Waiters Tell Us Their Valentine's Day Horror Stories

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Depending on who you ask, Valentine's Day is either an absolute crock of shit, a slight inconvenience, or a chance to show your beloved what they really mean to you. For me, it's a combination of all three. Undoubtedly the worst part of V-Day for basic dating types, however, is the acquisition of a table at a restaurant. This is even worse for non-dating types, because not only are you dealing with the cold shiver of abject loneliness, you also can't get anything to fucking eat. It's like the whole world is rejecting you all at once.

Spare a goddamn thought for the waiters and waitresses getting by proxy nausea from a thousand puppy eyes and footsie games scuffing up their restaurants. Sure, they might make a few more tips off some particularly amorous customers, but for the most part they're either cringing the grease out of their hair at dates gone wrong or boaking at the pheromones hissing off a date gone well. We spoke to some of Britain's top servers to hear some of the disgusting, depressing things we do to each other in public on this special, loving day. D'aww! [Note: Some names have been changed to protect identities.]

A couple had come to the restaurant pretty much every week for dinner together but they broke up. Both booked Valentine's Day dinners with the new people they were shagging but obviously hadn't thought about the fact that it was both their favorite restaurant and they clearly would have similar ideas. They turned up like one hour after each other and had booked tables opposite. Both hadn't told their new partners they were only recently single and then they basically had a massive row about 'how dare the other one bring their new partner to 'their' restaurant.' It was very awkward for their dates and the restaurant, as it's very small. The ex-girlfriend started going on about how he met him on Plenty of Fish and how she moved in with him after two months, but then he started staying out late. The Plenty of Fish thing was funny because I think another customer said something along the lines of, "Everyone knows Plenty of Fish is just for sex for ugly people." Which was kind of true for that couple, to be honest.
- Kara

One of the waiters, who was 16 at the time, got a blow job from a 42-year-old woman. She took him to the basement stock room, didn't kiss him, just sucked him off, went back upstairs and sat down and finished her meal with a group of girlfriends. It's very Samantha from Sex and the City, isn't it?
- Philip

I worked at a grim Wetherspoons on Valentine's Day while I was a student. For some reason, a fair few couples took up the Valentine's Day deal (three-course meal with a drink) and decided to spend their evening there. A student couple sat at a table in the corner. I didn't know him, but I knew of her from different friendship circles. She was one of those sporty ones that goes to university to do sport and tells everyone about how great the sport is. I knew she had a bit of form for doing some pretty rare stuff because she organized all the initiations for her club, or whatever it was.

Anyway, her fella comes to the bar and orders a pitcher of WooWoo, a kind of schnapps, vodka, and cranberry drink. They finished up and left in a hurry. After a few minutes I notice a foul stench coming from their corner. I was surprised to find, among other random things including a drinks menu, that one of them had dropped giant shit in the jug.
- Nick

There was a couple who were having sex and doing coke in the toilet (we only have one) so there was a big queue. I had to ask them to leave, which they shamefully did. The next person went in to use toilet and then another customer came and got me and asked me to clean the toilet, so I was thinking there was loads of coke and, I dunno, cum or whatever around the loo. But the couple had thrown loads of potatoes down the toilet and blocked it. I ran to the manager and said, "There's loads of potatoes in the toilet, can someone make sure no one is downstairs in the stock room taking stuff?" And the manager just said, "Oh, not the fucking potatoes again—who keeps doing that? That's twice this week." I don't know if the shaggers did it or someone before them, but the idea of shagging bent over a toilet full of potatoes is so funny.
- Lisa

For a good six-month-stint a couple of years ago, I worked at a wannabe 'trendy' craft beer bar in the provincial Scottish city where I went to uni. As a small mercy, I'd taken the Valentine's Day shift, because most of the other people I worked with had partners. I was cutting limes and stuff, preparing for the night, but at this point it's only 6 PM and it's dead, dead quiet. There's an innocuous-looking couple at the bar. He's a typical sporty-looking bloke with a lads' holiday Facebook cover photo and she's his equally dull, nice-looking girlfriend. So they've had some pulled pork and a couple of overpriced cocktails, and you can imagine they're going home to some dull sex. I'm standing there cutting fruit but suddenly I hear a deep, meaty-sounding sucking to the left of me. It's the unmistakable sound of lips on tit and his lips are very tightly, very sloppily clasped around her tit. It was 6PM on fucking Valentine's Day in an empty pub. To this day, I won't forget their mutual look of slightly outraged incomprehension as I chucked them out.
- Francisco

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