Restaurant Manager Slams Party of 20 Who Were 2+ Hours Late

The food service industry is a tough line of work, especially when you’re dealing with customers who don’t understand the nature of reservations.

A TikToker by the name of Kellie (@ambryrae) is going viral on the popular social media platform after calling out a large group of diners who arrived over 2 hours late to their reservation and still expected a table.

She says in the video: “One time this party made a reservation for a party of twenty for six o’clock it was either on a Friday or a Saturday night I can’t remember which one. Um at the time the place that I was working with we had a fifteen-minute grace period. Six o’clock comes around no one shows up for the party OK, 6:10 comes around no one shows up for the party 6:15 comes around no one shows.”

Despite their lateness, the restaurant still attempts to find out what’s going on with the party that reserved their table, “My hostess calls them then I call them about five minutes after that just to see because I don’t want 20 people showing up and we don’t have a table for you.”

Kellie goes on to state that 6:25 rolled around and they decided to seat another table and things were going along just fine at the restaurant, until about 8:15 when the party of 20 arrives stating that they have a reservation.

Kellie said that she approached the party to address the situation: “Hey my name is Kellie just in case there’s any inconvenience on our end that we’re causing but let me look into this for you. So I asked the name for the reservation ask if it could be under any other name she’s like no.”

The customer tells Kellie that her reservation was for 8 o’clock, to which she replied that she had another reservation under that name but for a different time that was booked online. However, the guest insists that they weren’t the same person Kellie was referring to.

Although Kellie was pretty sure that the woman, who was now stomping her feet and getting upset at the front of the restaurant was the same person who booked the 6:00 reservation, she confirmed the woman’s phone number and email address and sure enough, it matched the same one on the 6:00 PM reservation.

She brings this to the woman’s attention and tells her that she not only made the reservation for that time but she confirmed it as well. “Now she’s getting loud she’s putting on a show for everybody in the lobby and she’s like well what was the point of me making a reservation if you guys aren’t gonna hold my table.”

That’s when the manager reminded her that she was the one who made the reservation at that time and it was not like the restaurant called her to come and hang out, she and her party wanted to dine there. She said that “eventually” the woman’s husband was able to calm her down and he goes to speak to the manager instead.

She tells the man that because it’s a “public restaurant” and not a “banquet hall” they had to give up the table and that they’re more than welcome to eat there if they like it’s just going to “take a while,” about an hour or so.

Once 50 minutes passed the customer then approaches Kellie and demands to know what was taking so long, and the manager explains that because there are 20 of them, that requires a bit more planning because they all want to sit together at the same table.

The woman then retorts by saying that they aren’t a party of 20 but a party of 13, something that she didn’t inform the manager of until much later in the evening.

Thankfully, Kellie says that there was another party of 15 or 16 that was leaving around the same time as these folks were waiting to be seated, so she just prepped that table and sat the party of 13 down.

Because she had an inkling that the table was going to be prone to complaints, she worked the table with the server to help them out and make sure that there weren’t any issues. Then, about an hour into their meal, the remaining 7 people at the party decide to show up.

The woman who made the reservation then demands that the rest of her party sits at the same table they’re all seated at, which Kellie says is impossible. She remarks that there’s a free table located at the other side of the dining hall that they could take, or they could do to-go.

After presenting the bill, Kellie says that the customer asked for a discount because the restaurant “messed up” with their table, to which the manager responded that they would not be doing that.

Have you ever “rolled the dice” when it comes to restaurant reservations? How do you think the manager handled the situation?