East Valley restaurateurs relate customer horror stories and waiter woes

By CRYSTAL PETROCELLI
Get Out

A naked guy running through your restaurant. Kids chucking food at your customers. Guests eating their bill.

“There will never be an end to the stories that we have, that’s for sure,” says 20-year restaurant veteran Gregg Schutkowski, general manager at Nello’s in Ahwatukee Foothills.

“I'll tell you what, you never cease to be amazed. They say the customer is always right, and you have to stand there sometimes and scratch your head and go, ‘Did they really mean that?’ because sometimes the customer is a little bit on the weird and wacky side.”

Two of the “more lurid and entertaining” things Schutkowski has seen in his nine years at the pizzeria are a nude man running across his dining room and a woman dropping her cell phone in the toilet and flushing.

“We had to physically replace the toilet because (the phone) was jammed inside the toilet, and she actually wanted us to crack the toilet open and get her cell phone out for her,” Schutkowski says.

And the streaker?

“Evidently it was very cold outside, because it wasn’t very impressive to anybody that saw him,” Schutkowski laughs.
Jamie Jurju — a manager at Red, White & Brew in Mesa — won’t soon forget the receipt-eating guy she waited on.
“He probably ate, no kidding, about 15 bills,” Jurju says.

“Fifteen! And they were, I would say, 9 inches long. He was just crumpling them up, putting them in his mouth and swallowing them. I was speechless. I would give it to his friend and he would snatch it out of his friend’s hand, and I was like, ‘Dude, you’re going to have issues tomorrow.’”

At Waldo’s BBQ in Mesa, something as simple as serving someone a beverage can turn ugly.

“One of our pet peeves is when (guests) order one drink, ask for a small one, split it and then want it refilled. That happens often,” says Waldo’s server Heather Wood.

“Or (guests) order a drink and it’s too big, and they say, ‘Oh, then I don’t want it if it’s that size. Take it back, I’ll just have water.’ ”

Nick Marie, a server at Valle Luna Mexican Restaurant in Chandler, has come to dread kids night.

Marie almost had two tables come to blows on a family-friendly night after a guest was continually pelted with food from a nearby child.

“The kid started throwing food over at my table,” Marie says. Her customer “got up and warned the kid, ‘Stop throwing food, stop throwing food.’ Well, the kid kept on doing it, and the adults, the kid’s mom and dad, didn’t do anything about it.”

“I had to move (my guests) to a different table. We ended up comping their meal, and he stiffed me. They said they were never going to come back, they were disgusted. Whatever. Shouldn’t come on kids night.”

It gets better for Marie.

“One of my tables came in ... they had a little child, probably about 3 years old, and as I was trying to serve them food, he started throwing up all over the place,” Marie says.

“Like, literally all over his family, all over the table. It was pretty disgusting, and I had no clue what to do. Pretty much the whole table had to go into the bathroom and wash themselves up.”

At some point, almost every restaurant deals with a customer trying to avoid paying the check.

“Some people come in and they’re looking for the hustle,” says Mike Jones, general manager at Flancer’s Cafe in Gilbert. “They're looking for something to tell you wrong so they can get the freebie.”

Contact dining critic Crystal Petrocelli at or .