Fast-food employees have seen it all when it comes to quirky customers and head-scratching orders. Unusual requests aren’t new, but the proliferation of online ordering systems has made them more commonplace. Customers seemingly love to push the limits, as suggested by posts on Reddit by employees of fast-food and chain restaurants, which include some of the most ridiculous and weirdest orders we’ve found.
Papa John’s: Twenty Cups of Cream Cheese Icing
Forget about garlic sauce — cream cheese icing is the latest obsession at Papa John’s. At least that seems the case for one customer, who ordered $10 worth of the sweet dipping sauce, amounting to 20 little cups, but nothing else. The order is only slightly odder than the customer who ordered 75 side orders of peppers, as someone claimed in the thread happened at another Papa John’s.
Jimmy John’s: Gigantic No-Bread Sandwiches
Low-carb diets can result in strange eating habits, as a Jimmy John’s employee found out. A customer ordered two J.J. Gargantuans, the chain’s largest sub stuffed with six different meats and cheeses, but got them “unwich” style without bread, plus double meat. If you feel like eating fistfuls of deli meat or follow a strict keto diet, maybe you should try it too.
Jimmy John’s: Pickles, Delivered
The deli-style pickles at Jimmy John’s may be huge, but they’re probably not a meal. But one employee noted a customer ordered two pickles for delivery and nothing else. The pickles themselves came to a reasonable $3.48, but the delivery fee tacked on $5.49. All told, those two pickles cost the customer almost $10 to get them home delivered. Maybe it was a pregnancy craving emergency, you never know.
Starbucks: Twenty Pumps of Coffee Syrup
A Starbucks employee lamented that not 15 minutes had passed after starting a shift when a crazy order came in. Someone wanted 20 pumps of white mocha syrup in a cup. Not just any cup, mind you, but a short cup. What do you think the customer is going to do with all that syrup? According to commenters, selling just the syrup is against company policy.
Panera: Grilled Cheese, Hold the Cheese
A Panera employee posted a photo of an order for a grilled cheese sandwich with no American cheese. At Panera, a grilled cheese is only available with American cheese, meaning the customer essentially ordered plain toast. The employee who posted the photo confirmed in the comments later that the customer did indeed want “two dry toast for the price of a regular grilled cheese sandwich.”
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Domino’s: MeatZZa, No Meat
Domino’s MeatZZa is a specialty pizza that comes topped with pepperoni, sausage, beef, and ham. According to one Reddit poster, someone placed an order online for a MeatZZa without pepperoni, sausage, beef, or ham, essentially leaving a plain cheese pizza but for a much higher price. The poster reportedly called the customer to make sure the order was correct, and the customer confirmed it was.
Panera: Tuna and Cinnamon
One thread about the weirdest orders workers at Panera have gotten includes one disturbing theme: Putting tuna salad on sweet bakery items. That usually means a cinnamon crunch bagel with its crown of sugary sweet topping, a stomach-churning combination to many. One commenter even said a customer ordered tuna salad on a chocolate croissant. (As if Subway didn’t already serve one of the worst fast food tuna subs already.)
Chipotle: Salsa Juice
Some eaters don’t like chunks of vegetables in their salsa. Those are apparently the diners who go to Chipotle and ask the employee making their burrito to only put the liquid from the fresh tomato salsa on the item. One customer reportedly asked for the strained salsa juice in a cup so she could drink it. Other Redditors report customers asking for the cooking liquid from the beans, but no actual beans as well.
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Chipotle: Sour Cream Tacos
Preferring plain tacos is one thing, but ordering Chipotle tacos with only sour cream and nothing else? That’s weird, but a customer did request them, according to a Redditor. Call it a “Tex-Mex cannoli,” if you will. An overabundance of sour cream seems to be a common theme for what Chipotle workers consider unusual.
Culver’s: Hamburger Frozen Custard
Culver’s is known for butter burgers and frozen custard, but not in the same dish. That is until a customer reportedly ordered a beef patty to be blended into a custard concrete mixer. Another Redditor reported that a customer asked what could be put into a concrete mixer, and the manager said, “anything.” “So this guy got a BLT concrete.”
Subway: Lettuce Footlong
Subway employees see some weird stuff on the job. One Redditor reported that they had a regular customer who would order a Footlong sub with only lettuce — an entire bag of it. Nothing else, not even sauce or dressing. The customer then ate it with a fork.
Subway: Pizza Seafood Sensation
Another Subway Redditor recalled the most appalling order they ever made, a pizza sub with seafood salad, cucumbers, and barbecue sauce. That’s bad enough to put together with a straight face, but the worst was still coming: “The smell of it in the toaster, my GOD THE SMELL.”
