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I work in a restaurant that is busy. I
approached a table to introduce myself and the gentleman said, "Who
cares? What are the specials?" I informed him of the specials and then asked what they would like to drink.
The gentleman said "chard." I asked which kind and he wanted an explanation of the difference between the two.
I explained (telling him the higher end chardonnay was "smoother"). He
accused me of trying to make him buy the expensive one. I then got his house wine and when I brought it to the table, he said, "Oh you don't know what you are talking about."
I asked why he thought that and he said, "Chard is red!"
And this is the type of person that I must depend on so I can pay my mortgage!
Michelle
I had a deuce sitting in the back right hand corner of the room.
They had ordered their food and were kicking back and enjoying their drinks.
In the front left hand table, I had an elderly couple who just ordered their food. I brought out the food for the first
table, two women who started eating. Then we brought out the food for the elderly couple.
The elderly women started yelling that her husband was sick. The owners, (hostess and
chef) came running out. The hostess/owner called 911 and I assisted in getting the gentlemen comfortable. The lady from the back corner came up and said that she worked in a hospital as a secretary and could she help.
We sent her back to her table. The police and ambulance came in and started to assist the gentlemen. Once the gentlemen left with the
paramedics, I went back to the other table. They told me that we had ruined their dinner and wanted to be
"comped". I told the owner that table 14 wanted their meals
comped! Needless to say, we didn't.
The gentleman came through his heart attack and is now back enjoying dinner. He sent us flowers to thank us for helping him.
We never saw the ladies again. I wonder if it could have been my parting words which were, "I hope if something like this happens to you, that someone like me is there and not someone like you?"
Michelle
I
work at a hotel restaurant in which customers can join this
thing called the Priority Club. It entitles them to free
coffee and tea. But they seem to assume that they are wearing a sign that says "Don't charge me for my coffee,
I'm a Priority Club member."
One morning I was
waiting on this guy who had been semi-jerky the whole time, complaining about everything. I gave him his check and he
looks at it and says in this snotty voice, "Oh, so
now you're charging me for coffee and I'm a Priority Club member." I looked at him, with a big smile I said
"I'm sorry sir, but I left my crystal ball at home. I'll
fix it immediately." I even got an apology.
-Eydie
Letter
to Parade magazine, reprinted by permission of the author:
Dear Editor,
I read Parade fairly regularly. I enjoy most of what I read from
the questions on celebrities, to the interesting articles, to the
actor biographies near the back.
However, this week I was browsing through the magazine eating my
breakfast, before going to work. One particular article caught my
eye. "Stretch Your Dining-Out Dollars" by Bryan Miller.
You see, today is Sunday, and my job is as a waiter for a
well-known steakhouse here in Houston.
Just the title of the article made me cringe. But, as a consumer
of restaurants I understand people wanting to get what they pay
for when eating out. There were two points in the article that I a
problem with:
1. Stick with the tap - In this section the author advises people
to drink tap water or soda water over bottled water. Okay, no
biggie. If they're gonna drink water anyway, then it doesn't make
that much of a difference. But, many restaurants (including mine)
will charge a guest for a glass of soda water. It is, after
all, made the same way as a Coca-Cola. There is the syrup and the
carbonated water, and it's dispensed from either a soda fountain
or where
ever the soft drinks are made.
2. Check the check - This short four-line, 21-word, section will
do more damage for waiters across the country than it ever will do
to save consumers money.
The author of the article (mistakenly) thinks a person should only
tip on the "pre-tax meal total". Where did he come up
with this? A customer of a restaurant will save approximately 1.24
cents per dollar (with 8.25% sales tax) by not tipping on the tax
applied to their bill. This is a 1.24% savings. That 1.24% is a
saving of only the portion of a consumer's income that is spent
dining out. What percent does the average person spend eating out?
I'm not sure. But, let's be generous and say 25%. So, the author
is telling everyone out there to save 1.24% on 25% of their
income. Sounds good. But, if everyone did do this, then
waiters would LOSE 1.24% on 100% of their income. Doesn't sound so
good now.
Many waiters (and nearly all who work in semi-fine to fine-dining)
pay "tip out", or in other words, a percentage of their
SALES (not tips) is paid back to the restaurant, where it is then
split amongst the bus-boys, hosts, and bartenders. This amount is
calculated from SALES... TOTAL SALES. It isn't calculated from
PRE-TAX sales, or POST-COUPON, or POST-DISCOUNT sales. If a waiter
sells it, then he must pay a percentage (2.5% at my restaurant) of
that sale, even if the customers leaves NO TIP! If there's a hair
in the food or some other problem due to the way it was prepared,
and the management takes that item off the customer's bill (as
they should most times), the waiter STILL must pay his "tip
pool" on that item that was taken off. This means there is an
amount, which a waiter does not receive tips on (98% of the time),
AND, he must pay a percentage of the very amount they were not
tipped on. It's like double taxation, or in law "double
jeopardy".
There are already WAY too many people out there who do not tip
well. For the author to give them one more excuse to short a
waiter, is asinine. I would like to see, in the near future,
and article in your magazine about what waiters do for their tips.
Making drinks, making sure the order is put in correctly,
refilling drinks, all the work they do to get a restaurant ready
for business before the first customer even arrives, the work they
do to clean up after guests, the preparing of salads, the rolling
of silverware, and the seemingly unending amount of rudeness they
must put up with from customers, the knowledge of the menu, etc.
It all culminates into an "experience" for the guest. When
I got to work this morning I made sure every single waiter (and
manager) in my restaurant read Mr. Miller's article. And, not one
of them were appreciative of his suggestion. I hope every waiter
that read your magazine this week writes, emails, calls, or
somehow contacts you to express their displeasure. I will also be
emailing any and all friends, family,
acquaintances, etc that I have about this article in the hopes
that they too will respond.
Thank you for your time.
I hope any waiters out there will visit www.parade.com
and let them know what you think of Bryan Miller's idea on pre-tax
tip. -Paul
One of my big peeves as either a server or a bartender, is guests who ask you for an iced tea. Then when you halfway back to the station they call you
back... "Waiter!...WAITER!"...so you return to the table perhaps a bit flustered as your train of thought for multi-tasking has just been broken.
"Yes ma'am/sir?"
"I'd like a lemon with my iced tea please."
Imagine that! A flippin' lemon...with your iced tea!! Now that hardly ever happens! Let me go ask my co-workers if any of them have ever had such an unusual request. Matter of fact, let me go ask my manager if I need to charge more. Wait a minute, never mind that because I thought that after the basic beverage act was passed by congress, that every flippin iced tea had to come with a lemon just like it has to be put into some kind of a glass.
That's gotta be why part of my opening sidework on this summer evening was to cut oh, say about 25 lemons into wedges in anticipation of the evening's iced tea sales. That doesn't take into account any additional lemons that have been cut into wedges for the bar, or any of the lemons that I cut that will go for a guest's hot tea...or a new trend: "I'd like a cup of hot water with lemon
please." Yes ma'am, we have wonderful hot water with lemon here - it's one of our specialties, and here's the best part: It's flippin' FREE!
How about you tell me if you don't want a lemon on your iced tea? That would be something I'd need to know. Trust me, if I'd only been working in this business a week, I'd know that more iced teas come with lemons on them that you didn't have to ask for than not.
Oh and here's a shout out to all you gin-and-tonic or vodka-and-tonic drinkers: I'm pretty sure it's a congressional ordinance that a lime is standard issue for either of these cocktails...trust me, I've made so many of these drinks that if my hand doesn't automatically go for the limes in the garnish tray when I make a gin-and-tonic or vodka-and-tonic, then I've either been told "no lime" and asked for a different garnish or I'm not at work.
You don't walk into a restaurant and see a sign that reads:
WE PROUDLY SERVE LEMON WEDGES WITH OUR ICED TEA - TRY IT TODAY!
...you don't see table tents in the bar that read:
TRY A GIN OR VODKA AND TONIC WITH A WEDGE OF LIME FOR A NEW TASTE
...things you DON'T need to tell your server. Until next time, cheers!
--Chris O'Hare
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I started my career as a waiter in a 200 year old restaurant/tavern in Tannersville, PA in the Poconos.
A major feature in the large main dining room was a glassed in area where the 10 foot long char grill was located - the patrons could watch from the tables their steaks being cooked.
One busy Saturday evening, I was working in a new addition, a Florida-room style that jutted off from the front of the building like the foot of an L.
From the new room you could see the back of the restaurant and the twin fan vents attached to the wall behind the grill in the main dining room.
The place was packed - every seat at every table was occupied, about 200 people in all.
As I left the kitchen with a full tray, I passed the grill and noticed the two cooks had the grill filled with steaks being done "Pittsburgh".
The flames were high, going up about three feet and licking the metal vents.
As I finished serving my table, I looked out and saw flames shooting from the vent fans like an F 14 on afterburners.
I rushed back to the grill - the cooks were oblivious, still putting the fat to the fire. I told them what was happening, and they killed the fans, but now the fire came back through the vents and back to us. We fired the Ansul system, and shut off the gas, but to no effect - the fire was in the walls. I called 911, and the cooks (and the entire kitchen crew) brought out extinguishers, stuck the hoses into the vents and drained them with minimal effect.
The entire dining room was calmly watching us fight this fire between their bites, completely oblivious that in about two minutes the place was going to go up.
At this point the fire department burst though the dining room with hoses and saved the day.
With smoke pouring out of the grill area, the customers all left the now-closed restaurant complaining their dinners had been ruined, totally unaware
of how close they'd come to a disaster.
Lee Cabana
Winslow, Maine |
