# kitchen pranks



## panda

what are some of the best/most hilarious/bizarre pranks you have done yourself or witness or heard about? hazing counts too.


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## brainsausage

Good timing. A couple hours back we sent the food runner across the street to a pizza joint to fetch the wood stretcher we loaned them 

Oldie but a goodie...


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## brainsausage

A buddy of mine worked for a pretty cantankerous chef who would pull some ****** stuff, like sharpening the ticket stabber:shocked3:, and telling the waitstaff they had to drain all of the hot water out of the expresso machine to properly clean it...


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## eshua

Reduce demi, cool in quart, invert on plate, slice in 8ths, garnish with chocolate & berries...wait.


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## marc4pt0

Had a lady in culinary school ask the Garde Manger Chef to borrow his sesame seed splitter. She forgot to pack the white sesame seeds and was freaking out because she knew ol Chef Pierre was going to be furious. I told her she could either use the black seeds and suffer the wrath or suck it up and ask Chef for the splitter. It's common knowledge that white sesame seeds come from splitting black ones, right? 

Needless to say the chef blew up, laughed his ass off and she blew up at me. I think I recall some tears in there somewhere too...


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## greasedbullet

On my coworkers birthday we told him we made a lemon meringue pie while he was at the store (this place ran out of stuff a lot). He was completely blown away and started to choke up. Then we flipped the pie, which consisted of whipped cream and pie tin, out of his hands and onto his face. He was demolished.

A line cook at my current job occasionally finds hush puppies that have been sitting in the fryer for hours. Just lightly dust with GP Flour, leave out in the wait station, and wait. Someone tries it every single time.


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## Dusty

Piping some buttercream on the coffee puck that taps out of the espresso machine's handle, leave it in the path of servers it will usually get eaten.


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## TheDispossessed

mayonaisse creme brulee.
fish sauce in clogs.


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## Gravy Power

Coat roasted-suckling pig eyeballs in ganache, place in cold expo/burnout: profit.


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## sachem allison

salmon skin in idiot cooks wallet. Sometimes they don't find it for weeks.


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## knyfeknerd

Tainted employee beverages. This is the only thing I've ever found Liquid Smoke useful for. If you leave your station during service-it's on!

Roux and Jelly sandwiches.

Pan spray on grill spatulas and/or anything with a handle when you walk away from your station. 

Keys frozen in a 4 gallon deep cambro.

Ummmm Escolar-all u can eat!

Oh there's plenty more, I've just got to remember em all.


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## tkern

Corn starch and water in the bain if you leave it out after your shift... or during your shift. 

Vinegar, salt, corn syrup in beverages.

Left somewhere they don't belong chef pants soaked in water and hung in the freezer.

Cryo-vac'd unattended sandwiches, candy, energy drinks, etc


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## stopbarking

knyfeknerd said:


> Pan spray on grill spatulas and/or anything with a handle when you walk away from your station.



I could handle everything else just fine but, for this, if I was slammed, I would hunt you down, and I would kill you.


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## greasedbullet

stopbarking said:


> I could handle everything else just fine but, for this, if I was slammed, I would hunt you down, and I would kill you.


 Yeah that; and as a person with food allergies, if you mess with my drink or my food the same result applies. All other shenanigans are fair game.


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## stopbarking

stopbarking said:


> I could handle everything else just fine but, for this, if I was slammed, I would hunt you down, and I would kill you.



Thinking more about it, if you greased my spoons...may god have mercy on your soul.


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## knyfeknerd

Plastic wrap the pooper. Really tight to where you can't tell there's plastico there.


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## convis

Bacon stretcher, the first place I worked was a pub that had a lot of college kids work foh. 
All the restaurants in town were in on it, sending any gullible victim on a wild goose chase. 
I think the record was five restaurants.


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## ecchef

On my last job the other chef used to keep a box of corn starch in the bathroom to alleviate swamp-ass during the shift. So I used to spike it with ground white pepper. Same guy used to keep bottles of water in the lowboy. Sous would empty them out and refill with cheap vodka.


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## stevenStefano

Tabasco in coffee. We have a new guy and someone took the skin off a pot of gravy and gave it to him, told him it was dulse


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## Dusty

ecchef said:


> On my last job the other chef used to keep a box of corn starch in the bathroom to alleviate swamp-ass during the shift. So I used to spike it with ground white pepper.



As a big guy and dedicated corn starch devotee, that Sir, is pure ******* evil.

:devilburn::devilburn:


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## chefcomesback

knyfeknerd said:


> Tainted employee beverages. This is the only thing I've ever found Liquid Smoke useful for. If you leave your station during service-it's on!
> 
> Roux and Jelly sandwiches.
> 
> Pan spray on grill spatulas and/or anything with a handle when you walk away from your station.
> 
> Keys frozen in a 4 gallon deep cambro.
> 
> Ummmm Escolar-all u can eat!
> 
> Oh there's plenty more, I've just got to remember em all.



Dude , it is all fine but giving people Escolar buffett :lol2:
do you want to watch them drip from their pants !!!!
There is a reason they don't serve that stuff in JP


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## Delbert Ealy

I have played a few pranks, but reading this list I am impressed. This makes me glad I work alone in my shop.
Del


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## Geo87

Oh great thread  

There really are far too many but ill list some favourites 

Liquid nitrogen poured into a full mop bucket muhahaha 

Sneak up on someone & Crack an egg shell ( not an egg, just shell)) right in their ear. They will jump out of their skin in sounds so crazy. 

The old look at this beautiful (insert various foods/sauce) good sir here smell the aromas. And proceed to wack them in the face with said item ... <-- only for the truly gullible 

Smear the hotist chillis available on people's drinks or in their food, ( we ordered in specific prank chillis  )

Vinager in white drinks 
Fish sauce in black drinks
Salt in all drinks 

Vac pack people's stuff and freeze it in a massive block of ice. 

Also on people's birthdays we have been hiding items ( locker key, knife case) 
& leaving a series of complex clues & riddles to get then back ( gets very creative) only on a quiet day or tell them to come early for a supprize


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## chefcomesback

I don't know if it qualifies as prank but we had a really rough week and my sous wasn't coping well. He supposed to do brunoise cucumbers but he cut them too big , I told him to get another batch done. He went to walk-in came with some cucumbers , laid them on his cutting board , lifted the knife up in the air and started satbbing , slicing them as if it was a scene from Kill Bill . I looked at him trying not loose my thing and asking him what da f he was doing. Appareantly he found some old slimy cucumbers that were destined for thrash and acted like he went nuts...:curse:


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## ThEoRy

I made a kid empty the hot water from the coffee urns. Empty out all the steam from the espresso machine. Go look for the right handed gloves. Car keys frozen in a 5 gallon cambro. All the old classics.


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## Dusty

I love this thread.


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## Twistington

Delbert Ealy said:


> I have played a few pranks, but reading this list I am impressed. This makes me glad I work alone in my shop.
> Del



It's pretty hardcore to play pranks at work when working alone.


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## stevenStefano

Giving people the fat from chicken stock and telling them it's mashed potatoes.


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## jayhay

Skim the scum off of anything. Put it on plate, garish with a nice drizzle of oil, maybe some fresh herbs - anything that makes it look like food. Leave on server station and say it's a new foam we're trying out.


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## Zwiefel

knyfeknerd said:


> Plastic wrap the pooper. Really tight to where you can't tell there's plastico there.



Heh, we used to do this at church camp when I was a young teen. Classic. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free


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## Mrmnms

We had a co owner/manager that insisted on oversampling every special we made. Huge scoops of everything off the line. He had developed a bad cocaine problem and would really get in the way. One busy night , I announced " the avocado sauce is ready for the shrimp and lobster special" holding out a large serving spoon of wasabi . He came running, grabbed it out of my hand. I thought his eyes were gonna pop out before he ran away. We didn't see him for days.


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## CoqaVin

That is a good one that's for sure...the best thing to do to someone in my opinion is turning something off on them and theyre like *** why is it not cooking when its not busy obviously I Would be heated though thats for sure nothing like a porkchop not cooking in the oven


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## tripleq

I really dislike these kinds of pranks. There's always that one guy that just doesn't know when enough is enough.


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## CoqaVin

I agree with you there is a time for everything...You get someone good once that should be it in my opinion


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## Asteger

Am I the only one? Love pranks, have worked in kitchens, English is my first language and I read this with some interest, but couldn't understand several of the descriptions though I imagine they were great. 

Anything which gets the servers is tops in my book - they deserve it all - sabotaged eats being the classic.


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## pumbaa

hot sauce in a servers drink
blue cheese cheesecake--when i was a pastry chef did this to see who was eating my cheesecake. told the kitchen staff not to touch it server said my cheesecake was bad


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## JohnnyChance

Long story short, if you garnish just about ANYTHING the right way, servers will attempt to eat anything.


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## ThEoRy

I think we molded butter or crisco one time and made it look like a cake.. Yup. People ate it.


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## labor of love

i had one job where servers would snack off of plates in the window when no one was looking. so after i cleaned ribeyes and other stuff, i would slice the cap( pure fat) batter and fry them. out of the fryer they looked exactly like chicken strips. i would put them in window and wait. eventually the staff would assume they were extra chicken strips and chow down. good times!:lol2:


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## JohnnyChance

labor of love said:


> i had one job where servers would snack off of plates in the window when no one was looking. so after i cleaned ribeyes and other stuff, i would slice the cap( pure fat) batter and fry them. out of the fryer they looked exactly like chicken strips. i would put them in window and wait. eventually the staff would assume they were extra chicken strips and chow down. good times!:lol2:



That sounds good. I love beef fat, especially that from a ribeye.


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## Crothcipt

Sending the newbie off to get a bowl of co2. Usually the other store is set up to end up giving them a bowl just covered. If no basement tell the newbee when asked "where is x" reply "its in the basement."

Make a roux and call it butterscotch pudding. Someone always tries it. Wrapped a coworkers jeep, inside and out with plastic wrap. put confetti in a friends car vents, so when they turn on the car it blows out on them.


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## panda

gave a server a piece of dark curry as chocolate bar.


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## Dusty

I've had my car cling wrapped, I've had my pushbike suspended from an eleven ft ceiling, I've had my locker filled with packing peanuts. 

Each time I totally deserved it... :biggrin:


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## Geo87

Ooo reminds me of another one. Not so much a prank, more just cruelty. an old "it's your last shift" tradition we had going for a while, cling wrap / tape the person to a chair and cover them in 20L of ice water, flour, eggs, whipped cream, fish sauce... You name it. Luckily at this place we were a resort on the ocean so we jumped into the ocean in full uniform after  

Peanut butter or something sticky under the car door handles is also good. 

This thread is giving me lots of new ammo... Muhaha


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## kpnv

green tea ice cream that's really a ball of wasabi
wasabi tempura
coffee puck cake
staining tasting spoons with jalapenos/bird's eye chillis
ask apprentice to smell a large mixing bowl. hit bowl hard
get waitstaff to send in fake dockets
put someone's phone in watertight container. place in bigger container. fill with water. freeze. make a call when they're in the freezer
proclaim to apprentice that there is salt in the sugar. tell them it needs to be sifted to separate
throwing a sack of flour on someone's last shift


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## ThEoRy

How could I forget about Mr. Marbles?







We would hide him in your office under your desk or in your chair or maybe at the end of the night when you drive home he's sitting in your child seat in the back of your Acadia. Never know.....


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## Lefty

Man, I could write a book... The best prank at a restaurant I was ever part of was when we put salt in the sugar dispenser next to the staff coffee machine. Simple, but VERY effective. 

Best firehall prank would have to go to a former Toronto Maple Leaf turned FF who I have worked with. He had the other guys in the hall all get in on it to convince the new rookie that he had to quit the NHL because of a motor bike accident that cost him his leg. He never spoke about it, but the guys all quietly would whisper things like, "Man, he's amazing at his job considering that accident", and "have you seen the guy play recently? He just started up with hockey again and he skates circles around the guys, even with the prosthetic". All the while, he's take his boots off...well, the right one, and keep the left on at all times. Sometimes he'd fake a small limp and rub just below his knee, while NEVER mentioning a thing. Finally, one day the rookie got curious and asked the guys about it. Of course their response was that he'd lost his leg in a bike accident, and was pretty sensitive about it. A few months later, Christmas came around and the ex-hockey player brought in some pictures of the family playing with their presents, etc. one of the pics had been photoshopped so that he only ha one leg, and was in pajama shorts. Crutches were leanin up against the wall beside him, to complete the effect. The guys all looked at the pics, and when they got to the rookie, his eyes bulged out of his head...but he stayed quiet. Fast forward three more months, and not another word was said. The act was kept up until one day, the hockey player snapped, looked at the rookie and said, "Holy sh!t! I can't do it anymore. Do you really think they'd let a guy with one leg be a firefighter? I haven't been able to kick bot my boots off, for 8 months because of you! Do you know how hard it was to time my showers so you wouldn't see?"

Talk about commitment to a joke!


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## jai

put fish sauce in my sous chefs beer then got him a new beer and just before I left for the night he was having a smoke so I put fish sauce in his second beer aswell. next day he rode me the whole day


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## stevenStefano

Replacing cheese with butter is pretty common where I work


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## Vic Cardenas

Make a bundt cake out of old, sticky coffee grounds by pressing into a bowl really hard. Garnish with chocolate syrup and tell servers it's an oreo bundt cake.


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## Vic Cardenas

We had this "berry sauce" that looked like blood. I filled a latex glove with it, slipped my hand in and started running around the kitchen screaming. Everybody's face turned white.

A month or so after that, we all had a day where we were all playing simple pranks on each other. It all culminated with the sous chef sticking a pretty graphic note on my back. Which I didn't notice for quite some time. When I did notice, I told him I was going to get him back someday. Well, I sure did...

Me and the sous chef in the past had talked about ulcers. I used to have pretty bad ulcers that I treated and cured. He was having them pretty bad. I baited him by telling him "God, I think my ulcers are coming back. My stomach has been hurting really bad lately." About an hour later I went and filled my mouth with the aforementioned "berry sauce". I walked out of the walk in, found him and gave him my best acting of my life. I gave him a sickly look. I clutched my stomach and grabbed the wall like I was reeling in pain. I let loose my mouth full of "blood" all over the floor in front of him. His face drained of blood and jaw hit the floor. Now I know what someone's face looks like when they really think that I am seconds from death. Its a look of fear, terror and concern... times 10. He grabbed me and yelled "Vic! Vic! Sit down!" Then he grabbed the phone and I started busting out laughing. I said "I told you I would get you back, mf'er!" Then he gave me a good punch in my chest.

I know... that was really cold.


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## Vic Cardenas

After I did the "bloody hand" trick my co-worker told me a story about his co-worker in the past. I thought it was pretty good so I'll relay the third hand info. His co-worker filled a few fingers of a glove with ground sausage. He slipped his hand in and curled his fingers underneath so they were tucked into his palm. He then proceeded to cut up some of his mis and when the other guy on the line walked by, he buried his knife deep into his "sausage fingers" and severed them. The witness supposedly threw up immediately.


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## JMJones

Not kitchen related but a funny off the cuff prank. My buddy bought a house with a bunch of climbing vines growing all over one side of the house. My other friend told him the best way to get rid of the vines was to feed them Miracle Grow because it would "cause the vines to grow too fast and choke themselves off and die". That's not how it works!


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## scotchef38

Head chef used to live in a cottage which was down a hill from the hotel.Team of us rolled really big snowballs down the hill (post pub)and stacked them up in front of the only door in the cottage.More snow and plumeting temperatures meant the snowballs froze.Next day the chef came it at about 11am and rounded up his suspects.Turns out his daughter had an early morning job delivering newspapers and complained she could not get out the door.Dad (chef) and mum have huge argument with daughter telling her not to be lazy and go to work.Eventually chef got out of bed andthe only tool available to him to tunnel out of his now snow and ice filled doorway was a broomhandle.Took him an hour to get the door open.Took him weeks to get someone to admit who was involved-that person was my girlfriend.Chef got his revenge in many cruel and unusual ways.


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## scotchef38

Asked apprentice to check the Mulberry coulis - was kangaroo blood.Put searing hot pan full of chilli powder undr stall door while commis was taking a dump.Get the long stand/souffle pump/mince hook from the neighbouring restaurant.Hide fish carcass under the firewall of annoying demi-chefs car.
on a cautionary tale - worked as an electrical labourer for a while .Sparky told me a group of workmates went for a weekend drinking in Amsterdam.One guy was always ringing his wife whilst in the pub and getting grief from the others so for a laugh they put some sexy lingerie in his suitcase without his knowledge.Got home ,wife did his laundry,questions were asked.End result he ended up divorced and lost his house.


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## marc4pt0

Didn't care much for this "out of his league" sous chef who always liked to stab his fingers into everything to taste so one day I was making caramel when I saw him coming down the back line. As he approached I suck my finger in my mouth mimicking tasty delight. He saw my expression and without thought immediately dunked his finger into the molten hot caramel. And what do we do when we burn our wittle fingers? Stick them immediately into our mouths like a knee jerk reaction to make the burning stop. Well, that hot caramel not only burned his finger but made him look like he had a bad break out of the lip herps too. I'm sure he didn't really enjoy explaining That one too his wife (who was sweet as could be by the way).
Yes, this one was a bit cruel, but heck that was 15 years ago


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## Dusty

Stuck his fingers I caramel? Sounds like he'd be out of his depth in a puddle. 

I love misinformation pranks. A really dumb (but sweet) server came to the pass in the middle of a function:

"Chef, what sort of meat is the rillettes?"
"Oh, that's camel..."
"Really. What cut ?"
"Um, that's the toe."
"Do you get much meat in a camel toe?"
"Yeah, you'd be surprised..."

We had the FOH manager fill her in before she could offer any customers the cameltoe rillettes.


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## jayhay

marc4pt0 said:


> Didn't care much for this "out of his league" sous chef who always liked to stab his fingers into everything to taste so one day I was making caramel when I saw him coming down the back line. As he approached I suck my finger in my mouth mimicking tasty delight. He saw my expression and without thought immediately dunked his finger into the molten hot caramel. And what do we do when we burn our wittle fingers? Stick them immediately into our mouths like a knee jerk reaction to make the burning stop. Well, that hot caramel not only burned his finger but made him look like he had a bad break out of the lip herps too. I'm sure he didn't really enjoy explaining That one too his wife (who was sweet as could be by the way).
> Yes, this one was a bit cruel, but heck that was 15 years ago



Awesome. Homeboy deserved that one. Hot caramel is menacing.


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## stevenStefano

I had a waitress ask me if gherkins are animals........she thought they were some sort of small sea creature. I told her sea cucumbers turn into gherkins when they get older


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## panda

Messing with the FOH are the best pranks, haha
Particularly enjoyed the camel toe story, shared that one with my cooks.


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## Geo87

Vic Cardenas said:


> We had this "berry sauce" that looked like blood. I filled a latex glove with it, slipped my hand in and started running around the kitchen screaming. Everybody's face turned white.
> 
> A month or so after that, we all had a day where we were all playing simple pranks on each other. It all culminated with the sous chef sticking a pretty graphic note on my back. Which I didn't notice for quite some time. When I did notice, I told him I was going to get him back someday. Well, I sure did...
> 
> Me and the sous chef in the past had talked about ulcers. I used to have pretty bad ulcers that I treated and cured. He was having them pretty bad. I baited him by telling him "God, I think my ulcers are coming back. My stomach has been hurting really bad lately." About an hour later I went and filled my mouth with the aforementioned "berry sauce". I walked out of the walk in, found him and gave him my best acting of my life. I gave him a sickly look. I clutched my stomach and grabbed the wall like I was reeling in pain. I let loose my mouth full of "blood" all over the floor in front of him. His face drained of blood and jaw hit the floor. Now I know what someone's face looks like when they really think that I am seconds from death. Its a look of fear, terror and concern... times 10. He grabbed me and yelled "Vic! Vic! Sit down!" Then he grabbed the phone and I started busting out laughing. I said "I told you I would get you back, mf'er!" Then he gave me a good punch in my chest.
> 
> I know... that was really cold.




That is brilliant... I've always wanted to do something like that , but lack any acting ability and would probably blow it.


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## labor of love

if you have a blister on your hand(usually from burns) you can always just put some beurre blanc or mayo on it and pretend that it just popped. then eat it!


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## hobbitling

Hide a coffee creamer pod in the palm one hand (the little single serving cups with the peel off lids). peel back the lid so it's almost open, but still sealed. it should burst with a light squeeze. 
Pretend you have a speck of something in your eye. 
Grab a fork with your other hand and act like you are going to try to scrape the speck out. Cover your eye with the "creamer" hand, with the creamer concealed behind your hand, so they can't see what's actually happening to your eye. Then puncture the creamer cup with the fork and act like your eye just burst.


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## quantumcloud509

JohnnyChance said:


> Long story short, if you garnish just about ANYTHING the right way, servers will attempt to eat anything.



Yup. 



Dusty said:


> Stuck his fingers I caramel? Sounds like he'd be out of his depth in a puddle.
> 
> I love misinformation pranks. A really dumb (but sweet) server came to the pass in the middle of a function:
> 
> "Chef, what sort of meat is the rillettes?"
> "Oh, that's camel..."
> "Really. What cut ?"
> "Um, that's the toe."
> "Do you get much meat in a camel toe?"
> "Yeah, you'd be surprised..."
> 
> We had the FOH manager fill her in before she could offer any customers the cameltoe rillettes.



LOL



panda said:


> Messing with the FOH are the best pranks, haha
> Particularly enjoyed the camel toe story, shared that one with my cooks.



Not one day goes by without it round these parts...


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