When working in customer-facing jobs, sometimes you will never know just who or what is going to walk through the door. Many customers might have simple enough requests for their servers—a few add-ons here, an exception to the menu there—and some might be a bit more difficult.
Stories of difficult customers are widespread on social media, where servers and other service industry employees frequently share their experiences with good, bad, and worse customers across platforms like TikTok and X (formerly known as Twitter).
One employee of Texas Roadhouse says she has a good historical track record of handling her customers and never had any complain about her work to her managers.
However, in a nearly 10-minute long video, TikTok user Emma-Kate (@emmakate18) says that all changed when a man who kept insisting he did not need anything from Emma-Kate complained to her manager that she was rude and had been ignoring him all evening.
Texas Roadhouse disaster
The customer started their night off by complaining about the quality of the restaurant’s potato skins, and the situation escalated when he informed her that he wanted his steak medium to medium well. He did not understand that she could only choose one of those degrees of cooking for his steak when inputting the order into the POS system. He did not want to take her suggestion of ordering the less-done version so that it could simply be put back on the grill if he wanted it closer to medium well.
“He was like, ‘No, I don’t want that, I want it medium to medium well. Every time they put it as medium, it’s always undercooked, and they throw it back on, and they overcook it,’” Emma-Kate says, recalling the man’s response. “I was like, ‘OK, well do you want me to put medium-well, because we can’t put medium to medium well. It’s not an option on our screen.’”
She says the man refused her offer, arguing that medium-well means his steak will be burned.
“I was like, ‘OK, well I’m not in charge of the grilling so I’m not really in control of that, but what do you want me to put?’” she explains. “And he was like, ‘I want you to tell the cooks to put it medium to medium well.’”
Another point of contention in their interaction was his daughter’s pork chop order. She says that when she asked his daughter what she would like for dinner, she ordered a single pork chop, to which her father said, “Just get her the double,” despite it not being what she ordered.
He was also unhappy with the first steak that came out, so they had to put another one on the grill.
This culminated in multiple interactions with her manager, as the customer grew more unsatisfied with his experience, despite telling the manager that his server was not the problem initially. When only the steak was comped on the bill, Emma-Kate says he demanded the rest of the order be removed from the bill because of how unsatisfied he was.
When this request could not be granted, she says he left the restaurant without paying at all.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Emma-Kate via TikTok direct message and to Texas Roadhouse via email regarding the video.
What’s the difference between medium and medium-well?
When ordering steak, there may be some confusion around the doneness spectrum for meat. This may be due to the actual base of that spectrum, which associates temperatures the meat is cooked at with the terms rare, medium, and well-done. Rare meat is generally cooked to an internal temperature of 125 degrees Fahrenheit, and medium is cooked to an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit. Well-done meat will not have any pink in the middle.
It is totally possible that in this instance, the customer’s understanding of how their steak was cooked may be based on the texture and color, rather than the temperature at which it was prepared.
Several commenters shared that they have had similarly bad experiences with customers while working as servers.
@emmakate18 absolutely wild #server #serverlife #txrh #texasroadhouse #storytime #vlog #waitress #christian #christiantiktok #jesuslovesyou #servertiktok #serverproblems ♬ A Bar Song (Tipsy) – Shaboozey
“My last day at TR I had an entire family like this because whoever made the sweet tea didn’t put sugar in it and they about lost their minds,” one commenter wrote.
“My very first serving job, this lady cussed me out bc she asked for everything TOGO,” another said. “Ordered a steak WD and screamed at me bc I didn’t give her a knife. Spit in my managers face and got arrested lol.”
“Why is this a universal experience?” a third commented. “Like I work at Applebees and I had the same exact experience.”
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