Aggression by restaurant guests is on the rise
You know that old saying, “The customer is always right?” Unfortunately, some customers have made restaurants a very dangerous environment to work in.
In 2023, there were reports of 176 fatalities in hospitality settings, nearly half the result of violent acts, but workplace violence often takes the form of verbal abuse, intimidation and degrading language.
When I was coming up in the business, the only violence I ever heard of was a restaurant getting robbed, and that was rare. These days, industry experts believe that incidents of aggression and even violence by restaurant customers is increasing.
Restaurant workers are already faced with potential dangers every day from razor-sharp knives to slippery floors. The last thing they need is to deal with a violent customer. Yet, they must.
Today, I talk with my restaurant managers about this issue, how to watch guest behavior at all times, try to anticipate a situation that is starting to go bad and step in early. I advise them to make sure their service and management staff are trained in de-escalation tactics to head off a situation that may become dangerous.
But sometimes those aren’t enough.
None of us knows what other people are going through. Life for a lot of us is becoming more stressful for a lot of reasons: money, job, relationships, kids, the heat, you name it. Someone may come into a restaurant a hair’s breadth away from an emotional or physical outburst that could endanger others.
We hear about these types of incidents all the time.
• A customer physically assaulted a server because she didn’t tell him to “have a nice day.”
• A fast-food customer who was refunded a mistaken 25-cent overcharge started throwing things at the counter person.
• A customer threatened to call the police when her credit card was declined. It turned out she hadn’t paid her bill.
• A customer who ate her meal, asked for a refund, which was declined, and then threw a server’s cellphone into a pitcher of liquid.
Did these things happen out of the blue? Or was the person already going through a bad time and this was just one more thing?
Either way, we guests can do our part to make restaurants a more pleasant, or at least a less stressful, place to be. I always want my restaurant guests to appreciate how hard employees work to make sure you have a great time.
If something is wrong with the service or food, give the staff the benefit of the doubt — it probably isn’t intentional. Register your complaint with the manager and leave it at that.
Understand what you’re ordering. Don’t ask for the Vichyssoise and then complain that your soup is cold. Don’t, as one customer did, order a Bloody Mary and then spit it out all over other guests because it “tastes like tomato juice.”
Having a credit card declined can be embarrassing — but that’s between you and your credit card company. Use another payment method and move on.
Be reasonable about requests to take something off your bill. If it truly tastes awful or your medium burger shows up bloody red, don’t eat it all and then ask for it to be removed. Say something right away and let the server or manager make it right.
Just because you’re the customer, you don’t have the right to bully the restaurant staff or yell so loud that you make other patrons uncomfortable. The customer is not always right!
We all have our bad days, but I have been to thousands of restaurants over my lifetime and, no matter how bad my day was, or how bad the service was, I have never felt compelled to scream at or assault my server.
Unfortunately, such incidents are increasing. We can help by turning down the temperature.
• Izzy Kharasch is the founder of Hospitality Works, a consulting firm that has worked with 700+ restaurants and small businesses nationwide. He is offering Daily Herald restaurant owners a free consultation by contacting him at Izzy@HospitalityWorks.com.