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.