Drunk customers can be some of the worst people to deal with.

This Denny’s server learned that firsthand while working the graveyard shift back in 1995. Anyone who’s worked those late-night restaurant hours knows exactly what happens when the bars close and the crowds start rolling in.

One night, a group of four men came through the doors, and one of them quickly became a problem.

The customer was loud, demanding, and clearly had far too much to drink. But things got way worse when a manager politely asked the group to keep the noise down for the sake of everyone else in the restaurant.

Instead of taking the warning and moving on, the customer decided to push his luck.

Read on to see just what he did.

Instant karma served with coffee

It was 1995 in Central Arkansas, and I was 18 years old working the graveyard shift at Denny’s.

Anyone who has worked that shift knows the vibe. It stays quiet until the bars let out, and then the “drunk and entitled” crowd rolls in.

I was waiting on a table of four men, and one guy was a complete nightmare. He was loud, demanding, and incredibly intoxicated. He was making such a scene that my manager, a kind African-American man, walked over and politely asked the group to keep it down for the sake of the other diners.

Then, the guy rushed him.

​The drunk guy immediately snapped and launched into a stream of vile racial slurs.

My manager stayed professional, kept his voice level, and told him, “Okay, you need to leave now.”

The guy hit him with the classic line, “Do you know who I am? I’m not leaving!” while his three friends, finally showing some sense, tried to hustle him toward the door. As they reached the front counter near the service openings, the guy suddenly broke away from his friends and body-rushed my manager, charging into the staff’s area with pure intent to do damage.

The manager acted in self defense.

​My manager didn’t hesitate or flinch.

He timed it perfectly and met the guy’s momentum head-on. He caught him mid-rush, used the guy’s own weight against him, and hoisted him off the ground before slamming him flat onto the floor.

Before the drunk could even process what happened, my manager was over him, landing a punch and roaring, “Get the **** out of my restaurant!”

When the police came, everyone happily gave statements.

​The police and an ambulance were called, and the guy actually tried to have my manager prosecuted for assault. However, because the guy had charged into the back-of-house area, it was a clear-cut case of self-defense.

Every single person on the wait staff wrote statements backing our manager up, so he didn’t get into a lick of trouble. The jerk got hauled away, the restaurant went quiet for a beat, and then we just went back to serving coffee.

Thirty years later, I still remember the day that “nice” manager finally had enough.

Wow! That guy had some nerve!

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a hardware store employee who lost his cool with customers wandering around after closing time.

Let’s check out what the readers over at Reddit think about the drunk guy’s actions.

He was probably nobody.

This is a good question.

Narcissists are so hard to handle.

Yeah, because there’s only Denny’s in Little Rock.

Some people seem to think they can say and do whatever they want without consequences.

This customer had multiple chances to calm down and stop making a fool of himself.

Instead, he kept escalating the situation until he crossed a line he never should’ve crossed. And that’s why it’s hard to feel sorry for him.

On the other hand, the manager sounds like he handled the situation professionally for as long as anyone reasonably could. The moment the customer decided to charge into the staff area, he got exactly the response he earned.