The customer is always right

Yeah, that's on the customer. If you write that you want a bunch of fuckin cherries then you're getting a bunch of fuckin cherries. Now go eat the pile of cherries you ordered.

Honestly I'd work under the assumption that restaurant employees knew what "86" meant. I'd still prob just write "no cherries" lol but the assumption isn't that crazy. It's common restaurant lingo.
Edit: people that never worked in a restaurant downvoting me "I NEVER HEARD OF NO 86, DOWNVOTED FOR SHARING AN ANECDOTE" lol this site is cancer. There's a reason lemmy will never take off, and it's the user base
- In my 30s, and while I've heard "let's 86 the _____" numerous times, I honestly wouldn't have connected that to "86 cherries" on an order.
  I've worked in food, fast and fancy, and nobody would say "86 cherries" instead of "no cherries". Clarity is conducive to a smoothly flowing kitchen.
- As someone who's worked a few fast food jobs, no, I'd have no fucking clue what is meant by that. Piss and cry in your edit all you want.
- It's common resturant lingo but fast food is completely different from resturant work. Also "86" literally has the same number of characters as "no". They could have put down "no cherries" with the exact same ease. They decided to play a stupid game so they won a stupid prize, a stupid amount of cherries.
- Downvotes mean nothing here. You dont have to get upset. Writing 86 cherries when you mean no cherries on a piece of paper with no context is a dumbass thing to do. Write what you mean and be concise. Nobody writes down the number 86 when they mean no. The separation from the vocal component is enough to be confusing.
- It is absolutely common restaurant lingo. I can use it with anyone I know from restaurants seamlessly.
  That said, fast food work is a different subculture.
- You're downvoted because dude. Just no..
  "86 cherries" means eighty six cherries, "no cherries" means no cherries... If people learnt to communicate clearly this world would be a better place
  Edit: also this has nothing to do with Lemmy being "cancer"? Your argument is poor
- I'm 46 and it's the first time I hear it. I would probably ask a manager what to do as 86 cherries is a lot but my AuDHD is ok with counting exactly 86 cherries lol
- Bro these are high schoolers working fast food
- Sorry dog I worked in food service as a teenager and didn't learn what 86ing was until I heard Gordon Ramsay say it in an episode of kitchen nightmares.
- TIL, cool
  But, yeah, I would read it as pretentious little thing even if I knew the lingo. Honestly I approve the person getting 86 cherries. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
- What does 86 mean?
- You're being downvoted because you're just flat-out wrong.
  "86" doesn't mean "hold this item", it means the kitchen is out of that item.
  So no, it wouldn't make sense even to people that know restaurant lingo.
- Here's where the '86' came from.
  Back in the day, there was a speakeasy with two doors. The entry door was through a small courtyard and the exit door was onto the street. If you knocked on the street door, which had the address on it, you couldn't get in. If you got obnoxious, you'd be thrown out the street door. That door had an '86' on it.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumley%27s
- least toxic person on the internet
- The edit makes it worse, it gives me another reason to downvote.
- I worked at a fast food joint for a while and never heard of 86 referring to something being out. We never even used numbers as codes for anything in the first place and I don't know why we would when everybody is working in such close quarters with one another.
- 86 your account bud

Never heard of it so I had to look

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/eighty-six-meaning-origin

Eighty-six is slang meaning "to throw out," "to get rid of," or "to refuse service to." It comes from 1930s soda-counter slang meaning that an item was sold out. There is varying anecdotal evidence about why the term eighty-six was used, but the most common theory is that it is rhyming slang for nix.

- That was my experience as well. Though we would also refer to a banned customer as "86'd."
- "86 the chef special" == get rid of it [from the menu]
- In a workshop environment I've heard "86 it" to mean "get rid of it." synonymous with "shitcan it."
I heard/read years ago "86ing" came from the old west referring to killing somebody. You'd take them "80 miles out" and bury them "6 feet deep."
- This right here is my truth. If 80 miles out & 6 feet deep is wrong, than I don't wanna be right. Always loved this expression and origin story.

I don't really care for what, if you are requesting something from someone you don't know in a way that's intentionally stupid or roundabout, you need to be prepared to get exactly what you asked for.

Fast food doubly so, they give no shits. Ask for a burger but hold the burger? Expect an empty wrapper.

Technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.
Had a friend who worked in a pizza store have someone order at pizza with chilli as an ingredient, "how hot do you want it?", customer said "11/10". They were very generous with the chilli flakes. Customer then called back to complain it was too hot!
- I want to go to that pizza shop.
  My whole life I've asked for things to be as hot as possible only to always be disappointed.
  Then on a whim I entered my states chilli eating competition and won.
  Then came 5th in all of Australia.
  So I don't think it's the restaurants fault that I don't find my food hot enough haha

Was this customer a 1930's gangster?

Maybe!
But this is still fairly common shorthand for waiters.
Universal expression in the hospitality industry

"..."

"...Okay!"

Just to throw it out there, 86 is also used in the film industry (at least in LA) meaning to cancel or get rid of something. It's very widely used across the industry. I don't know of any other slang that is shared between restaurants and film though.

Just an aside. I worked well over 20 years in food service as a second job. I don't think "86" is a widespread term in food service, there are some of us that would know what you meant, but not many. If I had to guess, I would guess its origins were with the Trucking industry, specifically CB/shortwave radio operators since they abbreviated a TON of phrases with numbers.
"Cut!"
Never heard of this in the UK, just strike/kill. Maybe it's a US thing.

Why would 86 mean none?

86 is a slang term that means to get rid of something. See the Green Day song '86' as an example. The origin is from a really long time ago, when it meant a menu item at restaurants was no longer available.
- It's rhyming slang with 'nix' which is Latin, and means to nullify or cancel. Because there layers of meaning hidden in english, Latin, and arabic numbers is not possible to be confusing.
  And not to be confused with 'deep 6' which means to destroy, kill orr bury something 6 feet deep.
  Instructing kitchen to deep 6 the cherries, the line cooks gonna need a gun and a shovel.
Why would 86 mean none?
I like the theory that it's like Cockney rhyming slang—eight-six, nix.
Like what Don Cheadle's character do in Ocean's Eleven.
- That portrayal was so bad that the leading theory is his character was actually an American faking it

tell me about it! i ordered a cherry π and received three and some bits of cherries instead!

that's totes the fault of the guy who can't understand what i mean when i'm trying to be esoteric!

Hey man, I'm sorry... If they handed you a measurable quantity of cherries then you didn't get what you asked for.
- Nah they just handed them 3&1/7 cherries. It’s a reasonable approximation
I'm a bit of an OCD logic nerd. When I eat something, I need to immediately gulp down another 7 otherwise I could never have ate them.

What 86 has todo with "no"?

I've heard "86" as slang for eliminate/remove but I don't know where it comes from, and I would never use it if I thought it could be confused with a quantity.
It sounds like something a stereotypical Chicago mobster might say, so I'd probably not use that slang anyway.
- 80 miles; 6 feet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86_%28term%29

Definitely should have written "no cherries," but it is a common restaurant industry term in the US.

Interestingly enough, you can also 86 a person. This means they're not allowed to come back to the bar/restaurant/etc...

You can also 68 something if it becomes available again, like a reverse 86. For instance: the kitchen runs out of Brussels sprouts and 86's them, but someone completes an emergency produce run to the local market and preps enough for the rest of the night, so now they're 68.
Interestingly enough, you can also 86 a person. This means they’re not allowed to come back to the bar/restaurant/etc…
Sounds like a murder/assassination euphemism.
- I've heard of the term to "deep six" someone.
- Some of 'em might be deserving of such a euphemism.

Even if he had written "86 the cherries" they probably never heard that term. I'm about to be 40 and I only know it from Loony Tunes and other cartoons stereotyping a 1920's mobster.

Jokes on you, I just got a week supply of cherries.