Restaurant Waiters Lockout Suddenly Ends Because of Replacements’ Spectacular Incompetence

In a shocking reversal Wednesday evening, a Baltimore-area restaurant abruptly ended its lockout of its regular servers, immediately banishing its obviously overmatched replacement servers. 

Lewis Johnson, Manager of Harrison’s Crab House in Baltimore, claimed that the replacement servers’ clear incompetence was the deciding factor in his unexpected decision.

In a statement Thursday morning, a clearly irritable Johnson said, “Well, honestly, if you don’t even know what Old Bay seasoning is, you can’t very well work in a Baltimore-area crab house. That’s like a hot dog vendor who’s never heard of ketchup.”

The harassed-looking Johnson concluded, “Continuing to subject my customers to such lousy service just so I can save a couple of bucks a day would be just like flippin’ ‘em the bird. I’ve been making money hand over fist here for years … I should have just given the regular servers what they wanted from the beginning.”

Aside from timing the dining experience poorly, with appetizers repeatedly arriving at the table at the same time as entrees, the replacement servers generally displayed a complete inability to perform the simplest job functions, like delivering the correct change to paying customers, or remembering whether the pot with the orange handle contained regular or decaf.

Samantha Thompson, President of the Harrison’s Servers’ Association, fired off a quick email to reporters, claiming, “Our long national nightmare is behind us — the replacements are gone, and the regulars are back.”

The restaurant’s patrons were unanimously relieved to hear that the regular servers would soon be back with them.  

“Those replacements wouldn’t know the difference between crab soup and crab shit,” said Jennie Sampson, a regular customer at Harrison’s since 1994, when the then-popular McGrath’s Lodge and Bar (MLB) closed for several months due to a server strike. The 1994 strike did irreparable damage MLB’s reputation, and it has still not regained the overwhelming popularity it had for years before its work stoppage.

Johnson reluctantly confirmed long-swirling rumors about some of the replacement servers’ questionable qualifications. “OK, OK!,” shouted a very agitated Johnson, his palms facing outward in a gesture of surrender, “most of the replacements were ex-fast food employees with no serving experience. Their performance made that pretty obvious, don’t you think? Did I really need to say that out loud?”  

When asked whether the replacement servers left their fast food jobs voluntarily, or were fired, Johnson simply stormed off.