The Weirdest Orders Food Workers Have Ever Taken

Whether or not you've worked in the restaurant business, fast food or otherwise, you can probably imagine that customers come up with some interesting orders, be it strange substitutions on burgers, super-complicated coffee drinks, or odd pizza topping combinations. Maybe you even have some unique tastes yourself. Maybe you dip your french fries in your chocolate shake — that's weird, right? Not according to these food workers who took to Reddit and other online forums to share the craziest orders they've ever taken.

The stories these drive-thru workers, baristas, and restaurant staff tell do not disappoint, and it becomes abundantly clear that your french fry/chocolate shake habit is child's play compared to what they've witnessed. In fact, until you start incorporating beef into that shake, you're downright boring comparatively. So buckle your seat belts — these requests might make you scratch your head, or head for the nearest toilet, but either way, it's hard to believe anyone would purposely order these abominations. 

Even in this day and age where we have a specialty coffee shop on just about every street corner, there are still some coffee drinkers out there who just want a cup of joe with the basics — cream and sugar. And then there's this guy, who takes basic cream and sugar to the next level.

A former Tim Hortons employee took to Reddit to explain one of their regular's coffee order, and it will blow your mind — unless you hate the taste coffee, in which case you can probably relate. The Redditor dished, "I worked at Tim Hortons once and we had a guy who routinely came through the drive thru asking for a large Gretzky. What's a Gretzky, you ask? It's a coffee with nice sugar and 9 cream (hence 'Gretzky,' [number] 99) and would literally just be a cup filled with sugar and cream, with a splash of coffee on top."

Savory and sweet is a classic food combination. Think pork chops and applesauce, chicken salad with grapes, balsamic vinegar and strawberries — the mashups might sound a little odd, but we all know that those ingredients eaten together are far more delicious than alone. It turns out though that not all sweet and savory combinations are winners, like this guy who made an unfortunate late-night substitution to his McDonald's cheeseburger.  

One Redditor explained the unique order, saying, "When I worked at McDonald's one late night this guy asked for a double cheeseburger but instead of the top and bottom bun he wanted two apple pies holding everything together."

Let's break this down: Yes, McDonald's apple pies are tasty. And yes, a Mickey D's double cheeseburger can satisfy a certain kind of craving. But together, in one bite? No. Just because apple works with pork does not mean apple also works with beef, cheese, ketchup, mustard, and pickles. Let's hope that "late night" was code for "drunk." That's the only way this makes sense.

It's a well-established fact that french fries dipped in a Wendy's Frosty tastes good. But there are lines that shouldn't be crossed when it comes to combining fast food and milkshakes, and these customers leapt across it. 

One Dairy Queen customer took things too far with her blizzard, according to this Redditor who said, "Friend worked at DQ and the worst he's had was a woman ... order a blizzard with an entire chicken tender placed in. The same woman ordered a blizzard with a crushed up taco mixed in on another separate occasion. He said she sat down in the lobby and ate it all."

This Culver's customer must have had a similar craving, as this Redditor explained, "Funny story about Culver's, one of my coworkers buddies came around closing time and ordered a deluxe tall concrete mixer. My manager looked at him and said 'Are you sure you want that' and he replied 'yup I️ want a burger in my concrete' so my manager made a deluxe burger, cut it in half, and blended it in a tall vanilla concrete. He ate it all and said it was pretty good."

Actress and one-time New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon made headlines in 2018 when her Zabar's bagel order went viral. The order? A bagel with lox, red onions, capers, tomato, and cream cheese. Sounds like a totally respectable bagel order, right? It is, until you get to the actual bagel: cinnamon-raisin. The masses were repulsed. 

But apparently, sweet bagels stuffed with seafood and savory ingredients isn't a new thing because before Nixon made the news, this Tim Hortons customer was making his not dissimilar bagel order. A former Tim Hortons employee explained on Reddit their customer's unique order, saying, "...a guy used to come in and order a tuna salad sandwich on a toasted until burnt blueberry bagel with honey mustard. He came in weekly for this sandwich."

There's a lot to unpack about this. Once you get past the — we'll call it interesting — ingredient combination, you still have to deal with the "toasted until burnt" bagel. Maybe the charred bread flavor masks the others?

Thanks to places like Starbucks and Peet's, we're no strangers to complicated latte and frappuccino orders. There's a lot to consider: Skim, low-fat, or whole milk? Maybe dairy milk is out of the question, and it's almond or soy. What flavor syrup? Do you need full strength, half caf, or decaf today? Those factors alone can make your coffee order sound a little high-maintenance. But don't worry — Ashley's got you beat. 

A Starbucks barista took to social media to vent about an order, tweeting, "Ashley you have to be trolling us right now..." The order in question? A Trenta vanilla caramel cold brew with not five, and not even 10, but 20 modifications. Among the lengthy list was "10 pumps vanilla, 5 pumps caramel syrup, 5 pumps classic syrup, 5 pumps caramel sauce, 5 pumps white mocha, 5 Sweet 'N Low, 10 Stevia with monk fruit, 5 Splenda, 10 sugars." And there's more where that came from. There's cream and dark chocolate curls and extra whip and the list goes on and on. Perhaps even more shocking than the order itself is that this atrocity rang up at only $5.19.

Maybe sometimes you don't want your meal to tell you how to feel. Maybe you're just in a bad mood, and maybe you don't want your meal's packaging smiling back at you with each bite of cheeseburger. But if a child's meal in a cardboard box is what you desire, then darn it, do something about it. One fed up Mickey D's customer did just that.

A former McDonald's employee took to Reddit to explain the modified Happy Meal request they'd gotten from the customer, saying, "... this one guy kept asking for a sad meal. Not so happy. Light on the happy. He preferred it to be extra sad. I drew a sad face on his box and omitted the toy. In the toys place I jotted down a few sad words that are a cacophony to hear... phlegm, cornucopia, moist, larvae, fester, leech, potluck, and porridge. He seemed very pleased."

Who says fast food workers don't go above and beyond when it comes to customer satisfaction?

It's not uncommon to hear someone, after taking a bite of mashed potatoes and gravy, utter something along the lines of, "Ugh, that gravy is so good I could drink it with a straw." But this is obviously hyperbole. Nobody actually drinks gravy with a straw, do they? According to these Redditors, they actually do, and in very large quantities.

One Redditor explained the craziest drive-thru ordered they'd ever seen, saying, "Worked at KFC once had a guy come through the drive thru and order a large gravy and a straw. And that was it. He got his gravy, stuck the straw in and just started drinking as he drove off."

Another user relayed a story of a friend who had witnessed something similar, saying, "Not me but a good friend worked at Sonic. Guy drove in and ordered a Route 44 of gravy and 3 straws. And yes she saw him drink it." In case you're not familiar with a Route 44, it's basically Sonic's version of a Big Gulp, coming in at a whopping 44 ounces... of gravy. Shudder.

Go into any restaurant where a flat top grill is in operation and you'll typically see the cooks scrape it clean between orders. Otherwise, all those bits and pieces from the previous order mingle with yours, and sooner than later, since those bits and pieces have been on the grill for so long, they're burned to a crisp — and not in a good way. 

But this Redditor said that one customer actually requested those scraped off burned-to-a-crisp pieces go into his sandwich. "I worked at a sub shop in high school. There was a guy who would have you scrape the flat top grill off and put the burnt cheese and meat crust on his steak and cheese. That was a regular order. "

When other Redditors pointed out that the overcooked bits of meat and cheese can be the best part, the former sub shop worker clarified, "But imagine it burnt to a crunchy chip on the flat top after 6+ hours. It's not even flavor at that point, it's basically just texture." One sub, extra charcoal, coming up.

Once upon a time, Taco Bell sold a Strawberry Frutista Freeze. The strawberry-flavored slushie came topped with real strawberries, but no other bells and whistles. Until, according to a former Taco Bell employee on Reddit, one innovative (and by innovative we mean drunk) drive-thru customer changed that.

The Redditor explained, "... One night after bar close, a group comes through the drive thru drunk as heck. They order a bunch of $1 burritos and 3 Strawberry Frutista Freezes. One of the guys yells into the speaker that he wants a scoop of beef in his Frutista Freeze... The closing manager is helping me out with drinks during the post bar close rush, and decides to personally hand out the order to this car. The driver is taking the food/drinks and handing it to the passengers, someone from the back seat yells, 'I hope you didn't forget my beefy freeze!' My manager replies, 'We didn't, but good luck figuring out which one is which.' Who wants to play Russian Roulette, beefy freeze style?

McDonald's obviously knows a thing or two about slinging burgers — the company has sold "billions and billions" of them, after all. But let's be honest — even the biggest fans of Mickey D's burgers have to admit that the fast food chain's patties can not accurately be described as "plump" or "juicy." They are decidedly thin, and even on their best day, a bit dry. Now imagine taking that thin, already cooked once, slightly dried out patty, and cooking it two more times. We're entering Big Mac jerky territory here, folks.

And yet, that's exactly what this Redditor said one of their customers requested, who apparently liked it so much he came back for more. "Former McDonald's employee. Had a guy come in twice a week and order a big mac but wanted both patties tripled cooked. The meat looked thinner than a slice of cheese and was burnt to s**t," they explained. Yum?

There is a demographic out there that believes ranch dressing goes with everything. As a pizza dipping sauce? Check. Over spaghetti and meatballs? Check. Drizzled on avocado toast? Check. But even with all of ranch dressing's magical abilities, this Subway sandwich order sounds like it needs some help. 

A former Subway employee took to Reddit to explain the worst order he made on the regular, saying, "... Dude would come in and order an 'olive sandwich.' Footlong on Italian Herbs and Cheese bread, provolone cheese, no meat, not toasted, lettuce and ungodly amounts of olives topped with ranch. We were only supposed to put 4 olives on each side (or something like that). He ended up ordering so many olives that my manager would charge him an extra 4 bucks. He ate it in the store. I gagged every time."

If the flavor combination wasn't enough to stop you from ordering this sandwich, the exorbitant price tag definitely should. 

When it comes to burger orders, requests like "hold the onion" or "hold the pickles" are common, but "hold the entire burger"? That's one you don't hear very often... until now. 

One Redditor relayed a truly unbelievable story that just might take the cake when it comes to "craziest order." They explained, "My mate works at McDonalds. I got a call from him a while ago at like 11pm. He'd just finished serving a customer, and he said he had to tell someone. This customer had asked for a Bacon Double Cheeseburger or something, but without the bacon, the cheese, the relish, the burger, or the bread. My friend said '... so you don't want anything?' The guy replied, 'No, I want a Bacon Double Cheeseburger, but I don't want the bacon, the cheese, the relish, the burger, or the bread.' Apparently the guy was completely serious. My friend gave him an empty burger box, the guy paid full price for the burger, took the box and left the restaurant."

We all have our preferences when it comes to eggs, and when you're ordering fried eggs in a restaurant, things can get a little dicey. Is your definition of over easy the same as the cook's? Will your yolk be runny? Will the whites be firm? That was one customer's concern when she ordered her fried egg at Denny's, according to Hannah Bradley, a former server who took to Quora to describe the very frustrating request she received from a diner.

Bradley says that things started off on the wrong foot, with the customer saying, "I just know they'll get the egg wrong like always," and proceeding to request an over medium egg. That shouldn't be too hard, right? Normally, no. Until the customer clarified, "I want the yolk hard and the white runny." Say what? Needless to say, this reverse over medium egg never did magically come out of the kitchen, but did result in one dissatisfied customer who sent her food back three times, and one very angry chef.

When you order a hot dog with everything on it, you probably expect the basics — ketchup, mustard, and maybe some relish. You probably do not expect a hot dog with 10 toppings, none of which are ketchup, mustard, or relish. But that's what this guy got, according to one food worker, and then proceeded to add not only the basics but a whole slew of other ingredients, too. 

The Redditor explained, "Guy ordered a hot dog with everything on it. Nobody ever means everything. Nobody, except for this guy. We gave him a footlong hot dog with lettuce, tomato, mayo, mushrooms, onions, peppers, bacon, American cheese, nacho cheese, and chili. He then took it and added ketchup, yellow and brown mustard, sweet relish, spicy relish, tomato and onion sauce, and sauerkraut. The whole thing was like $7-8 by itself, but he didn't need anything to go with it. He got this once a week for a whole summer a few years back."

Most people take full advantage of each and every available ingredient when it comes to customizing their burritos. You've got your choice of meats, of course, and then the more beans, rice, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, salsa, and guacamole that can be crammed in with the meat, the better. But that's most people. Some people, apparently, want just one ingredient in their burrito, and it happens to be the saddest ingredient of them all. That's what this Redditor experienced, anyway.

The food worker explained one of their customer's unique orders, saying, "Worked at a burrito place. A lady would come in once in a while for an all lettuce burrito. No salsa, no guac, nothing but the warm tortilla and shredded lettuce." While some commenters commiserated with the woman's preference, another asked, "Did she flavor it with her tears?" Let's hope so — it could probably have used a little salt.