POV: You're finishing your coffee at your favorite breakfast spot and a stranger steals your coffee…read more
Okay so. We have been going to The Rooster in Naples for YEARS. Years. Long before it was on food network. The food? Immaculate. Never once had an issue. Today? Today changed everything.
Our waitress was an angel, no notes, we love her. We're sitting there, happy, sipping our coffee, not even an hour into the meal, barely finished eating, when suddenly a completely different server materializes out of nowhere and just... puts her hands. On the WHOLE top, every inch of the top half of our coffee cups. Mid sip energy. And starts trying to take it.
This was our FIRST ever interaction with this woman. First words exchanged. We say, simply: "we are just going to finish our coffees." She hears us. Denies it. And grabs the cups anyway.
I look up like excuse me?? And she looks at me, dead in the eye, and goes:
"Well aren't you done?"
MA'AM. NO. We were NOT done. We hadn't even finished writing the tip on the receipt which, by the way, she then just SNATCHES off the table. Gone. Like a magic trick nobody asked for, and I certainly didn't order.
I say, still not finished. And this is where it gets unhinged, because she goes: "well there's a wait."
A wait?? For WHAT. There were FOUR tables open inside. EIGHT tables open outside. Not a single soul waiting for a seat. She said it like she was reading off a script from a restaurant that was actually busy, which plot twist it was not.
Then, and I need you to picture this, she starts REACHING ACROSS ME. Full arm extension. Into my personal space. Grabbing plates. Grabbing cutlery. I am frozen. I do not know this woman. She does not know me. And yet here we are, inches apart, over a fork. Questioning if I should ask for her last health test results because we are sharing breaths like a horror movie.
My companion, sensing the unhingedness of the woman gets up to go find our ACTUAL waitress, the good one, because at this point all we want in this world is to finish our coffee, leave our 30% tip (we were being SO generous, we do not play like that), and say thank you like normal diners.
But does the story end there? IT DOES NOT.
Because as my companion is trying to talk to our sweet waitress, coffee cup snatcher strikes again and BUTTS IN. Not once. Multiple times. Interrupting my companion mid-sentence, over and over, like she just could not let the woman finish a single thought. Louder. Meaner. Full attitude, unprompted, uninvited, unwell, unhinged.
Our actual waitress, bless her, is apologizing over and over, offers us brand new coffees, offers to reseat us like nothing happened. And she was so genuinely kind about it that we almost said yes. Almost.
But we were both so shaken by that point that we just... left.
And the WILDEST part? This woman was TRAINING someone. Actively. In real time. Passing the torch. Teaching the next generation how to traumatize brunch customers over a coffee cup.
We love The Rooster. But that experience? Left a mark. I'll send you my therapy bill Roosters.