I'm sorry I forgot your salads

Now that I'm a server, things are so much different when it comes to dealing with people.

For the most part, I've been really lucky with rotten tables, but that doesn't mean I haven't had them.

Saturday is a perfect example.

I worked a double on Saturday. I was there at 10:45 in the a.m. until about 9:30 in the p.m.

It was steady throughout the day, so my break was not much of a break. It consisted of scarfing down some pasta and rolling silverware. Not much of a break

Needless to say, I was pretty tired all day and my feet hurt.

The dinner rush was continuous, but I felt like everything flowed really well. I had an 8 top and a couple of other tables and everyone seemed happy.

That's all until one of my tables food starting to take a little longer than the average 20 minutes ticket time. I apologized numerous times and assured them that there food was going to be ready very soon. These customers never had empty drinks and they enjoyed some onion ring appetizers. The lady at the table waved me over and very annoyingly asked if they were ever going to get there salads.

OOPS!

Yes, this way completely my fault. I clearly had forgotten to take out their salads before their meal and now, after a LONG wait, their meal was coming up.

I felt like an idiot, which is a normal thing for me at work, and apologized profusely. 

They were ANNOYED!!

I talked to my manager to see if we could do something to make them happy, and she offered free gelato.

I went back to the table with their salads and their food and told them, again, that I was really sorry about the salads and the food and that we would like to buy them each a gelato (we sell fresh, house made gelato there).  I was hoping that this would calm things down, but they didn't say anything.

I continued to check on them throughout their meal and everything seemed okay.

After they were finished, I brought them out the flavors of their choice and they didn't like any of their gelatos.

UGH.

Not much else I can do about that.

I brought them out there check which was about $50.00 and all that was left for me was a $1.00 tip.

Yes, they left me a 2% tip.

oh, how kind they were!

Moral of the story is this:

Sometimes your servers are human.

Weird, I know. People keep thinking that (enter sarcasm) I'm a wizard, 

BUT unfortunately (exit sarcasm) the little letter from Hogwarts didn't show up.

Also, your server has no control over how fast your food takes.

I DO NOT cook your food. 

Cooks cook your food.

NOT, I repeat NOT, your server.

For the record, I did forget the salads, but is that really a mistake that's worth a 2% tip.

Don't people mainly just get pissed off about empty drinks after all...

I tried my hardest to make that damn table happy, but apparently I really failed.

Shit customers say...to servers

I got a good little laugh out of this.

It's too bad, how true this is.

i have returned

I've returned.

There have just been way too many ridiculous, blog worthy things that have happened since I've started serving.

I think you will enjoy it.

There is much to catch up on, so be patient and we'll have a good time together!

Clearly it has been way too long since I've written anything on this blog, but after the night I had I felt like I needed to speak up somewhere, so I'm starting this restaurant blog up again.

Since the last time I've written, there have been my ups and downs in the restaurant business. I almost lost my job, I was almost promoted as a manager, now I'm just fighting for more hours, but I am finally working in the kitchen now.

Last night was an incredibly smooth night. Things were working out really well. Servers were running their food, there weren't many mess ups, ticket times were decent. The only issue is that it wasn't as busy as most Saturday nights, but such is life. My manager told me to start getting all of my side work completed so I could head home. Once I started, all hell broke loose. At least that's how I felt about it.

As an expediter, my job is to make sure food goes out hot, correct and in a timely manner. It's a pretty basic job. It gets chaotic on occasion, but I'm practically a pro by now.

Scenario 1:

There is a large party sitting out on the bar patio. They had some strange modifications for their food, but nothing we couldn't handle. The food came out pretty quickly, and I sent it out with the server. A couple of minutes later, the server came out and said one of the customer's wanted his burger toasted more. Not a problem. The cooks toasted it more. A few minutes later the server came back out with the same burger, and he said that the customer said all of this food was cold. Ok, that's obviously an issue. The cooks make him another burger. A few minutes later the server comes back out and says the guy now wants to add more stuff to his burger. By this point, the cooks are getting a little bit irritated. They do what he wants. After about 10 minutes of complaints from the server about how obnoxious this table was being, he comes back to tell us that after the table finished all of their food, they informed the server that all of their food was cold. UGH. This is frustrating because I'm the one that gets into trouble for this. The food wasn't waiting long before I sent it out, so I'm not sure how all of their food was cold, but how are we supposed to fix the problem when they already ate all of the food. UGH. So annoying for me. Not to mention, I don't think it's wise for people to make cooks angry. I can honestly say, I've never seen one spit in any food, but I wouldn't put it past some cooks out there.

Scenario 2:

A guy orders a well-done prime rib, which in my opinion is a total shame. The server comes back and asks the cooks to make it more well-done. They are already annoyed because of scenario 1, but they cook is longer. Once it's done, I send it with the server. She comes back a few more minutes and says he wants it more well done. Now to describe this prime rib already, it's pretty black on the outside, almost the the point where the edges are getting a little scorched. They cook it longer, and I take it to the man. He looks at it and back at me a little annoyed but takes it anyway. Because prime rib is so prime and delicious, the center doesn't really stop being pink the longer it is cooked. That's just how it is, and this guy didn't seem to understand that and he threw a fit. oh people...

Scenario 3:

A burger comes up in the window and I run it to the table. Before I run it, I notice on the ticket it says add cheddar cheese. There was already cheese on the burger, so I was just going to run to the table and ask them what the other cheese was for. Not a big deal in my opinion. I go to the table and give them this burger. There were two of them, and so I asked if they were sharing and if they needed another plate. The girl looks at me with a ridiculous glare and sassily says, no we aren't sharing. I ordered a soup. I tell her I'm sorry, and I ask her what kind of soup she had and that I could run and get it really quick. She looks at me like I'm stupid and says I don't know, something with vegetables in it. I give her our options. She again looks at me like I'm stupid and says its the one with the prime rib in it. I say ok. I'll be right back and grab that for you. I start to walk away, and she says and I got a dinner roll. I apologize again, and go to walk off, and then she says and my boyfriend orders cheese on his fries. I turn back around take his burger and apologize for the third 4th time. I tell them it won't take long, and the girl just looks and me and very loudly says. WOW. oh my gosh, as I'm walking away. Needless to say, I really wanted to spit in her food. Of course I would never do that because I'm a professional, but seriously. All I could say about this was BITCH! seriously. It was horrible.

Now I want you to remember that all of these scenarios happened within about a half hour. I wanted to punch someone. And it took me an extra hour and a half to get out of work. fml.

HA

Ok, well here's a real kicker.

Me and My friend, a kitchen manager, went to a movie tonight. He leans over to me and says would you like to hear the recent soap opera of our restaurant. drama? of course i said yes. He then proceeds to tell me that apparently me and him are dating. Bethany quit because me and him were dating and they had previously dated. oh and one of the hostess's is pregnant with his baby.

WTF? that's what I thought after I laughed hysterically for a good couple of minutes.

Oh the rumors that go around that place. It always keeps things interesting, and makes going to work much more fun.

Ooops...

So, I made someone quit this week at work.

Ok I really didn't, but it seemed like I did.

Here's the story. Our restaurant does triple nickel wings every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 3-5 (wings for 15 cents each if you couldn't figure that out). I usually come in at 3 and it gets pretty chaotic. Usually a bunch of cheap high school kids come in and rip all of their servers off (this is a different topic I will someday talk about), but we produce a plethora of wings in those 2 hours. Well a whole bunch of wings came up in the window, and the cook gave me two tickets so I could sell them. I called the servers and sent them out with their wings. There were two remaining bowls of wings in the window, and another cook came over to see why they were there because he was going to start helping with the rest of the orders. The first cook told him they were supposed to go out with the orders I just sent, but I told him they weren't. I sent out everything I was supposed to. Well this other cook got really annoyed (he has temper issues in the first place and he has taken them out on me verbally many a time, but that's just him and i just ignore it) and started yelling at the other cook for messing up (ok this wasn't a big deal because you just use those wings for another order, right?) well he got mad at me and said why didn't you send these out and I said because I didn't need them, and it's not a big deal. He used many profane words and went into the back. I thought he was just going back there to cool down because he does that a lot, but then my manager comes out and said what did you do? I didn't really know what he was talking about and then he told me that the temperamental cook just came back there and said i can't take this shiz, I quit. Uh....yeah. Well I didn't really make him quit, but everyone was really confused as to what happened. It wasn't a big deal because obviously the other cook and me had nothing to do with it, but he was one of our best line cooks.

haha oops.

(it does make me kinda sad he quit because he was one of my favorites to work with...and to look at ;-) but what can you do)

Finally something to write about

Well I haven't worked as an expo in quite sometime. I technically have been working as an expo, but it's been so slow that nothing too exciting has happened. The last few weekends I've been sent home early or called to not even come in because it's been so slow. Tonight I got a message from my dreamy manager that I needed to come in a little earlier because I was the only expo tonight and there was only one manager there. Now this might not seem like a problem but usually there are two managers and one of them helps the expo out here and there and the other one helps the hostess out here and there. Needless to say, it's convenient having two managers. Once I got to work my manager came up to me and said, "Hey, we have 4 reservations of 12 coming in tonight, so it's gonna be pretty busy. I'll be around to help if you need it but mainly I'll be up front."I wasn't too worried, but sometimes when weekends get busy, servers run around like chickens with their heads chopped off and things just get out of control, which stresses me out. Well it got busy and it got busy pretty fast, but it was awesome. I love when it's busy. I actually get to do my job, and it's awesome. Well things did get out of control, but everything worked out fine. I loved tonight. It's been too long since I've gotten to actually work hard and it felt pretty good. Oh and can I just say that I love my kitchen staff. LOVE them. They are the best, so here is there shout out!!

Ok, well I needed to add something to make this blog informative and helpful for all you restaurant goers.. even though I'm sure you are all smarter than this.

Scenario: [This is told to me by one of my favorite servers] Table full of girls going to see New Moon. (You can already see this is a disaster right ;-).

I sent out 6 meals to a table. The dinner consisted of some nachos, burgers and salads. Our nachos are pretty delish. They are full of our homemade veggie chili, cheese, tomatoes, olives, and green onions. Sounds good to me. Our burgers are burgers, but pretty darn good ones, and our salads come with the dressing on them.

About 3 minutes after I sent this food out, my server comes to me and says, "I need some nachos pronto, but I just need them with just cheese." I ask him to explain because I need to let the kitchen managers what's going on and he tells me that this girl didn't want any of the other stuff that come with the nachos. Well this girl didn't read the menu very well apparently because in the menu it states everything that's on those nachos. A couple minutes later my server comes back with the salad he took out and said, "Hey, I need this salad without dressing." UGH. seriously? I asked my server to just admit to maybe messing up and forgetting to enter these things into the computer because servers mess up a lot, but nope. These girls didn't pay attention to the menu. annoying? heck yes. it puts everything behind a little and it's just annoying.

So lesson for the day:

Read the menu. It says what comes with your meal and if you don't want something, tell your server. It's frustrating for the kitchen to have to redo these silly things, and it costs us money because that's food wasted.

Well, I should be working a lot more this month with the holidays coming up so stick around because I will hopefully have some good stories...maybe not as good as the phone sex girl, but who knows.

Oh yeah, and Bee is officially done. :-( I'm sad