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.