It was about 12:40am, and my friend and I decided to stop by this diner that we weren't sure the closing time of, but we were pretty sure it was 3am. We pull into the parking lot, there's cars, and we can see a few people through the window (not many, but about as many as you'd expect for 12:40am). We assume they're open, and walk in.
We're greeted by the host. Actually, that's a lie. We're stared down by the host. We look at him. He looks at us. I start to get my first inkling that maybe we've done something wrong. He still hasn't spoken, so my friend hesitantly tells him that it's just the two of us, for non-smoking, or smoking, wherever he wants to put us is cool. He grabs some menus, sits us at a table, and walks off, still having not said a word, and still giving us this really creepy look.
We're sitting directly across from the bar. Perfectly within earshot of the bartender, whom we hear this little outburst from: "You're kidding me! You're FUCKING kidding me." This said as she's leaving the bar to come greet us. This is when I KNOW something is wrong.
She storms over to us, not-so-gently sets a couple glasses of water in front of us, and then just looks at us, apparently waiting for us to place our order already. I ask her very politely what time they close. She says 1:00. And it's finally clear as to why we're being treated like the scum of the earth.
So of course we immediately apologize and get up to leave, and that's when she finally appears to cheer up a little- "Sorry ladies!" Not the least bit sincere, but at least she spoke to us.
Now, I realize that it was pretty shitty of us to come in so close to closing, even if we didn't realize it. But seriously. Was that attitude really necessary? Was there a reason why the host couldn't have told us when we came in that they were closing in 20 minutes? Even if he was still required to seat us, that would have solved any problems of us not realizing the closing time, and we would have been off. Was it really necessary to just stare us down like that and not speak a word to us? And then the bartender. Now, I'm a bartender/server myself, so I can COMPLETELY understand the frustration of having a customer come in twenty minutes before close. But you know what I do? I go back into the kitchen, scream with the kitchen staff about how pissed off I am, and then when I'm thoroughly calmed down, THAT'S when I come out to greet the guest. A server does NOT, under ANY circumstances, curse out the guest when they're in perfect hearing distance of it. She's damn lucky we're not assholes, and we left when we realized our mistake. After that little outburst, I was extremely tempted to make her experience serving us a living hell. But I'm not that kind of person. And I have never been more insulted to be treated like I was.