I'm sure a lot would sound really familiar, but let me see if I can come up with some of the best, representative ones. Setting the Wayback machine to around 1980...DisneyMom wrote:I want to hear some of the Stupid Drive-In Tricks :)
WELCOME!
Tales from the Concession Stand -- I figured I'd start here since the thread is about dining. There were all the usual examples of people coming in for condiments to go with the food they brought. We also had a lot of run-ins with SGs who felt they were entitled to free cups and ice. (We matched sales to cup inventory so we were really selling cups that happened to have liquid in them.) Of course, people got real belligerent when you charged them for a drink when all the grabbed was a cup full of ice. The best tale, though, would have to be the family that brought their own bottled drinks, but neglected to bring an opener. The teenage kid came in demanding to know where the opener was. We didn’t sell bottled drinks, so we didn’t have one. A friend of mine was in the stand talking to me, and he had a pocket knife with an opener on it, so he opened 4 bottles for the kid. No thank you. My friend bought some snacks and was ready to leave when the kid came back with more bottles. The following conversation ensued:
Kid: I need these opened.
Friend: Sorry.
Kid: You have the opener in your pocket.
Friend: Yeah, and that’s where it’s staying.
Kid: (To me) He won’t open my bottles.
Me: Um, that’s his choice. He’s a customer.
The kid leaves, my friend and I exchange “the look” and he leaves. Shortly after, the kid comes back with his Mom. His Mom demanded that we open the bottles. She said she knew we had an opener because the other bottles got opened. I pointed out that another customer had done that. After a little more back and forth, she left grumbling about poor customer service.
Since this post is getting long, I’ll stop here, but if anyone is interested I have Tales from the Ticket Booth and Tales from the Ramp. I also have what I think is the best story to come out of my drive-in experience, but it isn’t about a SG, it’s about some really clever kids who got a pass because they were so ingenius.
There was a path leading from a little shopping strip through a field into the back of our property. For some reason, these kids thought we didn’t know about it. Single kid comes through the front, ticket both calls ramp man (ramp is the area you park to watch, and the ramp man was our enforcer), he watches the car and waits for the other kid(s) to appear. Then the fun begins when they try to explain that they lost their ticket stub… in the car. These future leaders of the free world couldn’t even figure out to wait until it got dark. They’d just come strolling in from the back field. The best had to be the couple that decided it would be smart for the girlfriend to hide in the trunk. I kid you not – this actually happened from time-to-time. In this case, though, it turned out that she was claustrophobic. Barely got through the gate when she started banging on the inside of the trunk and screaming. Usually we just made them buy tickets for everyone and let them stay, but this time I guess she was no longer in the mood, and they left. :p:
