Server Forgets Half of a 30-Person Table’s Orders, Then Lies About a Chef Being in an Accident. He Still Walks Away With a $300 Tip
Apparently, the secret ingredient was an elaborate well-seasoned lie.
A server forgetting to enter half the orders for a 30-person table sounds like the sort of restaurant mistake that ends with trouble. However, one server claims he took a different approach by serving a lie instead.
TikTok creator Dean Redmonds (@deanredmonds) shared the increasingly elaborate story after serving a party of 30 at his restaurant. According to Dean, he was entering their orders when a co-worker interrupted him because a vegan customer was about to eat a bacon, egg, and cheese dish.
Dean rushed over to intervene, but somewhere in the chaos, he says he forgot to enter about half the table’s food orders. By the time he realized his mistake, some customers had already waited approximately 45 minutes while their tablemates’ food was finally arriving. Unfortunately, the other half of the table was about to be appeased with a lie as an appetizer.
The Missing Food Apparently Required a Missing Chef
Dean estimated that entering the forgotten orders would leave part of the table waiting another 40 minutes. Rather than confessing his mistake, he told the food runner to follow his lead.
“I’m really sorry, we’re just understaffed today,” Dean recalled telling the table when customers began getting restless. Then came the explanation: “One of our chefs was in an accident this morning.”
According to Dean, the mood changed immediately. Customers who had been frustrated about their missing food began expressing sympathy, while Dean escaped to supposedly check on their orders. The problem with an improvised lie, of course, is that somebody eventually has to keep the plot going. That somebody turned out to be the food runner.
Forgetting to enter an order isn’t unique to Dean, either. Another restaurant employee previously shared what servers do when they forget food, although a fictional car accident wasn’t among the standard solutions this time. That server did, however, advise others to blame it on someone who is not being tipped at the table.
Then the Imaginary Accident Gained Another Passenger
Dean says the food runner later approached him with some potentially horrifying news: The table wanted to speak with a manager. He immediately thought his accidental omission and subsequent fictional chef emergency were about to get him fired.
Instead, the food runner had apparently decided to expand the restaurant’s emerging cinematic universe. According to Dean, his co-worker told the customers that the manager had carpooled with the chef and was therefore also involved in the supposed accident.
Saved by the food runner, he returned with the remaining orders around 20 minutes later and received a reaction he probably wasn’t expecting after forgetting half the table’s orders: They applauded him.
The surprises weren’t done being dished out, as Dean claims the group ultimately left him a $300 tip, from which he gave the food runner $50.
Based on real-world accounts, honesty isn’t always the emergency button servers reach for. In another situation, a different server once forgot about a table for 15 minutes before concocting his own excuse to win them back. Spoiler alert: it worked like a charm.
Overall, Dean’s advice after cleaning up a messy situation with very convincing acting was: “You have to lie.”
Obviously, inventing an accident isn’t exactly a recommended customer-service strategy, and Dean’s improbable success shouldn’t be confused for one. Still, forgetting half a table’s dinner, inventing an elaborate cover story on the spot, and somehow walking away with applause and $300 is one restaurant specialty you won’t find on just any menu.
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