A Vegetarian Guest Claimed She Found Meat In Her Dish, So Her Meal Was Comped — Then Her Whole Table Demanded Free Food Too, And Threatened To Sue
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When a vegetarian orders a meal at a restaurant, they should be able to expect that it won’t have any meat in it.
What would you do if a customer claimed that there was a tiny piece of meat in her meal, and then even after comping her meal, and then the entire table’s meal, she still wasn’t happy and threatened to sue?
That is what happened at the restaurant in this story, and even though they know a lawsuit will almost certainly never happen (or it would be quickly dismissed), it was still a frustrating situation.
Personally, I think that they should have comped the one meal, but not the whole table. Giving in to complaints from customers like this only encourages them. Read through the full story and see if you agree.
Getting sued..
As I was passing by my coworker’s table, they flagged me down about a complaint.
You need to be careful to keep meat out of a vegetarian’s dish.
One of the person’s vegetarian dish had a very small chunk of meat, about the size of a corn kernel, that she chewed and spat out.
However, the rest of her dish was almost licked clean. Needless to say, the customer was livid and went on a tirade about how her putting that piece of meat in her mouth went against her religion and her beliefs.
They still aren’t happy.
I apologized profusely and took her dish out of their tab, while the other 2 people in her party, who were not vegetarian, paid for their dishes.
After a while of just sitting and talking amongst themselves, they flagged me down again. This time they were adamant that I get my manager on the phone.
Managers shouldn’t give in to this type of thing. It only encourages the bad behavior.
I called my manager, and he told me to explain to them that he was busy with his family, but would be able to talk to them tomorrow morning. I relayed this message to them. They said if I don’t get him on the phone right away, they’ll threaten legal action against us.
After some time I did manage to get my manager on the phone for them, much to his dismay, and they left. Manager tells me to refund all their dishes back to their card so that the tab for the entire table was comped. I obliged. I thought that would be it.
Now what?
Fast forward a couple minutes later, I went up to the host counter to help a different customer, the woman and her party storm back into the restaurant.
She yells at me and demands I pull out my phone and call my manager right now. I was confused and taken aback about why she’s causing a scene this time, and asked her what happened.
What another customer said to her has nothing to do with the manager.
She yells that one of our customers, who had witnessed and eavesdropped on the whole ordeal, followed them outside and accused them of walking out on their tab because they were mad about the food.
I understood why this would make them angry, however, this instance had nothing to do with us and I wasn’t about to call my manager for the 6th time since the matter had already been resolved from our end.
Oh, come on. This is just ridiculous.
My coworker got involved and asked them to calm down because the whole restaurant was watching, but this got them even more angry.
They were claiming that my coworker was telling them to calm down because of their skin color.
The very definition of a frivolous lawsuit.
The whole party then says that they will for sure sue us for racism since we were “spreading lies about them” and, according to them, we told our customers to follow them outside and harass them.
Was really wishing that John Quiñones would walk in with cameras after all that.
Why do some customers have to make such a big deal out of nothing? I get having teh one meal comped (though I suspect they put the meat in there themselves). But they didn’t even deserve the whole bill comped, and the lawsuit threat is pathetic.
Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.
This is a great policy.
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Here is how they should have replied.
I am betting this is exactly what happened.
This is excellent advice.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a craft store customer who refuses to take no for an answer when it comes to wrapping his purchases for gifts.
There is no lawsuit here.
Once they threaten a lawsuit, she should stop talking to them entirely. Ask them to leave the property and not come back.
This restaurant won’t miss guests like that.
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