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.