Reddit's 8 best horror stories of waiters coming to the table at the wrong time

Reddit dinner table
Shutterstock (edited)
Shutterstock (edited)

You learn a lot when you're a server. How to calculate 20% tip in your sleep, what a ramekin is, and when to stay far, far away from one of your tables. These servers hadn't quite mastered that last skill when they accidentally interrupted these awkward meals, but they got some unbelievable stories out of it. Coming to you from one very hilarious Reddit thread, here are eight incredible tales of wrong table, wrong time... warts, erratic grammar, and all.

8. Server meets serial killer
"Walks up to the table to check on them.

'... and that's the first time I saw a dead body.'"


7. Buy one vasectomy, get the second one free
"I served a few years back as a first job. One time, going to the table to ask them a question, I hear, 'well you got a vasectomy for HER...'

As soon as the lady saw me, she stopped. I've always wondered what the extent of that conversation was."

Eggs over hash browns
Sebastian Davis

6. The egg order that didn't go over easy
"I was taking the breakfast order from a couple staying at the hotel, the lady ordered a full English breakfast and I asked how she would like her eggs, her reply 'fertilised' [sic] she then scowled at her husband, I backed away and ordered her fried eggs."

5. Happy birthday, here's a faceful of wine
"Had a table came [sic] in for this guy's birthday. It was a surprise birthday dinner hosted by his girlfriend, although she didn't realise that 2 of his female 'friends' she had invited were also sleeping with him.

I came over to the table just as one girl stood up and yelled 'you bitch' to another and stormed out. The second one threw a drink on the guy and walked out. The girlfriend with tears running down of [sic] her face asked of the bill and then exits. I come back to the table with the bill with the guy drenched in wine and 5 of his remaining friends still there in hysterics."

4. Two bourbons and a divorce attorney, please
"My roommate is a bartender and he came up to a couple seated at the bar right when the man handed his wife divorce papers."

3.The one where the lunch table became a changing table
"I'm a poolside server at a country club. As I walk up to the first customers of the day, (mom and two children) the mom starts changing her 6-7 year old son right outside on the patio. Here I am trying to tell them the specials of the day while there's a kid showing off what he's got. If your kid can order his own f**king food don't change him in broad daylight. Wtf."

Engagement ring
Flickr/ilovebutter

2.A proposal goes awry
"Guy and girlfriend come into our restaurant for dinner. Guy then secretly tells me he has a ring and wants to propose to her and wants it to be all special. I was to wait until a specific time and come and ask if the table needed anything else and them he would say 'I do. I need her.' And then get down on his knee, etc. etc.


I thought it was cheesy, but hey I wanted to help the guy out and be a part of something like that, so I said I'd do it.

I get to the table and ask the question, he then pops THE question and she burst into tears. But not good happy tears. She then blurts out that she wants to break up and that she was in love another guy, apparently a friend of his.

I just slowly backed away from the table as his entire world came crashing down on him."

1. My wife, the third wheel
"As I approached the table, a lady brushed me out of the way and sat down next to the couple there. The couple were [sic] obviously on a date. The lady turns to the woman on the date and said, 'So, I'm his wife. Who the f**k are you?'"

Kristin Hunt is a food/drink staff writer for Thrillist. She hopes someone turns this into a reality show, because she would watch the hell out of it. Follow her to sizzle reels at @kristin_hunt.