Are You Closing?

“Are you closing?”
“Yeah, kinda.”

Normally, the correct answer to that question is something along the lines of “Oh, no, we have a ton of sidework to do, we’re going to be here for a while. Take your time, there’s no rush.” Of course, you must know, we don’t really mean that. What we really want is for you to get up and go because, at this point, you’re basically holding us hostage in the restaurant. Don’t get me wrong, I want you to have a good time and I want to provide you with excellent service but when you take advantage of it by sitting in a dining room that’s been otherwise empty for over an hour, I sort of grow to resent you. Just a little bit.

Anyway, I waited on these three older ladies the other night. They were seated at a table in the back of the dining room (where we generally tend to avoid putting late tables because we know that they’re apt to stay longer) and they asked me that question.

“Are you closing?”
“Yeah, kinda.”


Earlier in the night…

A little girl, maybe six years old, decided that she wanted to get dressed up and go out for dinner, so her mom brought her in and they had a nice three-course dinner. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the little girl didn’t like her grilled chicken, so we got her some chicken fingers instead. Before bringing the check over to these ladies, I had to get my manager to comp the grilled chicken. I approached him at the food bar. He said something along the lines of:

“Yeah, I can do that. Don’t have too much else on my agenda. I mean, the restaurant’s full and I guess we’re busy, but it doesn’t feel like it at all.”

Yes, things were going quite smoothly indeed. I was especially relaxed, as I was training a new server and I let her take the entire section, only providing her with back-up when or if she needed it. This resulted in me standing around a lot, even taking an excursion to Trader Joe’s to pick up a few bottles of wine before they closed.

And then the music started up. And it was loud. My restaurant has live music on Wednesday and Thursday nights, but usually it’s a two or three-piece band. On this night, we had the Mezcla Latin Jazz Ensemble and, I have to say, they were fantastic. But they really were an ensemble. A really, really loud ensemble. You quite literally couldn’t hold a conversation anywhere in the restaurant.

Since all that I had going on was the aforementioned three ladies in the corner, I stood at the host stand to watch the band. Out of nowhere, a woman approached me frantically.

“I need some cold water! And a wet towel or a napkin or something!”

Her panic became contagious and I fumbled around to accommodate her requests:

“Is everything alright?”
“My mother’s sick, she’s not feeling well!”

She had been walking her mother, who was celebrating her 81st birthday, down to the bathroom. As they passed the band, her mother suddenly felt sick and had to sit down.

I went down to check on the situation to find that the older woman had thrown up all over the place, she looked like she was in and out of consciousness. She was crowded by her family and other guests and restaurant staff. The band played on.

Frenzied, I picked up the phone and dialed 9-1-1. I didn’t notice that the line was already in use and, instead of a dial-tone, I was greeted by our grumpy bartender who was oblivious to the situation. He was waiting for the manager to pick up the phone. I had no words for him, I just shuffled to find an open line. I couldn’t get the phone to work, so I grabbed my cell-phone out of my apron and called them. (Interestingly, this is the only restaurant that I’ve worked in where we can use cell-phones during service without getting in trouble. On this particular night, it may have saved a life. Go figure!)

Within three minutes there were three police cars, a fire truck and an ambulance parked in front of the restaurant and a team of emergency workers flooded the downstairs. The band stopped and the restaurant got super quiet. A real awkward quiet, as all eyes in the place were on this poor old woman.

The Guy at Table 71: “Why did you guys turn the music off?”

The Woman at Table 21: “Why did she get sick?” (spoken with attitude, as if it were something that she ate)

The comments flying around the dining room were shockingly insensitive. Suddenly I didn’t really care if a customer overheard me talking about them, as I openly did about the Woman at Table 21.

While all of this was going on, I still had the ladies in the back to take care of. They had arrived at 6:30 and took their sweet time ordering, which is completely fine. It was now after 10. They had been sitting with dessert menus for well over a half hour. I had taken my excursion to Trader Joe’s and back and they still hadn’t done anything. My trainee didn’t know what to do. When she approached the table to take their order (on several occasions), they refused to make eye contact. All they would say was:

“No.”

Eventually the emergency workers got the sick woman strapped to a stretcher and brought her into the ambulance never to be heard from again. We’ll probably never know what happened to her. The band played on.

As the restaurant recovered from the chaos and tried to resume a sense of normalcy, I decided to go over to the three ladies myself. I approached the table and looked at them:

“So, uh, what are we doing?”

They scrambled to formulate a plan. They clearly hadn’t even looked at the menus that they had been sitting on for so long.

“Well, I want coffee, do you want coffee?”
“Oh yes, I’ll definitely have coffee.”
“Will you have a bite of something?”
“I’ll just have a bite. You pick it out.”
“Noreen, will you have a bite?”
“Oh, no, I’m all set. I couldn't eat another bite.”
“Well let’s just split something."
"Do you have decaf?"


It’s the same conversation over and over. I just don’t understand people.

To wrap this up quickly, since this is already running too long, they finished their dessert and we dropped the check. And they let it sit in the middle of the table for another hour. Attempts to collect it were unsuccessful, as they gave us the same silent treatment that they gave us during the dessert process.

PEOPLE – IF YOU’RE GOING TO STAY LATE, AT LEAST JUST PAY THE BILL SO THAT I CAN DO MY CASH-OUT.

At 11:30, I finally approached the table with a huge amount of attitude on my face. I didn’t say anything at all. I just looked at them, like:

WTF?

“Are you closing?”
“Yeah, kinda.”

And then they left me $20 on a $200 check, while thanking me profusely on their way out as I twirled my keys, ready to leave.

Eight Ways to Piss off Your Server

When you go out to eat, you want the server to be on your side. It’s kind of a no-brainer that you want to have a friend “on the inside.” Unfortunately, many people just don’t seem to get it. Instead of treating their servers like a helpful tour guide on their culinary adventure, some act as if they are too good to be bothered. Wake up, people, your servers are not a bunch of bottom-feeding burn-outs. Many of them are intellectuals, working their way through school, and many of them probably make more money than you. I’ve compiled a list of eight common behaviors that are sure to get you on their bad side.

a bitter song for a bitter article.

1. Asking for water is not an appropriate response to “hello, how are you?”

As you may know from, uh, real life, first impressions are everything. When a server comes to greet you, you’re both working from a blank slate. There’s probably no worse way to get on your server’s bad side than by completely blowing off their greeting. You know what? Your server’s not an idiot, obviously you’re going to get your water, but there’s a series of events that has to happen first. Perhaps it’s a weird concept, but a simple exchange of pleasantries to start things off really goes a long way.

2. If you don’t like the sound of a dish, keep it to yourself.

Please refrain from rolling your eyes in disgust when I tell you about the pepper-crusted grilled veal chop special. First of all, I didn’t create the dish and second of all, you’re the one that asked. And just because you think something sounds bad, that speaks more to your poor taste than it does to the quality of the food. So, how about keeping the snide remarks and goofy facial expressions to yourselves, huh?

3. Read the menu before asking a stupid question.

“What does the duck come with?”

“Um, everything that’s listed next to it?”

4. Crying wolf with allergies.

This is a growing trend among restaurant-goers. Somewhere along the line apparently aversions became allergies. Don’t tell me that you’re allergic to onions when you simply don’t like them. It’s a huge pain for the kitchen to go out of their way to accommodate these sorts of requests and being frivolous with them makes your server unsympathetic to allergies across the board. And don’t get me started on gluten “allergies.” These celiac sufferers are often the most demanding people in a restaurant, treating their condition as if it were life and death. It’s not. They just get the shits.

5. Don’t talk to me when I’m at another table.

This is beyond rude and I can’t even believe that it happens, but it does. Usually it’s the elderly crowd, perhaps they don’t know any better, but it doesn’t matter. If you think that tugging on my apron when I’m talking to a table (that I probably like better than you) is going to get you what you want you should probably think again.

6. Don’t flail your arms to get my attention from across the dining room.

Are you drowning? Are you choking? No? Then how about you calm yourself down and act like a grown-up just for one minute? Think you can do that? Yeah, I see you waving your arms around like a crazy person, but I probably won’t acknowledge it.

7. We’re not trying to drug you with caffeine.

People think that servers are like that creepy moustachioed guy hanging out at a bar full of people half his age. We’re not trying to slip you anything, folks, RELAX!
“This is decaf, right??”
“You better give me your phone number so that I can call you when I’m up at three o’clock in the morning!”
Yeah, guess what? I work in a restaurant, I’ll be up at three o’clock. Go ahead, call me up, we’ll party. I’ve never met a server that would give a person high-test coffee when they asked for decaf. If anything, you might get a decaf if you ordered regular but that’s really not a big deal.

8. The dessert bully.

Every table has one and I need to ask you to stop.
“Can I offer you anything for dessert?”
You go around the table and everyone’s all set.
Except you.
You dessert bully.
“If I get something, will you have a bite?”
And then the dominoes fall and, before you know it, you’re mired in a hell of decaf cappucinos and hot teas.
Please, don’t push your dessert on the people around you. They don’t want it and you don’t need it.

I know some of you guys are servers, so what other ways can you think of?

Happy Valentine's Day

Can you feel it? Ohhh yeah, that's love you're feeling. Yeah, that’s right, love is in the air! Valentine’s Day is upon us, ladies and gentlemen! That wonderful day of days where we get to show our loves just how much we care by spending lots of money on them! Valentine’s Day is a holiday that everyone, whether they’re in a relationship or not, seems to be pretty down on. Dismissed by many as a “Hallmark holiday,” there is a deep-seated bitterness regarding the day, yet most feel obligated to celebrate it. If you don’t bring your girl out for a nice dinner then you look like an asshole, right?

Restaurants take advantage of this precarious position that you’ve been put in by societal pressure and use it as an occasion to jack up their prices and push ridiculous specials on you.

(“Bedtime bonus” caviar, anyone? Anyone?)

Indeed, it’s a day that restaurants certainly feel the love. I’m here to tell you not to let them take advantage of you. Instead of recommending some romantic spot to spend your Sunday night, I’ll give you another piece of advice: stay home! If you want to go out for a romantic dinner, the best thing to do is make an agreement to celebrate on a different day. Go out on Monday and enjoy the same food at a significantly lower price in a significantly less crowded dining room.

If you must go out on Sunday, you could go in a different direction. For the past few years Eastern Standard in Kenmore Square has been throwing Boston’s definitive Anti-Valentine’s Day party. While I certainly have my problems with the place, you won’t find a better cocktail list and it should be a fun crowd full of industry types. Also, I found out about this one a little too late but Estragon Tapas in the South End (on Harrison Ave) had their own Anti-Valentine’s Day bash this past Thursday, with complimentary appetizers and $1 PBRs! Even though it already happened, I thought it was worth mentioning because you probably haven’t been to Estragon (and maybe never heard of it), but it’s one of my absolute favorite places in the city and I'll probably write about it in greater detail at a later time.

MGMT

Believe it or not, troublesome guests aren’t the worst people you have to deal with as a server. At least you know that once the check is dropped and paid they’ll be gone and out of your life (sometimes forever, sometimes not). There is another sort of evil element in the restaurant business and this one doesn’t go away quite as easily: the manager. Now, I realize that everyone, regardless of their job, likes to complain about their boss but restaurants are a rare case where employees generally make more money than their managers. This can be a source of frustration for the manager and frustration can lead to conflict. And it often does.

Abraham Lincoln said, "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Many of the restaurant managers that I've worked with have been great people that have used the job as a good resume builder. Others have let the job go to their head, using their position as a way to control and abuse people. With low expectations for upward mobility, especially in smaller family-owned restaurants, some managers can become consumed with their feelings of inferiority and unleash against a poor and unsuspecting staff. Tearing people down, even when they’re doing a good job, is a great way for these people to feel better about themselves and forget, for just a minute, about their own shortcomings (both in their career and in life).

I recently left a job because of one of these animals. I had worked at this particular restaurant for quite some time. Longer than I had ever planned on working in any restaurant, really. The money was consistent, I had an ideal schedule, and I had some amazing regular customers. For the most part, I enjoyed it and I actually cared about the restaurant. Over my time there I had several disputes with the GM, but we got along for the most part. I think that we were even friends at one point.

And then he went to the Dark Side.

Spending fifteen hours a day locked in an office with your future father-in-law (yes, he was engaged to the boss’ daughter – and she made more money than him – another source of frustration) will make your brain weak. It might even make you feel like less of a man. Eventually a once (relatively) well-rounded individual became a robot focused on “perfect service.” Now, I firmly believe that providing perfect service is the restaurant’s (and server’s) ultimate goal for every guest experience but he took it too far. It consumed him. Chasing pregnant waitresses around on busy Saturday nights, yelling at them in the sidestand because they forgot to mark a table with a soup spoon is unacceptable behavior. It creates a tension in the restaurant, and amongst the staff, that the guest can perceive, thereby undermining our goal of perfect service. Duh.

Upon learning of said waitress’ pregnancy -
Idiot GM: Ooh, I’m sorry to hear that.

This guy generally laid off of me and left me to my own devices but the rest of the staff would always tell me about the awful things he would say and do to them. Over time, as the offenses piled up higher and higher and his behavior became more and more crazy, my opinion of him fell until the respect that was once there dried up entirely.

The resentment bubbled for months before the inevitable showdown.

Taking him up on his “open-door” policy, I approached him about his troubling behavior. Having been friends at one point, long ago, I tried to talk to him as such. Unfortunately, there is no sense of reason inside the mind of a monster. Instead of a conversation, he baited me into an all-out argument. The words that came out of his mouth were lies. Concoctions of a deranged mind.

So that’s how it was going to be.

The restaurant simply wasn’t big enough for the two of us anymore.

I offered my notice, saying that I would leave at the end of the year. He responded by telling me that I could leave right then and there.

And so I did.

Anyway, in honor of the title of this post, here's a video! Enjoy!

Man vs. Travel Channel

I don’t like silence when I’m home, so I usually wind up having the TV on, even when I’m not watching it. CNN, ESPN, and the Travel Channel are my usual go-to's. The Food Network used to fall into this category, as well, but their hosts have become incredibly annoying and their production values very poor, so they’re out. Anyhow, for the past few days, while I’ve occupied my time with homework and other projects around the apartment, the TV’s been stuck on the Travel Channel and I just realized that the programming has very little to do with travel.

I’ll admit, I enjoy watching Adam Richman’s Man vs. Food from time to time. Without it, I might not have ever heard about the ghost chili pasta at the East Coast Grille's awesome Hell Night. I think that the concept of the show is fantastic and it’s very well executed, especially when compared to similar shows in the genre. I do think that the success of the show is somewhat amusing, however, considering the times that we live in. When so many people are out of work, barely able to put food on their tables, our society has made a cult hero out of a traveling frat boy who makes himself sick with outrageous quantities of food.

The Travel Channel has now taken the success of Richman’s show and run with it. Now we have Steak Paradise, Deep-Fried Paradise, Burger Paradise, the Chowdown Countdown, Extreme Eats, etc. etc. It seems like the only “travel” being done on this network is a never-ending trail of “belly-busting” burritos and greasy pizza. While it’s interesting to see some of these dishes, I think it’s dangerous and somewhat irresponsible to celebrate them. There was one restaurant, known for their french fries cooked in lard, who gave free meals to customers who weighed in at over 350 pounds. Another restaurant had a guest collapse, apparently from a heart attack, in the middle of the dining room. Well, turned out it wasn’t a heart attack. It was severe heartburn from the giant pancake challenge that he was attempting. Hi-larious! At some point these shows have gone from entertaining to kind of sad (not to mention completely over-exposed). I believe that people are responsible for their own actions and for what they eat, but I don’t really think that we need to be encouraging this sort of behavior.

I know that food and travel are intertwined by nature, but if the Travel Channel is going to keep such a narrow focus on food, it would be nice if they would pay attention to some of the nicer restaurants that are out there. The search for America’s most outrageous foods has gotten redundant and incredibly stale.

Another problem that I have with the Travel Channel is Andrew Zimmern. You know, this guy:


The Bizarre Foods guy. He always seems to come on after Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations and the difference between the two shows couldn't be more pronounced. While Bourdain usually sets out to far off lands using food as a way to understand the diverse cultures he encounters, Zimmern approaches other cultures as if they're animals in a zoo. Usually decked out in a bright orange shirt that screams "I'm not from around here," his show uses zany writing and "weird" foods to essentially mock these people. Zimmern is a world-class clown and I can't reach for the remote fast enough once he comes on.

Kids Make a Change

In my first post I told you that, in addition to tales of the weird and crazy, I'd be talking about some of the good people I've encountered along the way. Right now I'd like to direct you to a website that was set up by a couple of kids I know.


Kids Make a Change (KMAC) was set up by Mason and Eve Elizondo who, according to their mission statement, want to "get kids more involved in giving." They have raised a lot of money for a lot of causes, such as the Animal Rescue League of Boston, the World Wildlife Fund, and St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Recently they've been working on raising money for Haiti. These are the kinds of kids that actually inspire a sense of hope for the future and I'm glad to know them. So, if you have a minute or two, pop on over to their site and see what they've been doing.

The Joys of Brunch

When I sat down to write today, I was planning on talking about one of my favorite new places, but the memory of yesterday’s brunch was still in my head and inspired me to go in a different direction.

For someone that works in a restaurant, there are few things worse than waking up on a Sunday morning, after a long Saturday night at work, to sling eggs and hash to the masses. A crowd of people who crawl out of the holes they’ve been hiding in the rest of the week. These people that come out for brunch are a “special” crowd, pretty much exclusive from the folks who come in for dinner.

They gather around the restaurant, half an hour before we begin service, impatiently waiting for the doors to open up at 11. Sometimes they want to be let in early, as if the hours posted are mere suggestions and not rules. They complain about being cold and hungry. I have no sympathy. They’re not homeless and this isn’t a soup kitchen.

The bugle sounds.
The Call to the Post.
The doors open.
And they’re off!
The rush begins.
Driven by a madness that only a cup of coffee, some eggs and a side-of-sausage-right-now can cure, these wild animals tear through the restaurant dragging their children and barking out orders.
A lovely way start to the day, right.

Yesterday:
“I’ll have the turkey hash, but instead of the bread, I want a salad.”
“Okay, there might be a slight upcharge for that, though. I’m not sure a salad is a viable substitution for toast.”
“What can I have instead that doesn’t have carbs?”
“Well, I suppose you could leave the bread off.”
“You know what, nevermind. I’ll have the two eggs and bacon.”
“Okay. How would you like your eggs cooked?”
“Like an omelette.”
“So you want an omelette?”
“No, I want them cooked like an omelette. Only the egg whites. And instead of the bacon, I want duck sausage.”
“So, you want the egg white omelette with a side of duck sausage?”
“No, I want egg whites cooked like an omelette. They’ll know what I mean.”

Needless to say, the kitchen wasn’t too psyched when I rang in this disaster of an order. My manager just looked at me, you’re kidding, right?

I could have been more helpful with this table, but they were rude and demanding when they sat down. If people who come into the restaurant act like children I have no problem treating them as such. If you reward them for their behavior, they’ll think that it’s okay. On the flipside, I suppose they don’t even realize that they’re doing anything wrong and probably just think that it is I who is the douchebag.

These are the shifts that you work only because they “fulfill a requirement,” like science classes for a liberal arts major. At most restaurants, there is a pecking order, generally based upon seniority. The new people generally get what they can take for shifts. If by working a brunch, you get the opportunity to work a couple of good night shifts then so be it. You’ll do your time, but you won’t necessarily like it. I don’t even care about the money, as I’ll probably spend it by the time I get home.