One thing I've noticed when it comes to people wanting to start a fight: You have to establish the boundary that you're not going to fight them. Hold your ground and stick to the original goal. (Now if this were in a non-professional environment, you tell them to fuck off immediately) but because this is a professional environment, you re-affirm the task at hand.

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Example: Customer says some mean shit.

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You look the firmly in the fucking eye and say: "Can I help you with anything else or are we done?"

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This gives a clear message of: I'm here to work and don't have time for bullshit. And if they are persistent, you can always stonewall them with the broken record technique:

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"Have a good day."

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"If you'd like another drink, you'll need to return to the back of the line."

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"I cannot chat right now as I have other customers to assist."

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Remember not to take it personal. Some people just like to start shit. Another thing I've learned in my years as a restaurant server: This one angry dude would come in once a week. Dude was always super gloom and angry at the world. The other servers absolutely hated him: "Oh fuck, not this guy." I had never served him before so I requested he be sat in my station. Gentlemen was older. Probably early 50s. Life didn't pan out exactly as planned and he was upset with the world. So I made an effort to just listen and empathize. He indeed was angry about a lot of things and I just listened and agreed to a good extent. It worked out fairly well.

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And then some people just love to be disagreeable. They want a fight. They like it and respond well to it. Knew a few people in my life where they were just straight-up disagreeable bastards who loved confrontation. Couldn't get them to lay off no matter how nice I was. Then when I finally called them assholes, they warmed up to me. Not saying you should call a customer an asshole, but maybe respond with a very grounded: "Oh yea?" or "Is that so?" But this would probably work much better with men.

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At the end of the day, don't ever take it person. "Kill them with kindness" works because on the outside, your happy smile rejects all their negative energy. But on the inside, the narrative is a shit-eating grin of "lol I am smiling at how sad and pathetic this person is."

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How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is a fantastic book I highly recommend for how to deal with people in everyday life. I believe it is available for free as an audiobook on Youtube. Have read it twice meow.

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Hope this is helpful.