Gaining weight

As I hold a tray of raw blue fin tuna, I imagine eating it slowly, savoring each and every piece although I was lusting for it until I had to snap back to reality and deliver the fish I wouldn’t be able to afford.  Now this has been a more recent occurrence and I just now realized how working at this restaurant had affected me.

Now I consider myself a rather healthy and fit person, I’m able to run two miles barely breaking a sweat, I do plenty of cardio(I used to…), I can do a near record breaking amount of crunches, all while being able to give amazing sex.  Now I’m not saying I can’t do all of those, I just have a more hard time doing so, except the sex of course.

I’ve gained quite a good amount of weight, almost nearing 8lbs, in a short span of 3 months.  I’ve only started realizing that a pudge is building on top of what used to be a washboard.  I’m very much infatuated with being very fit, not only does it give me a better appearance, it also gives me quite a bit to talk about inside and outside of the restaurant.  So I decided to finally stop this and work-out.

At the restaurant, dinner was being served; a fair amount of Sake Toro, Barakuta, Suzuki and a damn good amount of specialty rolls.  I thought to myself, “what the fuck” the day I told myself that I would start working out and get back into shape they pull this and decide to make a feast fit for a king, needless to say I succumbed to the near demonic strength of delicious raw fish, I prayed to whoever is playing me as a puppet to stop this torture.

It’s damn near impossible to not gain weight working for a restaurant, a good one at that.  Any persons in this profession is bound to gain a pound or two or eight…  It’s only up to us to do portion control and have self disciple.  It doesn’t help that we get alcohol on the whim either.  I’m just surprised that servers haven’t ate themselves to extinction, I mean at the rate that I’ve seen people eat, it’s almost as if they we’re imprisoned for weeks.

Now if you have any idea on how I’d be able to not gain weight while eating, that doesn’t involve sticking a finger down my throat then please let me know.  I’d leave you with as much sake as you can fathom and I’m sure other servers will be on your palm too.

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

 

Lies, Lies, Lies

Growing up, I was always told never to lie.  Only men with no honor would be able to tell a lie with a straight face, only those who have no dignity can lie and not have a second thought.  I’m sure each and every single one of you reading right now have been told not to lie at some point in your life, be it your significant other, mother, friend, etc.  Lying isn’t something one should do every chance they get because chances are you will forget a lie and actually blurt out the truth, lying is frowned upon, much like masturbating in airplanes.

Now I’m not saying that I’ve never lied because as a matter of fact, I lie every single waking moment I’m in the restaurant.  The selling point of fish is it’s freshness.  When your waiter tells you that their Barakuta is 2 weeks old, whereas their Toro came in today, you’d be inclined to order the Toro.  Fresh is better and servers know that.

We have standards though we lie(maybe I shouldn’t speak for the whole…) and this is how we make money(at least in the sushi bars).  Today, I’ve lied to all if not most my tables, telling them that the Uni(Sea Urchin) and the Toro(Fatty Tuna) came in today and we’re exquisite and so fresh you’d be able to taste the ocean.  That isn’t true.  Those two didn’t come in today, nor did it come in yesterday, it actually came the day before that.  Are customers ever able to tell the difference?  For me, not yet.  I consider this a white lie, something menial and could be often ignored; I mean I would not serve Uni if it is more than 3 days old, nor would I serve Toro if it was over 4 days old, simple fact is the couple of days doesn’t show much sign of wear.

This is part of the reason I have such a big regular base.  I tell them when the fish comes in and when it is best to come to the restaurant.  They eat that up like pancakes, I could tell them that the fish came in on whatever day I was working and I would be seeing them that day.  Having regulars mean that I have a secure income for that day and when I let them know when the fish is “fresh” I am guaranteed a fix income.

Pulling historical non-sense is also part of my job, I am very well educated on Sake(Japanese Alcohol) and the different kinds of fish though there comes a time when I get stumped and am in dire need of the money that I’d pull crap out of nowhere to sell a specific bottle of sake.  I am a terrible terrible person.  Though rest assured that I would not sell you fish I wouldn’t eat, and this is a promise.

It’s 4:30AM and I just finished my 2nd glass of Rum & Coke, I’d say it’s about time I slept.  After all, I have a long day waiting for me.

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.

Why not sit at the bar?

A question that I really don’t ask often, why not sit at the bar?  I don’t want my customers to sit at the bar because that just means money I’m losing to the person I’m even giving my money to the end of the day.  But there comes an occasional jerk who decides to occupy my precious real-estate and get nothing to eat, no appetizers, no sushi, no sashimi, nothing else other than a simple happy hour draft beer that costs $4.  WHY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WOULD YOU NOT SIT AT THE BAR?  I got a table of two who ordered 2 glasses of Kirin Ichiban on draft, the small size to add on; they we’re given me as their server because they had wanted to sit at a table.  Sure, why not they’ll probably order when their drinks are done, or so I thought.  Roughly half an hour passes by and they are almost done with their beer, I thought to myself “perfect, now they’re gonna order” and when I approached their table “no thanks, we’re still OK.”  What the hell does that even mean?  Why did you not just sit at the bar, the place we’re people generally go to sit down and chat.  Tables/Booths are not meant for your casual drinking, go to a pub for that.  Servers rely on tables to make a living and when one of our tables gets blocked off it makes us mad.  And god forbid you ever come back, we will remember you and we will treat you the same way you treated us, like garbage.

Their total came to about $9 and they decided to be generous and tip me $1.  Take that dollar and shove it up your ass.  I do wonder, there are pubs built and hell my restaurant even has a full bar so what compelled you to sit at a table?  Maybe I just don’t think like a jerk and can’t come up with an answer but one thing I do know, I know better than to disregard and disrespect my server.  I hope you do treat your server with the utmost respect aswell dear reader.

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

Doors closing

What separates the kitchen to the dining room of a restaurant are the double doors. There is an order in which someone comes in or comes out of the door and generally when servers leave the door behind, they don’t look back. The story of the short-lived hire comes into play, her name was Mindy and she worked for us a total of 4 weeks. She was exceptional at her job and though she made a few mistakes she was able to compensate for it. So when I was talking about the doors it wasn’t completely a filler, today was the last day we would see Mindy as a server. Another person who had left the doors and will never be seen again was one of my favorite hostess, Patty was fantastic, she cleaned up tables when we needed help, she was quite a funny person and to top that off, she was good eye candy. She too had left, she wasn’t fired, she didn’t quit, she just didn’t have her name on the schedule.

It might sound brutal and even somewhat rude to not tell someone they won’t be working for you by not including them in the schedule but that is how most restaurants work. When that decision is made, one does not usually come back to walk the double doors. For reasons Mindy left, I do not know though for Patty it is of tragedy and misunderstanding.

Patty was let go not because she was unskilled nor was she caught doing drugs outside my restaurant but she instead she was let go because of the owner over hearing her say that she “didn’t need the job”. Stupid? I think so. No one needs the job they have, they want it, I mean they don’t have to pay their bills, they want to. Sure you can say that no no, I need to pay it, but really. Think about it, if you didn’t you wouldn’t need to work and if you had no job you wouldn’t be able to afford the luxuries you have such as electricity, running water and a roof above your head. You don’t need the job, you want it. So when my boss overheard her say that, he immediately assumed that she didn’t want the job and made the decision almost immediately. He reworked the schedule to fit where she wouldn’t need to come in, he made the two other hostesses work extra and pick up the slack, due to a big misunderstanding.

I’m not saying all restaurants are like this, but some are. I don’t have the nerve to leave them guessing if they’ll still have work but rather I’d tell them.

If you push open the door hard enough, it swings; leaving enough room for someone to weasel their way back in and that is what I am hoping for.

I don’t feel like talking much about it though it has always bothered me.

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

No shame of any sort

Now having gone back to the groove of things, I’m once again the same exact machine that serves raw fish with the precision of a laser cutter I am once again seeing faces of people that I do not want to see.  Now I’m not talking about people bringing their children nor am I talking about the people who only tip 10%, though I do hate you and would rather you not come in my restaurant but what ticked me off today was seeing someone who shafted me come back.  Not by tipping me 10% or leaving a gigantic mess for me to clean up but someone who didn’t leave a single dime and didn’t even have the courtesy to leave a dollar or two.(previous blog post)

Though this time she wasn’t my table and she happened to be someone else.  When I saw them I immediately rushed to the server who had the terrible fate of being shafted by them and told them how these women completely ignored the social norms and stepped the boundary of being blacklisted.  Now I don’t mean blacklisted as a denial of service but the quality of service will differ significantly.  Oh your water seems to be low and you happened to put a little more wasabi than intended?  I’ll get to you in 10 minutes, that kind of treatment.  In all honesty, we don’t really care if people like this don’t come to our restaurant.  They weren’t gonna spend much money to begin with and they sure as hell don’t care about the person who is taking care of them.  Bad for both the business and the server.

Now you might say, they didn’t have the money to tip because of the hard times and the economy, blah blah blah.  Here is one rule to live by; If you don’t have enough money to tip, then you sure as hell don’t have enough money to eat out.  Stay at your house and eat your TV dinner or call the Thai restaurant to get your pad thai, just don’t eat out and screw someone over.

I have my girlfriend waiting for me as I type this so I’m gonna choose to cut this post a little earlier than usual.  I do apologize(not really…)

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

Getting back in the groove

I’ve been out of the restaurant for quite some time, 4 days to be exact and being out that long kinda throws me out of balance.  Today seemed a blur because it all went so slowly and I barely made any money.  There was barely any business and from a casual persons perspective, the end of the month/beginning is somewhat strange because that’s when bills come in and that is when people get paid so the chances of them spending money on food outside their home or the grocery would fluctuate.

I had a couple come in, they looked young and from what I noticed the guy had served in the military, the US Marine Core to be exact as his wristband said Sgt. —- /USMC.  Now I enjoy waiting the tables of people who serve because they have so much to say and not many people willing to listen so to have someone who is genuinely interested in hearing what they are gonna say is beyond them.  They told me that they don’t eat sushi much thought the few times they do they enjoyed it plenty, so we got to the point of me asking if they’ve ever ate Uni(Sea Urchin) and to most of you readers who don’t know much about sushi, Uni is one of the strange textured fishes(not really a fish…) that has a slimy feel to it, it’s not spoiled or rotten, that’s just how Uni is supposed to be and often times it has an acquired taste that most people don’t really get.  Uni is best served fresh and dependent on the market for its price.  I worded it so well that they ordered that as part of their appetizer, alongside a couple other things.  They loved it.  I was surprised because I came in thinking this couple was gonna be one who doesn’t enjoy real sushi and for them to tell me they enjoyed it and had they not told me I would’ve seen it because their faces we’re beaming with enjoyment.

They finished their appetizers and out comes their main entree.  A boat that has Nigiri, Sashimi & 2 rolls.  Not quite an entry level spectacle but hey, they wanted it and I wasn’t gonna stop them from spending $70 on one thing.  They finished it all to my surprise, none to take home.  Their tab was rolling in the $120’s and they even had room for dessert.  Now to be honest, this table was about the only table who I felt I gave a good service too and it reflected the gratuity they left me.  After being out of the restaurant for awhile, it took me roughly 3 tables to get back in my groove, now it would probably take less for someone who is just a damn good server but for me who is lazy as hell but actually is good at what he does, I think a couple tables ain’t bad.

I’m sorry for not having much in the past couple of days but rest assured that I’ll be here, confined in this restaurant walls, serving raw fish and fine wine.

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

Egotrips

So the head waitress was out of town because of plans for thanksgiving so this gave us one less person to rely on, one less hand to help out with and one less person to lead.  Now there was no need to argue over power and superiority as everyone saw each other as equals, except my bartender who obviously thinks she is the overseer of the restaurant.  All bark and no bite, the bitch parades the restaurant as if it was her own dog park, growling at others and instantly running in fear once confronted.  Now I don’t want to continue talking about Lindsay because it’s just gonna destroy my mood and probably put a gigantic block on me.

I came in the restaurant and immediately had sidejobs to do, I do it with no hesitation and I do it with pin-point accuracy, nailing everything spot on and being as fast as I can.  A woman walks in with 4 children, they weren’t well behaved children and from the looks of it they we’re gonna be quite a hassle so I immediately thought of something to see to it that I do not get this table.  The woman saw Lindsay at the bar and immediately says hello, an opening is found and now I just need to strike.  I sat them at their table and told them that a server will be on their way to take care of them, I walk over to Lindsay and casually say with a surprised look in my face that the woman had requested her to take care of them.  She replies with utmost confidence, “I thought so, she really likes me”.  Fuckin’ bitch, are you really gonna tell me that?  They didn’t even mention your name to me and it just so happens that I didn’t wanna deal with little assholes so I passed it on to you, simple.  Now you might say that what I did was wrong but lets be real for a second, imagine that you hate someone, you won’t give them roses correct?  Instead you’d give them something that might set them back, hurt or worst case kill them(I am just joking on this one, don’t do the latter two), so I did just that.  Benefit myself and bring her down.  Evil maybe, wrong?  I’m not entirely sure but she deserves it.  She then goes off and tells me how and why the lady that did not request her loves her.  I couldn’t think of anything other than laugh at her because it was nearing the point that it was pathetic.

Egotrips are nice every once in awhile but to do so to an extent beyond your actual capability, now that is just foolish.  Wake up and smell the roses, you are not as good as you think you are.  So get off your high horse, sit down and shut up.  It isn’t bad to toot your own horn but don’t push it, no point in beating a dead horse.

Time to sleep, it’s 4:50AM and that song 5’o clock song with Lily Allen started playing…

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

Lady luck is smiling

Black Friday is something I had thought would suck, cheap customers and low gratuity was what I was looking forward to.  Surprisingly it was quite the opposite and I was at the restaurant for only a total of 3 hours and I had already made a pretty good amount of money, under hourly circumstances I’ve made $40/hr.  Now I’m almost sure that your thinking that $40/hr ain’t squat though to most people who don’t make 6 figures, thats a pretty damn good wage.

Lady luck was definitely smiling at me, there was no doubt about it.  My regulars came in, ordered their usual meals and tipped me very generously.  Now this might be a sign of good karma because of what I did for thanksgiving. I see my family every now and then to say hello and catch up, thanksgiving came and we decided to do something pro-active and give us a sense of generosity.  We gave food to the homeless.  We made a good amount of food to hand out and this made me happy, hell it even took part in my much more creative side who enjoys photography.

It’s rare to get days like this and it does really put a smile in ones face.  Having that shit eating grin as you clock out, content with the amount of money you’ve made in such a short amount of time; it feels good, really good.  Now this made it so side jobs weren’t much a concern nor a problem because at that time, the only thing a server can do is to clean up tables, refill ice, arrange the sugar, and alot of other menial stuff, so that was another way of lady luck showing her affection.

I’ve been slacking, I haven’t been writing and in all honesty, I’ve been exhausted most of the times and I’m not saying that it is because of my blog but rather it is because of alcohol, my woman and alot of other things outside my restaurant walls.

I apologize to you dear customer and hope you find it in your heart to forgive me.  I’ll help you out with some alcohol the next time.

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.

Invitation

Every now and then you get regulars that almost seem like family to you.  They joke around and act casually without the niceties of public action.  That’s the kind of regulars that I love.  I’ve come to liking a couple, they get internet lingo and they even bring it up in conversations ever so slyly.  They’ve been to restaurant about eight times and all of those I was their server.

Since I love them so much they’ve got so much free shit you wouldn’t believe it, free appetizers, alcohol, sushi, sashimi, you name it, they got it.  I even gave them one of my service industry cards for one of the nearby bars, that give them discounted drinks, free pool and a whole lot of other shit.  Needless to say, our relationship is mutual.  They’ve decided to show some gratitude by inviting me over to their house for a couple of get together, parties and what not.  Most recent one they offered was for Thanksgiving, they asked if I had somewhere to go or if I had plans and they we’re gracious enough to give me a hand, I actually have plans so I won’t be going with them.  Another one though is on December 3rd, they will be throwing one and I again was invited.  Awesome.

Now don’t get me wrong because I still think it’s strange for a waiter to hang out with his customers, I mean there’s gotta be a rule against that somewhere and I’m just not educated enough to not do it.  And if you are wondering, they do tip me over 20%.  Now will it be strange after I meet them outside the restaurant?  Maybe, but this will surely be an experience worth living.

Now I’ll be heading to my parents home to have some turkey.

Sincerely,

Your waiter today.