Addendum addendum addendum.

I remember one night I went around to tables at like 9:25pm like I always do to get the last dessert orders for the labor-intensive desserts, and at this one (South Asian) table with an older couple and maybe their (college-age) kid, the gruff dad wanted a dessert, but he was like, "At the end of the meal," and I was like, "I'm sorry, sir, but the kitchen closes at 9:45pm and they often start to clean that station first, so we really need the dessert orders now and they'll be making them soon," at which point I apologetically add that because of the time of night, we can't provide a standard meal experience like we could even a half hour earlier.

And, the dad requests that we make the dessert at 9:44pm.

Of course, because that's a rather clearcut experience -- tableside conversation, no interruptions and "catching you off-guard" peppering with requests outside of the normal order process -- I'm like, "I'm very sorry sir, but that's not possible, would you like to place the dessert order now" (and they did place that order then).

But ,still!

"Make it at nine forty-four."

It's like some "gotcha" game where they're going to ride technicalities hard and do whatever the f*ck they want, "You're open, so you're at our mercy!".

How do you even deal with customers like that, especially if they amp up their behavior and start making multiple out-of-left-field, off-the-wall requests.