The calm before the storm.

The following day will be one of the busiest the restaurant will ever be, the day of lovers, the day of sub-par service, the day of trying to impress and lastly the day to make plenty of cash.  Today was surprisingly slow, enough to give us some room to breathe for the upcoming waves of couples, the calm before the storm as you can say and imagine.

Starved by the idea that fine food is the sweetest thing that a couple could share in one night without having to commit for 9 months, restaurants worldwide are preparing for the onslaught.  Folding excessive amounts of napkins, making sure everything is stocked plenty, having enough champagne bottles to shower with and briefing the servers about what is going to go down.

I honestly expected that today would be a busy day, busy enough that I wouldn’t bitch about not making any money but that did not happen.  Instead I was dumbfounded by the amount of people who would rather not spend money with their significant other.  I had one table who actually stood out from the rest of these cheap bastards, the couple was roughly in their 50s and it didn’t bother me any.  They spent a miniscule total of $70 and they still found the heart to give me $20.  Nothing was interesting aside that they had given a good gratuity and had given me something to be happy about.

Today is the day to calm down, the day to realize ourselves, to ready ourselves and to memorize the specials to be said.  To servers, Valentines Day is nothing more than a money pit.  Most servers do have lives outside the walls of their restaurant and it’s nothing out of the ordinary to not spend it with your significant other if you are a server.  There are other, better days to eat out so once you serve in this industry, you realize and open your eyes that the only thing and reason that you find yourself at a restaurant on Valentines Day is to impress, not necessarily enjoy.

I expect tomorrow will be quite a lengthy post and I sure hope so.  I’d love to look back onto what I did before a couple years from now.

Time to relax a little, sip on this whiskey and close my eyes.

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

 

Dreaded 10%

It’s never a good night when by the time you check out, you realize that most of the tips you earned for the night don’t even amount to 20% of your sales, generally 18% and above is a good thing but when you start seeing the tips on the bills only nearing 10%, it makes one wonder why this happens.  Quality of food doesn’t constitute a bad tip, generally if the food is mediocre, that is looked at as good enough and would merit another visit but when the service is terrible, no matter how good the food is, you’ll always find yourself in a tough predicament.

I don’t necessarily have much room to say because I feel that the way I was treating my tables was very sub-par and I’m not completely upset, I mean I made a decent amount of money and I was just expecting more.  No regulars of mine came today, I was stuck with people who worship Happy Hour as a deity and treated that little menu as a bible.  I’m hoping to make good money because I still have to take my girl out on Valentines day(for us Valentines day is not on the 14th), the tackiest holiday ever and I’ll be so busy during that day.  I’m looking forward to the rush that will pound the restaurant, I’m looking forward to the chaos that’s gonna run rampant and truly, I am looking forward to that money.  Hey, after all, I do need it.

Today wasn’t a bad day, nor was it good.  I just really dislike getting that dreaded 10%.

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

Plastic

Now I’m not talking about the traditional plastics of Barbie dolls; tall, blonde, skinny, sun-baked and incredibly attractive and as dull as a butter knife in terms of intelligence.  I’m talking about a much more different breed of plastic, the men and women who act highly in front a crowd of friends but inside know that what they spew is all garbage.

Today was a rather slow day, to be expected on a rainy day.  Skip the details on side-jobs and all the sexual harassment done in the first 2 hours and it suddenly is 6 in the evening.  Enter a party of 12 women, celebrating a friends birthday.

Happy Hour is still active and the party decided to get nothing other than the cheap stuff, not surprising but still not what I’d expect from someone celebrating their birth.  Long story short their bill goes up to $270 and a tip no more than $40.

I love cheap stuff as much as the next guy but the fact is they weren’t talking about “cheap” stuff and instead decided to talk about where they plan to travel next, what the new dress they bought is, and all other things that made it seem they had the money when they specifically ask the waiter if doing something would cost extra and when I tell them that adding cream cheese on their roll will cost an extra dollar they decide to get something else.  Don’t pretend, act within your means and maybe I’ll start respecting you and treating you better.  I have customers who I know could barely afford to eat out and let alone tip and I even see them tip me because they know that this is a job for me, they respect me so in turn I respect them.

I’m just ranting because I had to clean up quite a good amount of shit for a tip that didn’t touch enough.

I’m exhausted and I haven’t eaten anything all day… Thank god I have a box of Girl Scout cookies, Thin Mints to be exact.

Time to kick back and gain weight… as I watch Ides of March.

Good night!

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

Hosting

Now Age isn’t a completely off-topic factor in the restaurant business.  Servers range from the age of 20 till your upper 40’s even, but what I’m gonna be talking about is the hostesses.

A hostesses job is to be the very first face seen when you step into our restaurant, they are responsible for sitting the customers, picking up phone calls, standing at the host desk looking pretty, and generally eye candy.  Now I have to agree that I’ve seen a pretty fair share of very attractive hostesses and I can’t even say that I haven’t seen restaurant owners date his hostesses, they are present not because we need them, but because it is one of the finer luxuries in fine dining.

For what they do it seems a thankless job, they do quite a lot and occasionally even helps servers clean up the tables when the server is busy.  They don’t get tips aside from what to-go orders are put and even that is a rarity, they get paid a flat wage and they don’t average nearly as much as us servers do.  Hostesses have no restaurant experience thus they enter the entry level position and they tend to work for sometime and eventually get to the position of waiter or waitress.  So it bothers me to see my fellow servers treat our hostesses like dirt, when they are just trying to do their job.

Recently the owner decided to hire a hostess, fairly good looking and for what it seemed she was competent.  Though one thing that she was lacking in was age.  She was too young to be in a environment such as our workplace and it kind of shows because she almost seems awkward when asked to do something though when she does it, it is executed with grace.  I’m not necessarily saying that she’s a bad worker nor am I saying that she’s good, it looks like she’s an inbetweener(what kind of word is that…).

Today at the restaurant wasn’t necessarily eventful, other than the fact that I got to see the new hostess and eat a cut of NY Prime Reserve steak, all was bleak and money was shallow and here is me hoping for a better tomorrow.

(My rhyming is getting better, maybe I should step into the music industry now.)

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

Human nature?

What drives someone to give?  Is it generosity or sympathy, I mean this whole Christmas thing is bringing up quite a confusion to me.  I expected the restaurant to have slow traffic during the holidays.  People need to spend their money on presents and generally people just have no time to stop and eat due to all the shopping and procrastination that they are doing.  So how is it that my restaurant is managing to stay afloat, hell even do better than before?  To me, it matters little because the more people coming in, the more money I’ll get, simple as that.  Today I had a total of 2 regulars come in, both are couples and both are generally generous tippers.  But for some reason, today seemed a little different.

Their order doesn’t really matter today, the only thing that does is their bill and the gratuity I was left.  A bill of $65 and I was left a $30 tip and a bill of $35 and a $20 tip.  Both are phenomenal amounts and I wonder if this is due to the holidays?  The first couple left with the man giving me a firm handshake and with a very merry greeting of Merry Christmas while the others gave me the tip and didn’t say anything regarding the holidays.  Is it pity that they left me this or genuine generosity?  I’m quite baffled because if I eat at a restaurant during a time like this, I’d definitely pity the poor sap who happens to be waiting my table because rather than spending time elsewhere he has to be at the restaurant reciting the specials as if they we’re some Christmas jingle.  I’d give them a generous tip, reflecting the spirit of the holidays and now I’m torn.  Either way works as long as I make my bills on time but the idea that I made this money through pity makes me feel more dirty than usual…

Christ, Christmas is near and I haven’t even done my shopping…  and this damn Christmas music is getting on my nerves.  I don’t want to be a Grinch but it seems to have rubbed on to me…

Sadly Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

boring boring.

Finally I thought to myself, some money after a week of slow business.  Typically it would still be the same slow day, it was raining and the atmosphere was just terrible so I wasn’t really expecting to make any money.  For today I’ve only had a total of 5 tables, about a 14 person head count and I left the restaurant an hour and a half earlier yet I still managed to make good money.  A week of torture and finally it gave me a break.

I’d love to write about something that struck me as interesting but I’d be lying… It was as boring as playing Solitaire by yourself.

Jesus, I feel terrible for not having anything to write…

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

 

Hostesses

Hostesses are fine beings, the first faces you see when you enter a restaurant, they seat you, let you know who your server is and are just there to look pretty(essentially).  Now don’t think that these fine looking women are less than their server counterparts cause they are not.  They wear better clothes and don’t have to deal with as much assholes as us servers do though the occasional jerk does come up.

These eye candy type girls have a pretty smile, a charming personality and personal lives that they surely don’t wanna get mixed with work.  The occasional coming in work with glazed eyes, stench of marijuana and all that sorts happen to the best of us and most restaurant owners understand that to work in such a profession you have to be dependent on something, whether it be alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes, hell even the internet, it is not surprising to them.  Now when you over react to something, that’s when you raise a big red target above your head.

Drug testing is rare in this business and when it does the owner gives you more than a months notice, enough time for you to flush whatever drug you had used out of your system.  Though one of my hostesses decided to panic about it.  Now that decision is beyond foolish, why would you do that?  What was fine one night became a schedule change which didn’t have her name.  She was what I like to call “shitlisted”, not on the schedule yet technically not fired.

We have had multiple hostesses in one time, though now we are back to one.  Restaurants tend to chew up hostesses and we go through them like you would pancakes at IHOP.  It’s nothing new, just don’t get attached to them, no need to know them on a personal basis, keep it simple and professional.  Chances are you won’t see them the next week or two.  Over the course of the restaurant opening, a total of seven hostesses had worked under our restaurant and only one was able to stay and this itself comes as a surprise.

I am now wondering who my new hostess would be, what she would look like, would she have a boyfriend, other menial things about her.  Though as far as I’m concerned, it’ll be another short lived relationship.

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

Helping out

Servers live in a rough world, dog eat dog kind of play-style so it is uncommon or even rare for a fellow server to help out another.  Sure the generic bullshit of “work as a team” happens but lets be realistic, everyone there is out for their own and they need the money as much as the next guy so it’s just natural to have some competition.

Upon arriving at the restaurant, I asked to get cut first if at all possible because my parents have invited the whole family to a dinner.  The clock strikes 6:30 and I’ve only made about $22 and the head waitress tells me she’ll be cutting me at around 7 if this keeps up, I thought to myself “fuck” I haven’t made jack shit and I’m already gonna be packing to go home.  Luckily business picks up and I’ve had the chance to get a couple of decent tables.  Adan was taking tables but has made less than I have, I consider him a good friend, he’s taken me home and he’s just generally a good guy so I tend to overlook the regular blood-bath in the waiter kingdom and lend him a hand.  A couple comes in and happens to be my regulars(they we’re the couple which the woman was abusing the man) and they we’re seated with Adan since I had to leave.  They are very generous tippers and have become quite the regulars.  They talk to me and I say that I won’t be with them but the server they’ll be getting is almost as good(I throw in a extra wink in there).

Adan is pretty bitchin, he knows what he needs to do and they we’re doing fine.  I ask them how everything is and they tell me it’s alright though Adan lacking in some parts they said.  I kissed their ass enough to merit Adan a good tip.  Now that is something worth recording, a waiter helping another.

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

Having a day of rest

Ever since the restaurant had opened, I’d had to work every single day.  I don’t mind the money but not having a day off does take a toll on my sanity.  Finally a hire that actually lasted, the guy that we had hired failed to show any talent and was therefore fired & only thanks to a new hire that has plenty of experience and is able to do shit that I can have some days off.  I’ve been so exhausted since the opening and it shows, I haven’t had the time to work-out or much less do anything that would present leisure enjoyment.

Aside from having some time to myself, the restaurant wasn’t extremely busy and I didn’t have any of my regulars come in.  Needless to say it was one of those not so interesting days.

This sucks and I’m quite exhausted.  Also Skyrim, and other video game releases, I actually can say I have some time to play these.  YES! FINALLY.

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

Taking care of tops

Servers have their own language, each being different from restaurant to restaurant.  This makes talking amongst staff during busy hours easy, things such as I’m in the fuckin weeds, or you have that big top and they still need to be served.  A top is a headcount of a table, so a two person table is regarded as a two top, whereas a four top has four people in it and so on.  I was given a six top and this automatically put a smile in my face.  Any table that has six people or more can immediately be slapped on with 18% Gratuity, I rarely do this because I feel that I could get more than that but its a back-up just in case the table are full of douchebags.

My six top was celebrating someones birthday, they ordered passively and in the end their tab only came out to a total of $150 and majority of that actually fell under the alcohol that the birthday man and his friend consumed.  I was having a fun time with them and somewhat forgot about them needing to give me a generous tip.  We cracked jokes about my hostess that had more breast than a healthy serving of KFC White meat.  They seemed to have enjoyed themselves and showed it through gratuity.  They gave me a total of $40, well shit this made my night.  If only most tables would be this understanding and enjoyable.

Passing out and closing my eyes,

Your waiter today.