Restaurant customers gone wild!

You don’t need to tell me about crazy customers, baby. I’ve seen them in action — plenty! I’ve walked in on customers having sex in the bathroom or caught them going at it under a table or in a private booth.

I once watched a drunk stand and pee his pants in the middle of the dining room (I cleaned the mess up, so the memory is indelible). I watched well-off customers steal things from tables — ashtrays, salt and pepper shakers, flatware — without batting an eyelash.

Most servers could write a book — or a musical! — based on these tales. But has there been an upswing of “bad customer behavior” lately? A story in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle poses that question: “It’s the recent spate of weird antics — pole dancing in a crowded dining room, sex in the bathroom and raucous feuding that has restaurant workers scratching their heads.”

There’s a quote from a national restaurant consultant who says, “But over the past couple of years there seems to be this sense of entitlement. There are people who are so rude. And it’s not just me. I’ve talked to consultants across the country who have noticed that diners have become more disrespectful and aggressive.”

“I just haven’t seen that and I dine out a lot now,” said veteran waiter John Hastings, who retired after a 35-year restaurant career. “But I have seen some bad behavior — from the back of the house. It’s always been my studied conviction that a job requirement for a chef is a heavy dose of insanity.”

The San Francisco Chronicle article blames (of course) younger diners for being the primary culprits: “Some chalk it up to a generation raised on Facebook, Twitter and reality television, where narcissism and bad behavior is not only accepted, it’s encouraged.”

I’m sorry to say that long before Facebook, Twitter and reality television, restaurants attracted more than their fair share of narcissistic and badly-behaved customers. In the old days we just called them alcoholics.