Just curious as I’ve never been on the other side of the counter, how does this sort of thing tend to work at restaurants? Fast food and fast-casual places are where I’ve heard customers say things “pile as much lettuce on there as you’re allowed to” - is there ever a limit your supervisor instructed you for things like that?

Now obviously with up-charge items like extra meat or certain toppings I know the sizes tend to be pre-portioned to a serving utensil, but something like extra onions or tomatoes that goes uncharged - has anyone gotten into trouble for giving “too much”?

  • MashedPotatoJeff@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    It’s been a long time, but I used to work at a corporate dining place that did a lot of take out business. I once had a man ask for “as much thousand island dressing as possible”.

    I was going to just give him two portions, but my coworker convinced me to fill a large soda cup instead. Why not? We worked for tips after all.

    The customer was pretty bewildered. He clearly didn’t really want that much dressing.

    • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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      11 months ago

      I doubt you or anyone here will disagree with me, but it still needs to be said: that man was 100% in the wrong.

      Asking for a bunch of extra dressing is one thing, but asking for “as much as possible” means when they actually go out of their way to accommodate you, you better show you’re ecstatic, thank them, and tip them well. I don’t care if you have to lug a bucket of dressing home, maybe you’ll learn that words have meanings…

      • MashedPotatoJeff@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I agree! And I like to think that, as he looked over his several bottles worth of dressing in a beverage cup, he did learn to consider his words more carefully.

        But I didn’t mind the whole experience. It’s not my dressing and it made for a pretty funny story.

      • MashedPotatoJeff@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        It certainly creates an incentive to act in ways that please the customer at the expense of the business. But the restaurant controls your access to the customer, so it’s best to tread lightly.

  • Doublythumbs@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Many years ago when I worked at Burger King, we had a regular customer who would order a cheeseburger with extra extra extra onion. She was a very sweet older lady, so we always obliged. We piled two inches of onions on those burgers, easily enough for 8 normal burgers. It was weird to all of us, but she absolutely loved them.

  • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I’d just give you a regular ass large fry if you ordered that.

    If you ask for extra lettuce and get a second leaf for free most places won’t bat an eye. But there’s usually a way things are portioned the way they are. Nobody wants a burger that’s one 1/8th pound patty and 3 inches worth of solid lettuce.

    • treadful@lemmy.zip
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      11 months ago

      Nobody wants a burger that’s one 1/8th pound patty and 3 inches worth of solid lettuce.

      My name is nobody.

    • bogdugg@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      Nobody wants a burger that’s one 1/8th pound patty and 3 inches worth of solid lettuce.

      Had regulars when I worked fast food that would order the kid size burger with a fuckton of lettuce and tomato. Just way too much.

    • RainfallSonata@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      There used to be a subway or Quiznos commercial that went something like, “'Cause nobody wants a salad on a bun.” I would see it and think, “Me. I do. I want a salad on a bun.” WTH’s wrong with a burger that’s one 1/8th pound patty and 3 inches worth of solid lettuce?

  • LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I’m not a fast food worker, but made the mistake of ordering the biggest order size of nuggets at a McDonald’s in college. I waited 30 mins to get 150 nuggets. I didn’t think I was going to get so many. I had enough to share with an entire class of mine on campus.

  • Cannibal_MoshpitV3@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Worked at an ice cream store. We had a regular that wanted the largest ice cream with a whole banana and absolutely drowned his order in caramel. Not a huge deal we just charged him for like 8 extra toppings or so

  • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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    11 months ago

    Where I worked, servings of fries were proportioned in advance, so I would only get to pick which bag of fries to cook. Even with no request, I already went for the largest bag when I had the time to do so, in order to ward off complaints on my orders and get better tips.

    Generally speaking, we had no obligation to fulfill requests, although sometimes we would if they were simple enough or we had downtime.

  • discostjohn@programming.dev
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    11 months ago

    Hey it’s not exactly what you asked for, but at Carl’s Jr. there’s a whole ass list of cool substitutions you can make for free. You can order “whole leaf” lettuce instead of shredded. If you ask for a “large bun” on one of the smaller sandwiches and they’ll give you one that’s usually used for one of the big burgers.

  • cm0002@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Depends on how things were inventoried, expensive things like meat were down to like the individual patties.

    But fries were eyeballed bag/half bag type thing, so if you were nice about it or cute I would take one of our smallest to-go bags and LOAD it with fries lmfao

  • owenfromcanada@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I worked at a Canadian burger place with notably orange trays. Got asked for all sorts of things. Tons of pickles was probably the most common–I think I piled a good 3 inches on one once (probably 30 or so long slices). It didn’t occur often enough to be a problem.

  • _number8_@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    depends on how busy it was and/or how good of a mood i was in. i worked at a pizza place and would usually try to hook people up as reasonably as possible (not charge someone if they were taking off a topping then adding a topping even tho you were meant to, giving like 8 cheese cups if they ordered 5 (mood/rush/etc dependent), ample extra toppings if they were nice, etc)

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    The worst kind of trouble is the troubled heart of a person who avoids getting in trouble their whole life.