I don’t think even Kaiser Soze has a fence for this kind of stuff.

An exception to that last rule can be made for the next thief.  I am not sure thief is even the right word.  We wandered into a restaurant with no money and instantly started scaring off patrons.  It was the fourth time in a week this offender had done it.  The frustrated owner did what all owners secretly want to do and fatally shot him.  I am pretty sure they are rethinking their weekly special of “lovely picanic baskets.”  (Tahoe City, CA)

Other restaurants seem to be getting in trouble for their deliveries.  Selling something as “made in house” or “locally sourced” is a great marketing technique.  It also is a great way to save some money on food costs.  This however does not apply to marketing liquor.  This story would have been infinitely cooler if the moonshiner was named Beau, Luke, or Uncle Jesse.  (Sebring, FL)

The title, “Owner of restaurant set on fire believes he’s victim of hate crime” caught my eye.  The fact that someone wrote, “Get out of our country” on the door of his restaurant before it was set on fire leads me to agree.  I think I speak for a vast majority of Americans when I say that “our country” does not believe in arson as a proper expression of backward ass xenophobia and racism.  This restaurateur has only lived in our country for 8 years, but already has a much better idea of what it means to be an American than the redneck who did this.  (Louisville, KY)

For seemingly the hundredth time on this blog I am pointing out that a night manager’s nametag is not some sort of spanish fly for young girls.  I will stop pointing it out as soon as stories like this stop happening.  There were actually a couple stories this week on this topic, but honestly we all know that there are some real dirtbags in the world.  I don’t like reminding everyone each week.  This one made the list because of the last line in the story.  If I gave an award for the most obvious fact to point out in a story, this one would win.  (Grayslake, IL)

Speaking of awards it is time to present the Chef Justus Award for the restaurant hero to Texas Roadhouse.  When one of their managers died they donated 10% of the sales from 23 of their restaurants to a fund for his children.  Doing it at one store is attempting to do the right thing.  Doing it at 23 stores shows a commitment that I think should be an example to other restaurant companies.  My sympathy and condolences go out to Suzanne Scull and her family.  (Royersford, NJ)

The soon to be renamed (assuming the Saratoga Springs PD can get off their butts and catch the guy) award for the restaurant jerk goes to the Leominster, MA Police Department.  They recently busted a robbery suspect by arresting him at a busy restaurant.  They did so with guns drawn which predictably unnerved the patrons.  They also in their words, “assisted Mr. Manuel Ingrassia to the ground (prone position).”  Could that $300 he stole not have warranted arresting him outside the restaurant?  I’m not trying to pick on the police here, but this seems pretty darn lazy to me.  (Leominster, PA)

Time for the scoreboard:

Scoreboard 12/4

It was a strong week for the Mid Atlantic region.  Florida single handledly carried the South Atlantic region into second this week.  At this point the South Atlantic region’s lead seems pretty insurmountable.  It is not over yet, next week I will announce a special Christmas version of weird restaurant stories that will definitely be a game changer.

This week the United States got credit for the follies of Gordon Ramsey.  It is only fair that Justin Bieber return the favor to London.  While the constant facebook postings about “Bieber Fever” from my female friends in their 30s lead me to believe they have forgotten he is a kid, he did a good job of reminding his server.  No matter where in the world you go, teenagers can be a pain to wait on.  While the owner did not fatally shoot him, I am still giving the points to the world.  USA: 8 World: 7.

That is all for this week.  Monday I will be coming back with the final part of the “don’t be that guy” countdown.  I will also be posting rule seven of the rules of serving and the final installment of the leadership series.  For those who cannot get enough of me, I will also be on The Dave Scott Show this Friday to discuss the restaurant business.  I will also be revealing a very important announcement about the future of this blog this week. Need more reason to come back to this blog?  It is one week til my birthday and anyone who visits everyday gets off the hook for buying me a present.  Don’t think I won’t come find you.

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Weird Restaurant Stories 11/27

Honestly, I don’t have a witty introduction for you this week.  The upside is that they generally aren’t that good to begin with.  I’m not going to even fake it.  Let’s talk about some stories.

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs

Weird Restaurant Stories 11/20

It seems this column always ends up with a focus on crime.  I can only expect that to become more common as the holidays approach and crime rates rise.  This week’s stories are not only about crime, but the general stupidity of those who commit it.  These people pictured themselves as modern day D.B. Coopers only to find themselves caught.  A word to all criminals: If you are not smart enough to talk yourself out of robbing a restaurant, you are probably not smart enough to get away with it.  When you are caught, you can count on me to enjoy mocking you in the hours I am not working hard at an actual job.

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs

Weird Restaurant Stories 11/13

As I perused this week’s restaurant stories, one thing became very clear.  It was an incredibly bad week for restaurant managers.  Several of this week’s stories contain the “manager’s behaving badly” meme.  There are also some great follow up stories that will sound familiar to long time readers of this column.  All of which have been painstakingly compiled for your weekend reading enjoyment.

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs

Weird Restaurant Stories 11/6

This week I ran across an article of particular relevance to this series.  Most of the regular readers know that each week I give an award to the restaurant hero of the week named after Chef Jonathan Justus.  I guess the bad review he received on yelp did not hurt him too much.  His restaurant was recently named the best restaurant in Kansas City by the new Zagat survey.  Congratulations to Justus Drugstore.  What makes it noteworthy in this series is that the byline on the story is the namesake of the restaurant jerk award, Charles Ferruzza.  Worlds are colliding.  With that lets turn to the real news stories of the week.

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs

Weird Restaurant Stories 10/30

Welcome to a very spooky Halloween installment of weird restaurant stories.  How was that for a cliché introduction?  I am going to attempt to avoid clichés in this post.  That means no reporting of haunted restaurants or robber wearing Halloween masks.  To avoid the clichés even further this will be the first ever violence free version of weird restaurant stories.  Which allows me to say, “no restaurant employees were harmed during the writing of these stories.”

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs

Weird Restaurant Stories 10/23

Welcome to the first ever bonus edition of Weird Restaurant Stories.  This week I am going to try something a little different.  The difficulty I have each week in compiling this list is eliminating those last few stories.  This week several of the stories I wanted to eliminate all fit into the same theme.  So this week’s dozen stories is actually a dozen and a half.  Bonus.

The reason I limit it to 12 is that this is actually one of the more time consuming posts I write during the week.  Coming up with even slightly funny lines about more than 12 stories would be a bit cumbersome.  That is why this week in order to accommodate the bonus stories I have decided on a speed round of stories all sharing a similar theme.  We have all heard the phrase, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”  This week I decided to test that theory.  I may have some better variations.  Judge for yourself.

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs

Weird Restaurant Stories 10/16

The deliberations are done.  From hundreds of qualifiers, forty made the first cut.  The second cut took us to eighteen.  After a couple of hours of eliminations, I have the top twelve stories that happened in restaurants this week.  Here are the winners.

Read the full post at Restaurant Laughs

Weird Restaurant Stories 10/9

Welcome back to another week of strange restaurant stories from around the country.  I have been writing this column for several weeks now.  Those of you who read it every week have already started picking up on trends.  This week we have our first follow up story.  We also have what I think qualifies as the strangest story yet.  As a bonus this week I am introducing two new awards.  I have decided to name them after characters from past posts on this blog and am allowing you to choose if they become weekly features.

Enough with the intro, let’s get to some stories.

Read the whole story at Restaurant Laughs

Weird Restaurant Stories 10/2

Welcome back for another week of weird restaurant stories from around the country and around the globe.  Last week’s post sounded more like a crime blotter than a lighthearted romp through the news of the weird.  It ended with two pleas.  The first was to stop committing heinous crimes at restaurants and return to acts of stupidity.  The second was that someone in the West North Central region finally does something newsworthy to get on the scoreboard.  I can declare this week a victory on the first request.  The second, we will have to wait and see.

Read the full story at Restaurant Laughs