Barista goes viral on TikTok with stories of ‘bonkers’ customer interactions

We all know the customer is king, but sometimes it’s hard to be a loyal and patient subject, especially when you work in a coffee shop.

This is according to one barista who has reenacted some of the excruciating interactions she’s had to endure while at work.

In a TikTok captioned “I love my job but the convos I’ve partaken in are bonkers,” the cafe worker, named Chlo, relived one encounter in which a punter ordered a peach, pair and apricot smoothie.

“This tastes really bad, like really bad,” the customer said, prompting Chlo to ask them to describe the flavour.

Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

“Peaches. I hate peaches,” they replied. Chlo then responded that yes, it would taste like peaches, given that it was… you know… a peach smoothie.

In another, she recalled the time a customer requested to see how many points they had on their loyalty card.

Chlo explained that they had 14 but needed 50 to receive a reward.

“But I want my reward, can you give me my reward?” they asked. When she reiterated that she couldn’t because they hadn’t yet reached the required number of points they fumed: “Well this is ridiculous”.

A third encounter featured a complaint by one customer that their drink was “lukewarm” even though Chlo had personally ensured it was scaldingly hot, a fourth saw a person request a milkshake with plant milk because they didn’t want dairy… but were happy to have dairy ice cream, and a fifth saw a woman order a double espresso only to be outraged that they’d been served coffee.

She ended by recollecting how she once called out: “I have an iced mocha,” to which someone responded: “Is that my hot latte?”

Chlo’s clip has racked up more than 600,000 views and 120,000 likes, with scores of fellow TikTokers sharing their empathy with her plight.

“Dude before working as a barista I wouldn’t have believed these were all real... but after working literally none of these surprises me lmao,” one wrote.

“I had a lady order an iced latte and when I handed it to her she said ‘I actually wanted that hot. I don’t think coffee should be served cold’ ???” another recalled.

A third commented: “This gave me the worst flashbacks lmao. Ours had a drive-thru and people would come through like ‘my usual please!’ WHO ARE YOU??? We can't see you????”

While a fourth pointed out: “It’s kind of ironic that baristas deal with crazy on a daily basis but baristas give me my sanity in a cup every morning.”

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.