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pranks

4K views 31 replies 12 participants last post by  pastachef 
#1 ·
Okay. What's the funniest prank you ever witnessed, pulled, or were the target of in the restaurant?

I didn't close the cap all the way on the creme anglaise squeeze bottle. It was funny because the pastry chef fills the bottles so he thought it was his own mistake. Never suspected me. Don't worry, the sauce goes on the plate first so there was no waste of dessert. Hee hee. Trying to figure out a good one to pull on the floor manager.
 
#2 ·
Well, my prank wasn't in a restraunt. It was in the dining room filled with college girls where I work. I had a large envelope that I placed on one of the dining room tables at lunch time. It was marked, 'Rattlesnake eggs.' Inside there was a sling shot device with a metal washer in the middle of the rubber band. When would up tightly and placed inside the envelope it was motionless. If anyone opened the envelope the washer spun so quickly it sounded like a rattlesnake. I knew curiosity would get the best of them. A whole table full of girls tried to run through a cinder block wall!
 
#4 ·
Man, where do you start? The classics: sending new guy to competitor across the street for a bucket of steam. Sending new guy to basement for something. (no basement) Throwing water balloons at guy on dough rolling table in old high school pizza job. Unbelievable mess. Tossing empty pizza box at unsuspecting delivery guy. They'll kill themselves trying to catch the darn thing. Loosening the lid on 1 gal yogurt containers and then watching the idiot that you've told a dozen times not to pick it up by the lid do just that. AKA the yogurt bomb. Pocket Buddies. These are eggs or other nasties dropped into jacket pockets and then smashed. Freezing various articles of street clothing, either seperately or, preferably, in one giant block of ice. Jalapeno pickling juice poured down front or rear of pants. (TRUST ME, not pleasant). I'll think of more. :eek:
 
#7 ·
Getting your prep cook to find you the bacon stretcher.

Sending the dishwasher to the office for the long 'wait'.(weight)

mixing hard boiled eggs in with the raw ones for the breakfast station.

this one's kinda lame, but I did it anyway, on our tickets when someone orders ice cream for their pie, it says add two scoops, so this one time I went and got two portion scoops and put them on a dessert plate and sent them out.

having the new cook dice the flour, or wash the salt.

asking for a pound of elbow grease.

that's about all I can think of.

I remembered one more, I was actually the victim of this one, this guy put tabasco down my straw, mind you he never did it again after I faked a severe allergic reaction.

[ May 02, 2001: Message edited by: coolJ ]
 
#9 ·
OK, Here goes..
When I was an exec. chef, my pitifully small office had one desk which, when seated behind it allowed me to look out the door at the bulletin board across the hallway where I posted the schedule and daily work assignments.
One day, I arrived at work, greeted my two (male) sous chefs as they were suiting up for the day and proceded to my desk.
On my next look out the office door, I saw my 2 sous (with toques, jackets and aprons on) sidle up to the board and casually turn to check the posted assignments. I saw toques, jackets, neatly tied aprons, and four cute little buns bouncing above hairy legs, socks and safety shoes.
Not an unpleasant view, but surprising to be sure!
 
#11 ·
I guess I could tell you all what I did to our grouchy old milkman. We have a bag in the box machine. Once a week the milkman, (who has the personality of a slug) came into our kitchen and changed the milk boxes, setting the machine up for use. It was about a week before halloween, and on this particular day when he was due to deliver I put a couple of drops of red food coloring in the spill tray on the outside of the milk machine. When he opened the machine he found Count Dracula's head! :D
 
#12 ·
Pastachef,
Yeah THEY usually do it. I've only had two that actually got all the way over and asked. The rest figured it out on the way. It is all in the way you say it. The technique is this: Be doing something that LOOKS really important, but keep an eye on new guy. When he/she looks confused and lost say "DAMMIT" kinda to yourself but loud enough for new guy to hear. Look at new guy and say, "Hey New Guy, I needja to run across the street for a bucket of steam. I'm out and I've got to get this sh*t done. It goes in the green bucket in back!!!" The last part is the kicker. I mean, it's got it's own bucket right? This must all be said quickly and with great urgency. You can even throw in a few "Hurry ups" Of course New Guy wants to make a good impression so he just shuts off the ol brain and goes into action. AAh! FNG's, gotta love em. :D
 
#13 ·
Pranks: Writing the morning shift note in mirror code(You need to look with a mirror to figure it out).
Note again - "Yo geoff you really screwed it up this time. You should have seen the chef's face last nite. You better fix it before he comes" and so forth without actually saying what's wrong.
Giving a new guy a pot of milk and telling him to thicken it on the stove, CAREFULLY(I admit this one was done on me, it took me thirty minutes to figure out there's no eggs in the cream)
Army Prank - Sending a new guy to the office(3 miles away in 5 minutes - GO!!!) to get the tank's keys.

Tanks don't have keys.

Not pranks but i worked with a chef that encouraged food fights to let of steam!!! You should have seen those unbaked buns flyinh through the air, cherry tomatoes catapults, you name it!!!

[ May 03, 2001: Message edited by: shahar S Lubin ]
 
#16 ·
Send 'em to the Exec. for more spatula wax.
Or the dough patch kit.
In the kitchen restroom we put folded ketchup pc's between the seat and the bowl of the toilet for the morning guy (First place he went to)to plop down on with his sports page.
 
#17 ·
a couple of good ones:

the top chocolate ganache ball filled with dark green food dye for the FOH manager (its her own fault, never asked if she could eat my prep)

Bread rolls substituted for roasted potatoes with the oven turned up - most wouldnt know the difference

toasted bread rolls painted with melted butter and liberally sprinkled with cayenne and chilli powder (you know, the lips burn the most and is one of the most sensitive parts of the body)

telling wait staff that "a scampi is a yabbie (freshwater aussie crayfish) that is sea going and returns to the freshwater to spawn (somewhat like the steelhead salmon)" and then watching the aforsaid waitress attempting to explain this to a diner.

telling a danish waitress that " (oh, i cant really tell this one here)"

etc, im a little hard on the FOH staff sometimes. - but i have matured a little.
 
#19 ·
I once told the waitresses that the saucisson en croute we were serving was a boned-out rolled up fetal calf. They nearly mutinied. One other time we took a pair of checked pants and stuffed them with newspaper, positioned them on the toilet in the men's room, in the only stall, put some shoes underneath, locked the door and crawled out. that guy was in there for hours.
Plastic wrap over the toilet bowls is also fun.
 
#20 ·
Showed this thread to my Pastry Chef yesterday. He hinted that I should share his pranks with you. He pulls more stunts than I do.

Convinced a cocktail waitress that the name of our tropical fruit sorbet was Shonga Monga after we described it to her. She came down ten minutes later and ordered a Shonga Monga saying that she couldn't find the modifier for this flavor on the computer. :D

As he pulled a sheet of coconut dacquoise out of the oven, he convinced another cocktail waitress that it ultimately turned into a phyllo crisp that we use for another dessert. She wasn't going for it so he said that the sheet pan had to go into the oven two more times and during the third time, it would collapse into the thin and crispy phyllo pastry that we use. We had her going for three days! ;)

Then there was the stocker. He was this tiny little man that everyone couldn't stand because he was the restaurant snitch. The snitch rested a tray of utensils on our station while he bent over to tie his shoe. The Pastry chef quietly took it and put it where the snitch couldn't see it. He was running all over the restaurant looking for the utensils. We gave it back to him when he started looking very worried. :rolleyes:

Then I played a trick on the Pastry Chef when I was refilling the sauce bottles (I don't know what it is with me and sauce bottles). I used the old raspberry coulis dripping down my hand trick. He seriously thought I had cut myself badly. He wouldn't talk to me for four hours.
 
#23 ·
I almost forgot one. Does anyone remember the little counter top washing machines that used to be advertised on tv a couple of years ago? It was a sizeable drum with a handle on a base. I took it to work to try it out on my kitchen rags. When the girls asked what it was, I told them it was a salad mixer. They believed me and thought it was neat. :D
 
#24 ·
I have to say that I sure am enjoying this board. I just got a new toy. It's a remote controlled gas machine. I'm having a blast embarrassing the girls at the sorority. If you really want to see something funny, put one in the mailbox and wait for the mail man :)
 
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