A man was left in shock after seeing a revolting message written to the chef on his receipt at a New York restaurant.
As much as ‘the customer is always right’, we also often hear people in the cafe and restaurant industry joking about messing with annoying customers – sneezing in people’s food and licking their glasses, that kind of thing.
We can usually rest assured that our food will remain untampered with when we go out for food, but one man was left horrified when he found out that the chef had been asked by the waitress to spit in his food.
Curtis Mays, who lives in New York City, was being treated to dinner by his daughter and granddaughter on Father’s Day at Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden in Astoria, Queens.
Mays’ order had reportedly been mixed up, so he asked the waitress for the receipt so he could check it.
The receipt lists the instructions for Mays’ burger – cheddar, well done, toast bread – and in among the ingredients was the request to ‘please spit in it too’.
Mays said he had already finished his burger when he saw this on the receipt.
Speaking to WABC-TV, He described his disgust at seeing the message:
I felt like I was gonna throw up
Mays confronted the waitress, trying to figure out why the receipt told the chef to spit in his food, but at first she denied that she had written the message. Mays then asked her who printed off the receipts, to which the waitress admitted that she had printed it off. Mays asked the waitress ‘Why are you lying to me?’, but she walked away instead of responding.
Mays told WABC-TV that he then took the receipt to an on-duty manager, explaining the situation. The manager fired the waitress on the spot, and offered Mays a refund for his food.
The manager reportedly asked how he could compensate Mays, but the customer said there was nothing the manager could do.
I mean how do you compensate somebody for spitting on your food?
The manager also spoke to WABC-TV, and claimed there had never had a problem with the waitress in the past and that they doubted the chef had really spat in Mays’ food. He said food service was a stressful job, but despite this the manager still acknowledged that the event was unacceptable and he understood why Mays’ was upset.
Fox News report that people coming across this story have suggested the waitress may have misspelled the order ‘please split it in two’, but this doesn’t explain why she had no excuse and simply walked away when Mays confronted her about the message.
WABC-TV reported that the restaurant Mays and his family were eating at, The Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden, currently has an ‘A’ rating from the New York Department of Health.
Maybe we can all use this as an incentive to cook for ourselves more often.
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.