I work at a casual but nice Italian restaurant/pizza parlor that is geared toward family style dining and authentic Chicago style deep dish. Our prices are moderate, averaging about $15 or so per person.

Another server and myself had the bar as our section, half of which was reserved for a party we were to serve and the other half we were rotating. the party was to arrive at 7pm and was for 30 people, who did not pre-order any of the food. i knew this wasn’t going to be the easiest because usually when a party of that size doesn’t pre-order, it just makes it that much harder to figure out what everybody wants. well the half of the bar they hadn’t reserved was in full swing when finally around 7:30 the people in the party start to show up. it was ten people at first, appeared to be the one’s in charge, and seemed really nice. after that all hell broke loose.

the rest of the party started showing up and it turned out they ”had a few more than expected, is that ok?” a few more was actually 20 more people than they had told us. so now we had to figure out where we were going to put all these people, and THEY had the gall to be upset with US. for what? not being clairvoyant? like we should know that when they said 30 people, what they really meant was 50?! so we told them as soon as the tables in the bar started clearing out we’d be able to seat the rest of them. i was at one of those tables boxing up their meals and asking if they’d like anything else when one of the guys from the party came up, interrupted me, and asked ”are they leaving? like now? are they leaving now? cause we need this table when they do.” BEYOND RUDE. i looked at my table apologetically. so eventually we get everybody situated and start to explain our pizza deal that we have. it’s where a large group of people can order two types of big appetizers, two types of big salads, and an assortment of pizzas (the amount of food in each course correlates with how many people there are) for about $16 a person not including drinks, which sounds like a lot but is actually a deal in the long run; it would be more expensive if every three people ordered their own appetizers, salads, and pizza. not to mention the fact that if they took the pizza party deal, it would be way easier on us. so they all agreed to this pizza deal, even when we explained that we would not be able to split the check based on how large the party is and just the way the pizza party deal goes into the computer-it can’t be split.

so we get all the appetizers and salads out and everything is pretty messy because the people are all over the place (like walking around all over in the bar) and really needy and demanding. so we get them fed, and the time comes for the dessert option. for some reason, still unknown to me, we ended up giving them free dessert even though they had brought their own cake. why? because they complained about not having a dessert deal in the pizza party deal. yeah. so that’s about $80 off their bill. this was after we didn’t charge them for the kids in the party considering the pizza party deal was more than enough food and kids don’t usually eat that much (on a daily basis we really only count the kids as 1/2’s ).so we were already giving them a good deal.

finally the time comes where they’re ready to settle their bill and we hand it over. after all the drinks and a few random side dishes they had ordered, it was almost $800. then the complaining starts again. i’m not entirely sure what all they complained about because they were talking to my manager for quite some time and i was trying to shut the restaurant down (at this point it was past closing time, which was at 10pm) i know that a couple of the things they complained about was that they said my serving partner had told them all different deals with different prices (not remotely true) and the fact that about 10 of their family members had left before the bill came, so they were angry that they were stuck with their portion of the bill. they acted as if it was all our fault. HOW?! i mean, that’s between them and their family members, not us. it’s not our fault their family members are sheisty and left without chipping in for the bill. yet they complained and complained until finally my manager took another $100 off their bill. way to stand your ground, manager. so in the end they paid less than $700 for a bill that should have been closer to $1,000. so my serving partner and i only got about 50% of what we should have made off the party.we each made $50. for all that work, and running around, and chaos. it should have been closer to $100 each. unbelievable that people would act that way.

Submitted by: Sara