Cutting in line is rude enough, but teaching an entire group of people that the rules don’t apply to them is even worse.

This server watched that happen during a busy baseball weekend when a team of about 40 people showed up to a packed restaurant without a reservation.

After learning they faced a wait of more than an hour, they decided they weren’t going to wait at all.

Instead, they walked past the host stand and started taking empty tables throughout the restaurant.

But when the hostess tried to stop them, management stepped in and made a decision that left the staff furious and several customers walking out the door.

Read on to see exactly what happened.

The day I learned management will ALWAYS bow to avoiding conflict

It’s Halloween. Time for the scary tale I always tell naive new servers when they ask some variation of the question “Customers can’t be THAT bad, right?”

Oh sweet summer children, you have no idea. But you will.

A few years ago, it’s a Saturday. We’re pretty busy as usual. But it’s baseball season. Big time for us. Lots of families and full teams will come in. We are always slammed.

Today is busier than usual. I guessed based on the number of people, both teens and adults, wearing jerseys it was a tournament or finals or something. I don’t really follow baseball.

Everything was crazy enough when a table of boys sat down.

Anyway, by this point we are on a wait of 45 minutes to an hour.

I’ve got a full section as do most of us. Kitchen’s going as fast as possible but things are still taking time.

A six top of boys in jerseys sit down at a table next to my section.

This surprises me for a couple reasons. One, we are on a wait and I hadn’t seen anyone in the building wearing those colors, and two, they sit in an unattended section.

Then, she noticed a pattern.

And then three. The big one. I see they have no menus.

Ooooookay…..that’s a little concerning. I go up to the table and ask “Hey did the hostess not give you menus?”

Blank stares from all six. I also notice they didn’t have silverware. Lovely. They sat themselves.

Pretty irked by now, I also notice there isn’t a full adult among them. Out of curiosity I look around.

The hostess looked like she wanted to cry.

I now see SEVERAL tables in closed sections with people wearing these jerseys. NONE of them have menus or silverware.

Angry, I go up to the hostess and she looks like she’s about to cry. I ask her why she’s letting people seat themselves.

On the verge of tears, she explains that some of the team had come in, saying they had 40 of them, no reservation or call ahead. She told them for a 40 it would probably be at least an hour. Closer to 90 minutes, since they still had about a dozen tables in front of them.

The older guy that was talking to her turned to the dozen or so people with him and told them the following.

Everyone in the group joined in.

“Just go start taking any empty tables. It’s not like they’re gonna kick us out or anything. ”

And……they …*******…did.

Everyone with their group just started walking in past the host stand, past all the guests waiting, and just started taking any random table they could.

Our hostess told us several tables who were waiting turned around and left. One even went up to the host stand and demanded they be sat next, and when the host (understandably flustered) said she couldn’t skip them ahead, the customer slammed his fist on the stand, said “This is ********.” (Also understandable) and walked out.

Of course, management took the wrong side.

Management was useless. They went with the, “It’ll be easier and faster to just get them out of here as fast as we can.”

Not caring that the kitchen is now slammed, the servers more so as well, and other customers are getting worse experiences.

I personally refused to serve any of them. Yes I know its a hollow victory as I still helped my coworkers run food and drinks for them but I couldn’t stand the thought of endorsing that behavior.

And as usual for teams. All split checks, for people at multiple tables. A nightmare of itself, when you have different servers waiting on kids who say their parents are paying but have no idea what table their parents are at.

The group was not pleasant to serve.

And how well do you think anyone in that group treated the servers? Either financially or attitude wise?

About the ONLY satisfaction we got out of that was angry email from guests saying they’d never come back.

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I don’t think I’ve seen the morale of a place take a hit like I did that day.

I’ve known for years that ******* customers get whatever they want just by being rude. But this was the most aggressive example of that I’ve ever seen. Still makes my blood boil thinking about it.

Yikes! That sounds like a nightmare.

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 see what the folks over at Reddit think about what happened here.

It sure did!

Well, the chef doesn’t need to get in trouble.

Maybe they’ve tried it before.

Things can never be this easy.

It doesn’t get more rude than this.

Most people understand that if a restaurant has a wait, they need to get in line like everyone else.

But this team decided that their time was somehow more important than the dozens of customers who were already waiting.

And when management let them get away with it, they reinforced the idea that rules only apply to people willing to follow them.

It’s hard to blame the staff for feeling frustrated when the people who behaved the worst ended up getting exactly what they wanted.