By Kimberly
Hope a nightmare from a bartender is ok...
I've been working in the service industry in NYC on and off for almost 8 years
This is my recurring nightmare....
I'm behind the bar ( a bar I've never worked in) and I'm at least 3 deep. The place is packed. There are stairs behind the bar ...BIG LONG ONES. Every time someone asks for a drink I have to climb these stairs to make the drink. The problem (aside from the stairs) is every single person asks me for a drink that does not exist, or rather, asks for something that you would never put together...ie. "Can I have a frozen Johnny Black and Bailey's with a splash of tomato juice" or non-sensical things like "Gimme a paper banana with with olives straight up!"
In the dream I always try to make the drinks and I never make them correctly and the people are furious.
This is my nightmare.
By Sue
I used to own a restaurant in a tourist town 5 years ago and this was the dream that let's just say ... it broke the camels back!!!
I remember running around the restaurant in circles going from table to table taking orders for what seemed like hours. When I finally ran downstairs to the kitchen (which is another nightmare altogether) I went to call out my stack of orders (which was about a foot thick). Upon reaching the kitchen I saw a white light. When I looked in the kitchen it was a white void. NOTHING THERE!!!!!
I woke up in a cold sweat in fear of facing all the customers upstairs with no food!!!
By Brighteyes
I have been waitering for three months now at a steak house in Syosset, Long Island and I have never waited before. Since I started, I have experienced the weirdest nightmares consistently. My boss is abnormally strict which makes it a very intense environment. I often dream that I am very late to work because of something that was completely out of my control and when i get there, I am totally discombobulated about my whole environment. The scenery of the restaurant is different every time and I feel like I'm very stoned or something during the nightmare. When I wake up, I am always terrified but I could never recall the full details. I believe that half the anecdotes listed on this page are fabricated. I am always fifteen minutes early to my job, so it is ironic that I have this recurring nightmare.
By Kriss B.
When I lived with my former boyfriend who worked for U.P.S, I at the time worked for a busy cafe. I don't think we ever got a peaceful nights sleep. I would constantly have nightmares of various sorts. One in particular was not having water or bread for impatiently waiting customers.
I would still be asleep but wake up my boyfriend to get the water and bread for my tables.
Then there were nightmares where the restaurant would be in my living room and I would have to get up naked and serve them.
By Deb
Had to respond. In my waiter dreams of course I have like about a hundred tables, and I get stuck doing something and can never get up. It's almost like I am frozen because I am unable to get something someone has asked me for. Of course I am freaking out and stressed beyond belief. Whenever I have these dreams the restaurant I am working in looks completely different from the one I work in, but yet is suppose to be the same. No naked ones that I can remember.
By Penny
After a very busy day, I dream I have tables everywhere. I even have a one-top in the ladies restroom!!! Also in this dream I am wearing ONLY a shirt, a tie and shoes. My manager takes one look at me (naked from the waist down) and says ' where's your name tag ?'
One of my co-workers had a dream that she was serving a party of ten and and she had only a tiny grain of rice to write the entire order on!!!!!!!
By Jacquie
In my dream, I'm waiting on a table of 20 by myself. The restaurant is really loud and I can barely hear their orders. I write down what I can and then I go to the lobby and start watching TV. I completely forget about the table and when I run back to see what's going on, my grandma is taking care of them and yelling at me to get their check. My grandma and the table are mad at me and I try to think of anything I can do to make them happy. Then I remember that when you print a check the computer is a slot machine. I print the check and the table wins 5 million dollars. My grandma and I get 15% of the money since it's for a party of 8 or more. This was my most unique server dream. All the others are of me being weeded and forgetting tables.
By Melissa Jones H.
I haven't worked as a waiter in about 3 years or so but I used to have this dream quite often (and occasionally still do)... I'm asleep in the back room and I can't make myself wake up or move at all, yet I know I have a full station up front and I was supposed to be getting salads and instead fell asleep. I keep trying in vain to wake up and just can't force myself. Sometimes the manager is standing over me trying to wake me up as well.
By CRE
I have this dream where I have to run soup all over the restaurant. the only thing is I keep forgetting the spoon. I yell to other waiter's "spoon me, spoon me", but noone listens, they are too busy. The customers are yelling at me and I stand there, full hands of soup.
By M.A.
I've been waiting tables on Martha's Vineyard for the past 6 years. When I first started here, I got a job in one of the seven towns on the Island called Oak Bluffs. The next town over is called Vineyard Haven. It's about seven miles from Oak Bluffs, and most of the tourists on the Island rent mopeds to get around, much to the chagrin of the locals. Well, the first week in my new job, I had a dream that I had tables in both Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven and had to figure out a way to carry a tray and ride a moped at the same time. Talk about the cold sweats!!!
By Celeste
Those dreams about being alone in a restaurant full of obnoxious people with ridiculous orders are typical for me; heck, that's how my actual days have been at every restaurant I've ever worked at. Once in a while I do have some really strange restaurant related dreams.....
.....Like the one where the old lady with the huge handbag asks for extra toothpicks and when I bring them to her she asks for more toothpicks and I bring them to her and she asks for more toothpicks and I bring them to her and she asks for more until I finally just bring her the whole box. At this point she begins to build a little house out of toothpicks, topping it off with a roof made out of one of the table tents. As soon as the house is finished a swarm of little people (not leprechauns, those little cylindrical plastic toys with round heads and no arms or legs...the ones that occasionally get recalled for being a choking hazard) come out of it and dive into the enormous pile of mashed potatoes that suddenly appears on the table....very Sesame Street-esque..... And this is all well and good and normal until other customers in the restaurant see it and they want one too but they can't have one because we are all out of toothpicks.
.......Or the dream where I wait on Stan, the Used Boat/Used Coffin salesman from the Monkey Island games. Only, it's not just Stan....it's a whole table of identical Stans, dozens of them, making identical exaggerated gestures. Just like Stan from the video games they can't stop talking. I'm trying to take their order but every time I get the attention of one of them he tries to sell me the ship in bottle that he brought with him.......
By Scott M.
I had a dream the other night that I was pregnant. So the restaurant I work at was kind enough to install a hospital bed in the back for me! I worked right up to the moment I gave birth, and as soon as I was done, I had to finish my shift! I was blacking out while taking tables, and said "Excuse me if I'm not too sharp tonight, I just gave birth" to customers who replied, "that's not my problem, get me more coffee!" I think I need a vacation.
By Lisa
I work in a country style restaurant on the a.m. So I generally get up at 3:30 to be there at 4:30. However, the night of my dream work had called me in early because they are slammed. When I get to work there is no one in my section, so I start to complain (not so subtly), who do you got to blow to get a table, glad you guys brought me to work early to watch you make money etc. Needless to say I got slammed. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me to get every one set up with drinks and took their orders as fast as my pen would move. I ran to the kitchen with the orders. Some how the kitchen already has the food ready and every in the kitchen is screaming to take the food out. so I load my arms with an awesome amount of plates and back through the swinging doors and i turn around to walk (or run) to my section....there is no dining room just the inside of an old barn, spider webs hanging every where, dirty farm tools along the walls. I go back into the kitchen where they start to yell at me because the customers still don't have their food. I go back to find my section, it's still barn. The cooks start with the buzzer to let me know that there is more food ready. I wake with a start almost thankful that the alarm is the buzzing sound. However, Its time to get up for work.
By Elizabeth J.
I work a breakfast and lunch shift in a very busy hotel dining room. Last year while suffering from a bad case of flu, I swear I heard people in my living room ordering eggs! (I live alone!) Talk about delirious. Has anyone else ever had a nightmare in which you are the only server in a packed dining room, and the kitchen runs out of bread, or fruit, or whatever, and you had to run to the grocery store? Very weird!
By Jay O.
I used to be plagued by stress dreams from being a waiter. I am now in Management (please read on, this is funny, and I'm really not the enemy!!) and those kind of dreams have subsided, but I wanted to post this one as one of the weirdest ones I've had. Of course, it starts out with me being the only one on the floor with a 30 table station, always a couple of steps behind, with everybody wanting everything at once. I finally get through the night, go home, go to bed, get up and go to work the next day, only to find that Table #10 is still sitting there, waiting for their dinner!!!
By Karri
I used to have this recurring nightmare (still have it sometimes even though I have not worked at that restaurant for 3 years) that I am in section 3, it is full of people and somehow the section seems to be half of the dining room. All of my tables are ready to order, I go to the first one and they keep asking me inane questions and not letting me take their order. Finally after 30 minutes I get their order and move on to the next table. Same thing.
I finally get the whole sections order. I run in back to make the salads (oh the old days of making salads) and the salad bin is empty!!!! I have to go get the salad but I cannot find it, it takes 30-40 minutes to find salad. Then all of the dressing bins are empty, I have to fill them all up. I finally get that done and then my order pad is empty!!!!!!!! I dig through all of the menu boxes to find it, accost all of the other servers, look in the garbage.....it finally shows up, sitting right next to all my salads. I get all the pops, milks, iced teas and get my ass out to the section. When I get there everyone has left because it took too long. In their place are all new tables and the general manager (who hated my guts) is taking orders in my section because I cannot get to it!!!!!
The other recurring dream I have is of waking up imagining that table 30 (or whoever) is STILL in the restaurant!!! They need their food and it is 3 am!!!! I have to wake myself up and convince myself that all of the tables left and I did my turn in and left with an EMPTY restaurant. When I have that dream it happens all night long and I wake up feeling like I worked all night and didn't get any sleep.
By B.
Ok, you may have heard of a dream similar to this before, but in any case, here goes:
I used to have reoccurring dreams just like this when I worked for a popular chain restaurant a couple of years ago. It would happen two, maybe three nights a week. In my dreams, I would wake up, late, of course. I would presumably put on my work clothes and dash out the door. Upon arriving at work, my section was already filled to the hilt...people angrily waving their arms in the air, yelling at me. The whole place was absolute mayhem!! I look around in disbelief, and then realize, to my horror, that I am wearing nothing but my shoes and shirt!!! People are still yelling, and it is usually around this time that I wake up, in a cold sweat, in the dead of night, suddenly realizing that not only am I NOT late for work, but that I have the next day off!!
2005 De
Voss Restaurant Group