She Threw a Fit When the Hostess Refused to Seat Her Early—Not Realizing the Hostess Understood Every Word She Mumbled in Mandarin
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Imagine going to a restaurant to get a table for your family, but your family isn’t with you. Would you expect to be seated right away, or would you expect to be seated when your family arrives?
In this story, one customer finds herself in this situation, and she is really upset when she is told she has to wait for her family to arrive. When her family finally does arrive, the situation gets even more annoying for her.
The best part about the entire story is what the hostess does at the very end. Keep reading for all the details from the hostess’s perspective.
“Why are you seating those tables of 3 and 4 instead of my table for 7! 3 plus 4 makes seven!”
Sometimes smaller tables get seated faster.
It’s a Friday night, and a school holiday, so our restaurant is slammed that evening, with a line out the door.
A lady comes in with a table for 7, and she’s the only one here, so I tell her, “Sorry, m’am, we need at least half your party here to seat you.”
She asks why she can’t immediately be seated.
But OP explains why that’s not going to happen.
I say because we need to seat complete (or at least half complete) parties first to ensure we keep the flow of customers eating and leaving rather than one person taking up a large table.
We have a small seating area for guests so wait, so she goes there and waits.
For half an hour.
She starts to get angry and demands that we seat her.
A supervisor steps in.
One of the supervisors happens to be about to seat a table, so she’s at the hostess counter when this lady is talking to me, so the supervisor jumps in.
Supervisor: Sorry m’am, as my hostess has already explained, we need at least half your party to seat you.
Lady: I’ve been waiting so long!
Supervisor: I understand, but we need to follow company policy.
The lady gets even more upset.
About 10 minutes later, she tells me they’re nearby, and I say, “Great, m’am, please tell them to come in and we’ll seat you as soon as we have a table.”
In that moment her face shriveled up so fast you would’ve thought I threw an entire bucket of lemon juice on her, she looked so sour. I’m like, heck, because I’ve already had a long day, and she’s about to throw a fit, and I’m not in the mood.
Lady: You mean I still have to wait?!
Me: I’m so sorry, m’am, we’re pretty full now and you guys will need a bigger table —
They’re both upset at this point.
Lady: I’ve been waiting almost an hour!
I’m starting to get annoyed, because she would’ve been seated immediately if half her party was here! Instead we had to give the tables that opened up to parties that had people actually present, or she would’ve been hogging that table for a good hour.
To make matters worse, another employee doing seating comes by and says, “Next queue,” So I give her one table of 3 and another of 4. And, oh. My god.
That lady loses her damn mind.
The lady is yelling now.
She starts yelling, “I WANT THOSE TABLES!”
Listen, lady:
You’re still the only one here????
THE TABLES ARE IN DIFFERENT SECTIONS.
Another customer waiting for a table thinks this is funny.
So I’m trying to exercise some patience, like, “M’am, these are 4 tops.”
Lady: 3 AND 4 MAKE 7!
Me: The tables are at different sides of the restaurant.
She looked at me like she’s never heard of such a concept, but she stops yelling, and someone behind her in the line snorts.
Here’s the best part!
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The best thing is, when everyone else from her party arrives, they decide they don’t even want to eat here.
The lady who’d been waiting got super mad at them, and I actually felt bad for her — until she started complaining about me in mandarin.
Here’s the thing: I’m half Chinese, but can come off as white passing, especially when I have a full face of makeup on, like I usually do for work. And I’ve been learning mandarin since I was 4 years old.
The look on her face when I told her to have a nice evening in Mandarin?
Priceless.
Wow! That’s awesome! I love the way it ended for OP, but I hate everything about this situation for the lady who was waiting for her family. She should be mad at her family though, not OP.
Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.
It’s not that hard to understand.
This person loved the ending.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a longtime bank customer who walked away after the teller gave them a hard time.
Another person loved the ending too.
This person makes a good point.
Did the family decide to leave because they wanted to eat somewhere else, or were they annoyed that they’d have to wait for a table? The sad part for the woman who was waiting was that she had to wait so very long for her family to arrive. If I were her, in the future I’d be hesitant to show up until I was sure my family was nearby.
The hostess did the right thing, and the ending to the story was definitely the icing on the cake!
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