The Perfect Down

As a server we all have our ideals about what a table should be. What and who we want to wait on. this varies from server to server and Restaurant styles. In 'Turn and Burn' they want you in and out sit down. Order one beverage one entree ask for the check and then leave. So that they table can reseat the table. This is the place where deserts are cheap, wine is cheap, appetizers are for sharing and take too long to eat.

If you have ever been in a dining room and your courses are laid out in front of you like cabooses on a train with five minute intervals between you are in a 'Turn and Burn' restaurant. The servers don't make much it's all about quantity getting as many people in and out of your station as fast as possible.

In a little higher caliber of dining the servers want your check as high as possible. Gratuities are based on percentage. It's the same amount of work for the server to uncork a forty dollar bottle of wine as a hundred dollar bottle. We want you forking out the bucks. The forty dollars will garnish, in a perfect world an eight dollar tip. The hundred dollar bottle should be twenty bucks added on. Do the math. Spend the money.

For me the perfect table are diners. We all know what a diner is. A table who walks in, has cocktails. Orders a bottle or two of wine. Asks my opinion and actually takes it. By the way were not stupid. Ninety percent of servers will go midway through the wine list. If the pricing on the menu is between forty and one hundred and fifty. we are going to suggest the seventy dollar ballpark. We don't look greedy, we are accepting that you may not be willing to shell out the big bucks so we're going to compromise with you. Try it sometime. It's pretty standard. However if you go over the hundred dollar mark the fancy wine glasses come out. A decanter will become involved. You'll get a show and immaculate wine service. You get what you pay for.

I love when people order course after course. appetizer, salads, entrees deserts, coffee and after dinner ports. A table used to turn and burn service will order wine by the glass a salad and entree. Their ticket will be under a hundred bucks. The tip less than twenty. On a table that is dining. That check can go between two and three hundred bucks. Yes there is extra service involved you need to tack on an hour maybe a little more to the table. But, you can't get through another cheap table in the same amount of time so you want every table that you have to count. Fifty bucks easy, on a table who is dining. You only need five maybe six of those a night and things are looking beautiful.

We will chat with you. Tell you where were from, what are 'real life' looks like. That can be anything from the aspiring photographer, to classical guitarists, to wanna be dental hygienist. There is almost always a back story to your server. Something so simple, as "I have three kids two in college" to, 'I have a goal to live in every state in the Northwest'. You'd be surprised.

Servers are smart people. On average even with the three dollars an hour we make servers can pull in a couple of hundred dollars a night, more if things are going well. But, in order to do that we have to be able to multi task more things going on than you can even think about. five maybe six tables at once each at a different place in their meal. One table is on cocktails another at wine, another at appetizers, another needs us to run across the restaurant to get skim milk. another has SDR's (Special dietary requests... aka allergies) up to our necks that we have to sweet talk the white coats into. Deserts need to be brought out. Waters our at the halfway point on two tables, another one needs to be cleared and silverware re-set for the next course. And of course a retired couple wants to chat with you about their day sightseeing and wants to hear the abbreviated version of your life story. You barely notice that we have just brushed your diatribe on the sweet breads you had last month off. And moved you on to the foie gras we're serving.

Don't be mad. We're handling you. Trust me you want to be handled. If you're not being handled your service is slow, constantly playing catch up. Your water glass is empty, dirty dishes are in front of you and you're almost ready to give up on desert before your server returns.

A bad night can happen to anyone. No matter how good you are. It doesn't take much. A re-fire, (entree sent back to the kitchen). A table that wants to chat. Or doesn't want to listen to you and makes you repeat the specials six times only to be sent away for 'five more minutes' By the way that five minutes can kill a server. On a night when the diningroom is booked things are scheduled very tight. A slow table can back up your entire station. Make things feel like you've been triple sat even though theres fifteen minutes between reservations.

We need those fifteen minutes. We have to move on. The kitchen needs things spaced out at a reasonable time. A six top that runs slow will run into our other five top. and somehow your server ends up taking care of eleven people at the exact same place in their meals at once. Not impossible and a good server will keep you from noticing. But the white coats will remind them. A week later, white coats never forget. Especially when entrees are being fired (the five to eight minute notice given to a kithen when you're ready for your entrees) one on top of the other.

People Person..

What exactly does that mean? 'People person' I think it's kind of like those people that claim that they never watch tv, or eat junk food, or claim that they never sleep in. You can't prove that they do or don't. But there's always a bit of suspision as to what the truth actually is.




these are my words i'm sending out into cyber space. I will tell the truth. I do watch tv. But mostly on the internet after getting home from work. My Grey's Anatomy, True Blood, and Ice Road Truckers are all aired while i'm dishing up bowls of soup and lighting fondue burners. I like junk food. Butterfingers and red vines specifically. and I do my best to sleep in as often as possible. There's something delicious about waking up, turning over and going back to sleep, or picking up a book and finishing it without soo much s brushing your teeth in the morning.





Oh, and i'm NOT a people person. Nope not at all. I like quiet mountain trails, dark movie theaters, empty parks, my bedroom. I do no actively seek out random people or company. Don't need it don't want it. Don't want to listen to anyone. Unless ofcourse listening about your grandsons barmitzvah will get me twenty percent. And only then if you order three courses.





Here's another point. Childless adults who claim to like children. Not only do I not believe you I think you're too much of a coward to fess up and tell the truth. there's something taboo about saying you don't like kids. I'll say it. I don't. There. Shoot me. Take away my estrogen membership card. I don't like kids. They're sticky, almost always. They make that earsplitting high pitched sound when anything goes against what they want or need at that exact moment. Its also pretty condascending to the child. You are under three feet tall therefore qualify as 'child' status so I as an adult will like you. Now where does that not seem fair.





In my limited experience I've determined that kids are pretty indvidual. Shorter yes. But they pretty much show up buck naked and complete with a personality. I don't like all adults. Therefore it's only politically correct for me to say that your whiny three year old who just dumped penne on my floor is not the cutest thing i've ever seen. Take it as a compliment. I'm acknowledging your childs individuality





So here is the anamoly that is me. How the hell I end in a job that requires me to have random conversation with everyone I come into contact to 40 plus hours a week. Simple. Somebody told me I couldn't do it.





My first job was at a JB'S Big Boy when I turned sixteen. I thought it would be cooler than working for Jack in the Box, allthough Jack in the Box was an option I had a couple of friends who worked there. So, there I was in the tenth grade. In my little polo shirt and black slacks from Shopko, this was before the miraculous appearances of Walmart. I was scared. Shy, don't forget I admit freely people aren't my thing. Until ofcourse I walk into the back to fill up the muffin display. And hear the twentsomething trailer park single mothers making bets as to how long I would last come sunday morning. I stayed at that job for two years.

Now, the very strange part is how good I am at it. People like me. Random people of all ages, they smile back, even initialize the smile at times. Weird...

the white coats.

I started calling my kitchen staff White coats a while ago. But, here are my rules. The Chef is never called a white coat. He doesn't even have a first name. Not that matters anyway. He's Chef. He is called Chef to keep him constantly placated. Trust me, necessary.

White coats are also not the prep boys who do nothing but chop and measure. White coats are the ones who slug it out on the line. The ones with the requisite burns up and down the arms, the scars on top of scars from fingertip slices. The ones whose white coats have permenant stains that are never coming clean again. The guys whose mouths can put a sailor to shame. As a server, FOH (front of the house) if you are in a position where your white coats like you. Well then it's like a badge of honor. I don't fuck up. They don't hate me. They give you the most exceptional of compliments..

"how the hell did you take off on a Friday night, the strong servers are supposed to be here".

Happiness. Atleast until service when you'll hear them cursing you out for ordering SOS (sauce on side).

Food is the it. Like Frat boys and football. Food is the basis that they use to judge your taste, character and intelligence. Do not even dare suggest that they not use butter, if you have a moral sensitivity toward any kind of protein don't admit it. Veal is eventually beef. It's just yummier when it's veal. Lamb is delicious. Mutton.... not soo much. If they hand you a spoon and it's murky brown or some vibrant color that looks like it should be in a crayon box. Don't ever say 'No thanks' Take the spoon. Eat whatever is on it. And do your very best to be in love. they wouldn't hand you the spoon if they wanted any other kid of reaction.

And last but not least. Their job is harder than yours. End of story. It's hotter, faster, there is no filter of unassuming diners in khaki to ward of hostile work envronments. It is the fire, and I am not in the fire.

Favorite foods..

foie gras, veal osso bucco, quail, corndogs, hagen dazs coffee icecream, french toast, buffalo wings, sweet breads.

Hello, i'm your waitress. .

So, after my fourth night in a row of having yet another serving nightmare i've decided that maybe a blog will be a bit cathartic. A little back history. I've been waiting tables for almost eleven years. What this means to most is that I can't or won't do something better with my life. What this means to me is that I found a gig that allows me to do what I want where I want when I want. I can and do travel often. I have lived all over the country, doing a job that allows me to live comfortably. The downside, my feet hurt at the end of every night. Always. The concept of a 401K is a bit foreign to me. and ofcourse I have to deal with THEM. Now if you wait tables have ever waited tables or worked in a restaurant you know who 'THEM' are.

The people who order their sixteen ounce filets extra well done. who want their fish poached instead of baked, vegetables instead pomme frites, do you have ...... followed by the most random item they can think of.

Your baker isn't here? can you call him? I really need to know if there are nuts in this one square of bread before I eat it.

Oh, and by the way my sous chef just told me that i'm going to hell if I order one more substition on his menu. There are thirteen tables being fired out of the kitchen at the same time.

And the nightmare.

I was decanting a bottle of Bordeaux. I had the decanter in my hands and then I looked down. Bottle gone decanter gone. No wine. Oh shit... my boss wants to know what the hell I did with it. did I mention he was Brazillian? and regularly does his swearing in the middle of the diningroom, in portuguese. It's gone. And the little old man wants his wine. Oh damn. And I wake up, way too early no going back to sleep. I will now spend the next week avoiding selling any wine from France.