A former restaurant server shared how former co-workers regretted pouncing on a customer’s seemingly untouched steak.
TikTok user Knight (@knighten17) shared the story to his TikTok page. It’s accrued over 670,000 views so far.
Customer doesn’t touch steak
The golfer/gamer begins his video by setting the scene.
“So many years ago there was this time at a restaurant that I used to work at. There was this time where I had a table. This lady had ordered the filet mignon. I think she got it medium, regardless, doesn’t matter,” he says.
He says that when he came back out to check on the group, the woman hadn’t “touched her steak. “I make sure everything’s OK. She smiles, says she’s fine. I move along,” he says.
When Knight returned 10 to 15 minutes later, he says he noticed that she still hadn’t touched the steak—despite most of the other customers at the table being close to finishing up their meals.
“Maybe she’s moved it a little bit. But she hasn’t taken a bite. I double down and make sure that everything’s OK,” he says. “She tells me it’s great. ‘We’re having a wonderful time, thank you again.’”
“Vultures”
He says that when he returned at the end of their meal to box everything up, she still hadn’t eaten the steak but didn’t want to take it to go.
“So I take the steak back—I bring it to the kitchen. And of course, all these other servers and stuff—they’re all roaches. You know, they want to jump on it. ‘Oh a free filet, yum, yum, yum. I’m gonna eat free,’” he mocks them.
“I don’t do that, personally. Once food’s hit the table, I don’t want it. I don’t want nothing to do with it. No, thank you,” he says. “But I bring it back there, and they start going to town. They start cutting into it. And they’re free for all, you know, a bunch of vultures eating on the steak.”
Why?
He says that he returned to the table “one last time” to ask the woman why she didn’t eat the steak and “to make sure everything was OK.”
“‘Did you enjoy everything? Couldn’t I have gotten you something else? What’s going on?’” he recalls questioning her.
“She smiles at me when I ask this question and says, ‘Oh, no, sweetheart. I’m more of a vegetarian myself. So I don’t actually like to eat the meat. I just like to suck the juice out of it,’” he recalls.
He stares deadpan at the camera before continuing. “Yeah, so anyway, I went back and told the people in the kitchen that they were eating that. Needless to say, was a great reaction,” he recounts.
@knighten17 No such thing as a free lunch #fyp #restaurant #restaurantlife ♬ original sound – Knighten17
A shock ending
Viewers were equally disgusted by Knight’s steak sharing story. They were horrified and shocked by the conclusion.
“Nothing could have prepared me for that twist,” one said.
“I never could have guessed that ending had you given me 100 chances,” another said.
Viewers were also unsympathetic toward the servers.
“How can you touch anything that went to a table. Never. You deserve it if you touch food that’s been to a table…” one said.
Is this a common practice?
There aren’t many folks who would defend food service workers who eat food off of customers’ plates.
One Redditor shared on the r/TalesFromYourServer subreddit that they were “disgusted” by this practice. She said that while working as a hostess, she couldn’t believe her co-workers’ behavior. Folks, she claimed, would slurp up unfinished cocktails and “eat what was left on the plates” of diners.
According to her, “every single server did this.”
Furthermore, she explained that this behavior wasn’t the result of working for a restaurant that was stingy with food. She said that employees got to enjoy a “family-style meal” every shift they worked. Additionally, each employee was allowed one cocktail during the meal, and they got to take home any uneaten bread made that day.
One user who replied to the Reddit post said that they contracted hepatitis A from eating unfinished customer food. Another said that after working 20 years in the restaurant industry at various locations, they’ve also seen this phenomenon take place. According to them, there was always at least one employee willing to do this. The act of eating unfinished food off a customer’s plate, they said, was called “the bus tub buffet.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Knight via TikTok comment for further information.
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