It’s Restaurant Q&A, Boys and Girls!

I had a few people ask me some common questions about the being a waiter and the restaurant industry, so I decided to answer them here.

Do waiters have to pay for a ticket when the customer walks out? Not generally, no. This has happened to just about every waiter with at least a year of experience. We call it a “Dine and Dash”. Sometimes it’s done with subtlety, such as acting like they’re going to the bathroom and heading for the door, and sometimes it’s done pretty bluntly with haste. think it used to be a problem from what I gather, but nowadays from what I understand the restaurant just eats the cost. Nine times out of ten it’s not the waiter’s fault when the customer walks out, so if the restaurant made the waiter pay for the meal, I think they’d lose a lot of staff.

Why do waiters get paid so little? Why not just pay them a decent wage, so they don’t have to worry about tips? This is probably the most common question that I get from someone who’s never worked in the service industry. There are a few reasons. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that the overhead in a restaurant is astronomical, so to save on labor costs they pay the waiters around $2-$3 an hour; just enough to cover the cost of taxes. Most importantly, with the amount of labor and stress involved in waiting tables for 4-6 hour shifts, getting paid a set hourly wage just wouldn’t be worth it for the waiter. Making $40-$60 per shift, and less after taxes doesn’t make a viable job when you’re not working 40 hour work weeks. Which is almost impossible unless you’re the Bionic Man©. Just the stress on the body alone makes it not worth a set hourly wage.

What’s the best way to get a good tip as a waiter? Well, read my blog for one. But seriously, the most important things are to always have a positive attitude and do what we call “upsell”. An “upsell” is a little extra that you can add to the ticket to make those tickets bigger. Drinks, appetizers, salads, entrees, side vegetables, desserts, and coffees are all things that you can upsell to a customer. They want to order the halibut? Perhaps you can suggest a vegetable to go along with it. If their meal is over, suggest a cup of coffee or a dessert. Anything that you can do to add a little extra to the cost of the ticket (well, legally) is important for increasing your tip. Once you get really comfortable with your surroundings and the menu, you can open up a bit and be more personable with your customers. Customers love special, personal treatment and they will usually compensate you for your extra hard work.

How long should I start being concerned with the time it takes for my meal to arrive? It all depends on the type of restaurant you’re at, to be honest. Some restaurants generally take longer than others because of the times it takes to prepare, cook, and service the food on your plate. If, say for example, you go to a home-cooking type of restaurant and they serve pot roast with baked beans, it’s more than likely not going to take very long for it to get made. It’s probably already prepared, and they just have to put it on a plate. But, if you go to a fine dining restaurant, more than likely they specially prepare your food as you order it, so it takes a little while longer. Also, if it’s a busy night, you’re going to be looking at longer ticket times as well. The best way to find out how long food takes is to ask your waiter what the average ticket times are that night. They will generally be able to tell you from the times it’s taking for previous tables.

How much do restaurant workers generally make? This is a tough question to answer, as it is different in each restaurant. Fine dining management generally will make up to three-times more money than say, your local favorite bistro. Obviously, because there’s more money to be made for the owners. The Chefs also get paid quite a bit. http://www.starchefs.com/features/editors_dish/salary_survey/index.shtml is a website that I found that details a survey taken in 2004-2005 that gives a general idea of what kind of money that is made in the restaurant. Servers get paid the least because they work off of tips and server assistants and bussers get paid more by the hour, but also will take a % of the waiter’s tips.

I am interested in my waitress, how do I ask her out? First you’ve got to have the skills. If you don’t have the skills, then even a huge tip won’t help you. But, if you don’t have the skills I can offer you some advice. Be engaging. Talk to your server about things other than work, just like you would any girl or guy that you meet. Also, remember their name and use it. Remember what I said on the Do’s and Don’ts? It’s brings you to a different level if you actually treat them like they are just regular people instead of “your server”. Importantly, don’t be needy and be understanding. Making multiple requests and and complaining about it just reminds your server that you are “a customer” instead of “my new friend Joe”. Even if something is overcooked or is missing something, make note of it to them but act like it’s not a big deal. They’ll generally want to take care of it for you, and make sure you’re happy. Lastly, go for the kill. Ask them what their schedule is like or what time they get off. We as servers don’t need a reason to go out and get a drink. Just working that night can be reason enough. At the end of your meal, offer to meet them somewhere after they get off or for their phone number to get together sometime. It may work, it may not. But there isn’t reward without risk, as they say.

It’s my menu, not yours. Mine. Get your own.

Every restaurant has a set menu. Well, 99% of them do. Even the restaurants in Los Angeles where you can bring your dog and let them sit on the chair with you have menus. Dogs have menus people. Dogs. Are you a dog? I hope so, because if you were a dog and you were reading this, that would be awesome. But seriously, a restaurant has a menu for reasons.

Generally the menu defines what the restaurant is all about. You can easily pick up any menu from any restaurant and immediately know what kind of restaurant it is without even stepping foot inside a building. See hamburgers, baked beans and chicken wings? It’s probably American-style, or pub. See fois gras, boeuf a la provencal, and sweetbreads, it’s probably going to be French. Every now and then you’ll get a blend of different style: a couple different things that the owner/chef knows how to make, or a hip new infusion-style restaurant. One of my favorite restaurants to visit when I’m in Chicago is this place called Avec. http://www.avecrestaurant.com/ It’s a bit of a Mediterranean-style place with different foods from Spain, Portugal, France and Italy. The type of menu Avec has, just like every other restaurant, identifies what kind of restaurant it is.

To the trained eye, the menu will also tell what sorts of things the kitchen has in stock. The kitchen manager will generally order portions of food that the current menu needs. Most of the time any restaurant in a higher quality than your local McDonald’s will have specials that will run for anywhere from being a daily special, to a seasonal special lasting two-to-three months. The specials are a completely different monster of their own. On occasion the executive chef will decide to special order a certain kind of meat, cheese, or vegetable and make the special out of that. Whether or not that special is going to be successful is a different story. If it doesn’t go well, they’ll extend the special until that product runs out or goes bad. But, usually the special consists of produce that the kitchen already has in stock and wants to make something different.

The menu and (more specifically) the dishes that are on any personalized, or specific menu are prepared the way the executive chef wants them to be prepared. Ask any chef; the ingredients blend together. They dance together. The play a symphony with a full 100-member orchestra and the chef himself is the conductor. So, when Bubba Joe Smith wants to remove the chianti demi-glace from his filet, cook it well done and slap some A1-steak sauce on it, it’s basically a slap in the face to the executive chef. Removing ingredients and adding your own is like taking away the trombone section of that symphony and adding electric guitars. It may sound okay to you, but it’s just not how that piece was intended to play. I know everyone has their own tastes in food, but it’s important to allow the chef to feed you his recipe. If a certain dish has everything you like on it except for the caramelized onions, order it anyway. You might be surprised to find that with this particular dish – with the ways that the flavors of the ingredients mesh together – you might actually enjoy having caramelized onions. Now, if there is a chicken dish that you want and it has a lot of ingredients in it that you don’t like, then don’t order the chicken dish. If you do and change it, not only are you going to piss off the chef, but the waiter now has to explain to the chef why you want to stomp on his recipe.

Lastly, it’s especially annoying when customers come in and want to order something special, or “off-the-menu”. “A-la-carte” as it’s sometimes called. You may just have something in mind that you have a craving for, and you want someone else to cook it for you. That’s more difficult to do than you think, and you’ll probably end up paying for it in the long run. Not only does your waiter have to sit there and try to figure out how to enter your special request into the POS (point of sale machine), but they have to try to explain it to the chef how you want it(and listen to him bitch the waiter out), and talk with the manager on staff about food itemization and how much to charge you for this dish. It’s difficult, and might actually end up backing up the entire kitchen for the rest of the night.

Now, what does this all mean?

If you go into a restaurant and complain that they don’t have buffalo wings when the sign read above you when you walked through the front door “Olive Garden”, you’re going to look pretty damn foolish. While working at another Italian restaurant, I had someone actually ask me if we had hamburgers. Obviously not, until the woman complained for 15 minutes to the manager, and made him make a ground beef patty by hand, and slice a loaf of bread in half to make her a hamburger. Apparently we had hamburgers. Who knew? I should have suggested a nice pinot to go with it.

Also, if you see something on the menu you like, order it as it is. Do not deviate from the chef’s recipe, even if it means chowing down on brussel sprouts, or leeks. The flavor of the dish is in it’s ingredients and if you mess with it, you completely destroy the intention.

Lastly, you are not the chef. The chef is the chef. You’re not slaving in that kitchen in 100+ degree heat to pump out 300-600 plates a night, so stop thinking that you can create your own masterpiece of flavor. If you think you are that special, go back and reread “You are not as special as you think you are”. http://servernotslave.wordpress.com/2008/05/26/in-the-restaurant-you-are-not-as-special-as-you-think-you-are/

I’m giving you golden nuggets here, people. Take them to the bank and cash them in. Nuggets.

How to be treated like restaurant royalty.

So, you wanna be a baller? A shot-caller with 20″ blades on your Impala? Sorry, I can’t help you there. But, I can teach you be treated like a king every time you visit your favorite restaurant. Hopefully, you’ve been reading my past blog posts and learned a thing or two. Anything that I’ve made mention of people doing wrong, you shouldn’t be doing and everything I’ve told you that we as waiters love, you should be. Go back and read “The Do’s and Don’ts of Dining Out”

http://servernotslave.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/the-dos-and-donts-of-dining-out/

This is your basis of being an excellent customer andhaving a good night. But what if you want more? What if you want every waiter to scramble to find you a seat in their section when you walk through the door, or have it like “Cheers” where everyone knows your name? Perhaps you just want to be guaranteed the best service possible? This is the post to read.

Even though you may have your favorite restaurant and visit the place once a week. If you don’t set yourself apart from every shlub that walks through that door, you’re just “repeat business”. What you want is to become what we call in the industry a “regular”. A regular is the cherry on top of a waiter’s night. If we know a regular is coming in on a particular night then our entire shift is going to go well. It could be the shittiest night ever, but when a regular walks through the door that waiter is happy as a clam in high tide. So, you wanna be restaurant royalty? Here’s the way to do it:

I will remember you… you will remember me… don’t let your life pass you by… Since you’ve read the Do’s and Don’ts from earlier (if you haven’t, then do it now. I’ll wait), you’ll remember that I made it a very big point to remember your waiter’s name. This is absolutely key to becoming a restaurant favorite. If you haven’t already started remembering your waiter’s name, the next time you go in remember it and use it. That means “Hey, Sam, can I get a refill?” or “Hey, Sam, what do you suggest for dessert”. This way, the second time you come into the restaurant, you can request Sam’s section. Now, Sam probably won’t remember you, but if he does then you’ve already got your foot in the door to becoming a “regular”. Of course, you have to make sure that Sam is a waiter that you’d like to have waiting on you each time you go in there. It’s usually a good idea. Now, you can be a “player” when it comes to the waiters. If you happen to go in there when Sam isn’t around, then start up a new rapport with another waiter; remembering their names, etc. The more people that you get to know your face, the better chance it is that you’ll receive special service from everyone. If Sam doesn’t happen to get you on the second visit, he’ll tell your waiter “hey, take care of that guy. He’s great, and he tips well.”

New car, caviar, four star daydream, Think I’ll buy me a football team. Money talks the talk while you walk the walk. When you went in on that first visit you remembered Sam’s name (I’m assuming Sam is a good waiter), so that second time where you tell the waiter you want to sit in his section, Sam’s going to wonder why you requested him. He’s going to treat you a little bit better, but he’s obviously going to wonder what he did that was special enough for you to ask for him. So tell him: he gave you great service and you wanted it again. That will put a big smile on his face and you’re already in the door to being a regular. The second visit is the crucial time to spend money. It’s a wise investment, I promise you, to spend a little extra cash on the second visit. This will solidify you as one of Sam’s favorite customers. Order drinks, appetizers, salads, entrees, and dessert. The whole nine yards. Even if your bill is $60-$80 for two people, it’s worth it to you and it’s worth it to Sam when you surprise him with a nice hefty 20% tip at the end of the night. Why? Because every night after that you go visit, you won’t have to spend as much, as long as you keep leaving nice tips. Even a $30 table ticket is great for a waiter if he expects he could get anywhere from $8-$10. Leaving a great tip is the best way for someone to remember you.

Don’t worry, be happy. You are more than welcome to follow the first two steps to being a restaurant king, but if you’re an annoying or mean customer, then you become a “rich bitch”. If you’re a terrible customer, and request your waiter, then it’s going to only backfire on your plans to being royalty. If you treated Sam like crap, sent back food because you didn’t like it and constantly pestered him, the biggest tip in the world isn’t going to change his mind that you’re a pain in the ass. He may see you walk through the door, and let out a big sigh or a grunt because he knows that although he’s got five other tables, he’s going to have to take away time from those tables to make you happy. It could actually cost him tip money in the end to wait on you if he has to mis-manage his time to give you more of it. So again, you should have read the Do’s and Don’ts because one of the first things that I mentioned was to be polite, have fun, and don’t draw attention to yourself. Pestering your favorite waiter with constant drink refills, or being upset with him because your food is undercooked is going against what we’re trying to do here. Politely motion him over, and with a nice tone of voice let him know that your food is undercooked and you know it’s not his fault. Be patient. Patience is a virtue to be hand, and he knows it. If you’re patient, he will be more than happy to take care of you and probably apologize about taking so long.

He say “I know you, you know me”, one thing I can tell you is you got to be free. This is a short one. If you do happen to give your name to your favorite waiter because you want that personal service. Strike up a conversation with him or her. Ask them about what they’re doing when they’re not working, or if they’re in school. If you show interest in them, they will show interest in you and want to do more things for you. However, don’t try to spark up a conversation when you can obviously see that he or she is really busy. Conversations are to be had during off-hours, not from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm when it’s the busiest time of the night.

Nice to know you, goodbye. Lastly, near the end of your meal -if you have time- ask your waiter what nights they work. Some restaurants will have a set schedule, but most usually will schedule as needed. But, for the most part, your waiter will know what shifts they usually work and they’ll tell you. When you’re done, thank your waiter, and let them know that you will request them the next time you come in.

If you’ve done everything I’ve told you earlier (remembering their name, spending money, having fun, and being happy), then the only thing to do is tell that waiter that you’ll see them again. I promise you that if you do all these things, the next time you walk in that door and your waiter sees you walk in, I can almost guarantee you that they will interrupt the hostess and tell them to seat you in their section.

You are now wanted. You, my friend, are restaurant royalty.

Why is it rude to want to enjoy your night out?

This subject has been brought to my attention recently and it really clicked with some thoughts I had been having for quite a long time. If you’re out enjoying a nice meal with your loved one and the table next to you has a screaming 7-year-old, why is it rude to tell that parent to be polite to everyone around them and keep the child quiet? Is it wrong to want to enjoy your night? I know it isn’t our duty to teach other parents how to control their children, but when it becomes a nuisance or a disturbance to everyone around them, why do people scorn those who make mention of it and not the parents of the children? What, are we supposed to just sit there and take it, having that screaming child ruin our entire night? I don’t think so. It relates in many other situations as well. We have to put up with people who talk in movies or screaming babies on airplanes. Why is it that the rest of the public should be made to feel bad about telling them to be quiet, and the offenders continue to perpetrate? I suppose the situation is different in your surrounding and your comfort level hinges on whether you have a disturbing noise around you or not. It’s different in a restaurant than an airplane, or a movie theater. But, this isn’t an airplane experience blog, or a movie theater blog. It’s a restaurant blog.

The biggest possibility that I can think of is our American drive to be a part of what we’d call “polite society”. Just like your mommy told you when you were a child that it isn’t polite to stare, and say “Ma’am” and “Sir”, it’s just not polite to address someone else’s inability to control their child. Of course, your child would never be like that in a restaurant. That’s why we divert our eyes from homeless people who approach us, and wave them away saying “No, thank you. I can’t help you”, instead of what we really think. Our “polite society” is rampant with doublespeak.

Perhaps it is the pussification of America that is to blame. I suppose I was on the tail-end of the “spanking” era of punishments, when a car ride home after a raucous night meant dreading the over-the-knee, open-hand slap on the rear end. Nowadays parents could be accused of child abuse if they were to spank their children. If I were to ever be that loud in a restaurant, my mother would put the fear of God in me against the wall of the women’s restroom and you better believe that I was silent that entire night, even when I was asked if I wanted dessert. I guess it’s sort of a catch-22: parents don’t want to look like mean parents in public by scorning their children or punishing them, but they also end up looking like they can’t control their children if they do not do anything about it.

You might argue that some people just don’t know. They are ignorant of what they’re supposed to do, or not do. The only problem is that they’re parents probably didn’t teach them how to behave, either.  So, if we don’t tell them to quiet a screaming child or stop talking in a movie theater, who’s to say that they won’t ruin more nights that would have otherwise been quiet pleasant?

I certainly don’t wanna put up with that anymore, and neither should you. Viva La Revolucion.

So, you wanna work in the restaurant industry?

God, why? There are so many easy jobs that you can have and still make enough money to live. I mean, you could get a job working at a bookstore or even be a lawnmower. You could work at a movie theater and get to watch free movies! Why would you want to work a high pace, high energy, not to mention stressful job like waiting tables or bartending?

First, you have to ask yourself if it’s right for you. Waiting tables is extremely stressful. If you can handle a stress-filled work environment, then it’s okay. Sometimes a restaurant job is the only one available. It can be guesstimated that 75% of the FOH (Front of House) workforce in the restaurant industry are students. Students go to class during the day, and they need a job that they can easily get to at night. Most regular jobs close around 7 or 8, so the restaurant is the most viable. Also, if you’re a big fan of quick cash, restaurants are great places for that too. You can make anywhere from $80 to $180 on any given shift, but you also have to deal with the shifts that are so slow you only make $8. It’s a give-and-take relationship people. Also, if you love social interaction then the restaurant is good for you, too. You just have to understand that you are taking shit from people left and right that you don’t really want to deal with, and you have to keep your real feelings to yourself. If this kind of work sounds interesting, and fun to you then sure, the restaurant will be great for you.

A recent study done by The National Restaurant Association listed a 17th consecutive year of growth since 1991. It is expected that the restaurant industry will have a “total economic impact of more than $1.5 TRILLION, and 13.1 million employees in 2008″. http://www.restaurant.org/pressroom/pressrelease.cfm?ID=1536

This means that there are hundreds of restaurant in your area that are looking for skilled employees in ALL aspects of operation. Whether it’s a dishwasher, line cook, food prep, busser, or waiter. Jobs are out there to be had. All you have to do is walk in and fill out an application right? No. Finding the right job for you is rather difficult in the restaurant industry. And just like everywhere else, you have to start at the bottom. If you don’t have any restaurant experience, don’t expect to be waiting tables at Spago in New York. You’re going to start at the bottom, just like everyone else. I spent six months bussing tables at a piece-of-shit deep-fried food seafood restaurant here in town before the incompetent management got on my last nerve enough for me to quit.

So, if you haven’t had any experience, I might suggest being a hostess or busser to get your feet wet in the workforce. You learn the mechanics of the restaurant industry and get comfortable with the way things work in that type of work environment. This type of work is rather menial, and doesn’t take as much effort as waiting tables, but it’s still okay money, and it’s not as stressful. When you feel like you know everything there is to know about being the low man on the totem pole, you can go to your manager and ask to train up to a server. Once this happens you’ll do what we call “shadowing” or “following” one of the more skilled waiters, your “lead”. For the next couple shifts, you’ll team-wait on all your lead’s tables, while the lead explains the more intricate details of micromanaging customers. The bitch part about it is: even if you waited on the entire table by yourself, your lead gets alllll the money. One of the perks of experience, boys and girls, deal with it. Once you’ve had a week or two of on-the-job training, you take your menu test and get shoved into the shitty sections of the restaurant until your manager decides you’re strong enough to move out onto the main floor. The shitty sections can be just as bad as bussing tables, but hey, at least you’re making cash money, honey. You even get to show off that wit and charm you’ve been keeping hidden behind your bus tub. Get yourself some years of experience, and possibly move up to being a key employee, or even bartending in your restaurant.

I thought I might share with you what a regular shift might be like, if you do decide to pursue a waiting job:

On any given busy 4-hour shift, you’ll probably end up walking two to three miles, not to mention quicker turns on your ankles than an ice skater. So, by the end of the night your body is completely aching, begging you for mercy. You’ve probably had to deal with anywhere from 60 to 160 customers, 3 to 6 simultaneous tables, not to mention your side duties as a waiter on the floor. You have to micromanage up to 25 people at one time, making sure that their drinks are filled, table is clean, and their food is making good time in the kitchen. You’ve got to greet tables with a happy smile on your face while you’re half-ignoring them, thinking about the stupid bitch of a hostess who just double-sat you, almost guaranteeing you to be in the weeds (too much work for your head) for the next hour and a half. So, now you have to go enter that table’s order, while you’re being flagged down for drink refills at another table. Grabbing their drinks, you refill them after putting in table 1’s order, dropping off the refills you greet the other two tables one after another. By the time you’ve got their drinks and orders put in, people are complaining their food is taking a while, you’ve got to keep your tables clean of debris and excess plates, and your expediter is yelling at the top of his lungs for people to run his fucking food because it’s getting cold. If you have a side-duty as a waiter, it’s even more shit you’ve got to think about while you’re trying to take care of your tables. Because if you don’t do your side duty, your co-workers are going to be pissed off at you for slacking-ass. Your food comes out, everything is great, you get out of the weeds by the time the doors close at 11:00 pm, and now you have to spend the next hour and a half cleaning up your mess and closing down the restaurant. Staggering out around 12:30 am, you’re counting your take for the night and telling yourself that it’s “all worth it, baby”.

Sound like fun? Get out there and join the workforce. Then you can leave your own comments on my blog like Mermaid, and Cellesta. I love seeing em, guys. Keep reading.

In the restaurant, you are not as special as you think.

I had a friend the other day get so upset, she was in tears and she almost quit right on the spot. Why? Because an a**hole customer mistreated her, of course. This guy obviously thought that he was special and should be treated better than everyone else – that he didn’t have to follow the rules like everyone else.You see, at my restaurant, much like other restaurants, we have a happy hour. The happy hour is a set period of time, usually during the week that the restaurant uses to bring customers in to drink and possibly spend more money. At my happy hour, we offer $1 pints of this particular beer between 5:00 and 7:00 pm. Now, this stand-up gentleman comes in at 4:30 and orders a pint of this beer. So, she goes to the register, puts in the beer and brings it to him. When his bill finally came, he was outraged that she charged him full price (a mere $3.75) for the beer he ordered, when his watch said 5:07 pm. CLEARLY he was there during happy hour! Well, this dumbass obviously didn’t understand how a clock worked. You see, if you come in before 5:00 and order a beer, just because you sat through that 5:00 time, doesn’t change the price of the beer on your ticket. He was livid at her, accusing her of trying to raise the price of the bill so she’d get a bigger tip, “See what kind of tip you get now!” he said to her. What he didn’t know was that our machines switch over into “Happy hour mode” at 5:00. If he wanted the beer when he ordered it at 4:30, she would enter it into the machine, and the bartender would make it. It doesn’t get made any other way. She couldn’t wait until 5:00 to put it in and keep him happy. This guy was ignorant of our policies. My manager went to him, attempted to calm him down, then eventually told him that it was best if he didn’t ever come back.

You see, the restaurant isn’t going to change their policies for you. They’re not going to allow you to smoke inside if there is a smoking ban, let alone allow you to get away with getting cheap beer before happy hour. You might claim that the adage is true that “the customer is always right”; not if our policy says it isn’t. If you’re so worried about getting free stuff at a restaurant, you shouldn’t be eating out in the first place. Save your money and go buy groceries, or a pizza and eat at home. They’re generally going to be cheaper, just like you.

We know every loophole there is that customers try to get free shit, or discounted shit. If we put cheese on chips, call it an appetizer and charge you $6.75 for it, we know you’re trying to be a cheap bastard if you order the $2.95 bowl of chips and ask for a side of cheese which is less expensive. So, we’ll just delete the bowl of chips you ordered and charge you for the appetizer. Want to complain to the manager because you only got 4 shrimp in your pasta? Okay. $.75 per shrimp. How many you want? You should have read the menu, because that’s what it says, and that’s what my manager will tell you. When I’ve bartended, I’ve had people walk into the restaurant and order our frozen margarita-like drink into a glass and hand them a to-go cup so they can take it out with them. Sorry, but the liquor laws says that I can’t do that. I could get a hefty fine if you get caught with an open-container with our logo on it and I doubt you’re going to come apologize to me and offer to pay the fine.

Also, talking to the manager isn’t going to do you much good. In most situations, your waiter will know what your problem is and deal with it at the table. “Firefighting” as we call it. But if we have to go tell our manager, they hear it from us first what the problem was. They’ll hear our spin on it, and we’ll make you out to look like you have no idea what you’re talking about.

So, save your little jokes about getting free stuff and save your complaints to the manager. Because you aren’t that special. Sure we want your business again, but more likely than not if you have to bitch out the manager, you’re probably not going to come back anyways. If you want something fixed or remedied, approach it in a civilized manner. Talk to your waiter about it, see what they can do. If there isn’t anything they can do, ask for the manager. They can usually do more for you sure, but if you are calm and polite about it, they’ll go even further out of your way. They might even comp your new entree that’s replaced your old one, and even toss you a free dessert. See what happens when you don’t think you’re above us just because we work in the restaurant?

Parents, the restaurant is NOT your child’s playground.

Unless your idea of dining out with your children involve a ball-pit, some tickets won by playing games that cost quarters, or a big birthday cake with a singing clown the title of this post is absolutely true. There is a reason that your local Applebee’s or Chinese buffet do not have a slide or video games. These places are to be respected as they are public places of business, not your family kitchenette.

I’m sure some parents really do enjoy bringing their children out to eat; they get some good food cooked by someone else and no mess to clean up because there’s someone else to do it. But there really is a right way and a wrong way to bring your children out to eat. I had one particular instance where I was waiting on this young couple and their three daughters a couple months ago. They were little angels with maize-colored hair ranging from two to six years of age. Unfortunately, the parents ignored them for most of the meal, talking to themselves. These three little angels shed their halos for horns, and proceeded to decimate the area around the table. Torn and partly-chewed food was strewn all over the table and on the floor, drinks were spilled and not attended to, and the sugar caddies were emptied. Not to mention that the salt and pepper shakers were also liberated of their contents all over the table. The parents, obliviously continued their conversation. When the two eldest daughters took off their shoes and started to run around and under the table, the parents continued their conversation. Even when one of the girls sat in a chair and the other girl used another chair to push her around the dining room, the parents continued their conversation. When they finally left, they did not apologize for the way their children acted, nor did they apologize for the disgusting mess that now had to be cleaned up by yours truly. And of course, they were shitty tippers. The real question is whether or not the parents will be able to control their children later in life, when they rebel against the rules set by adults.

When I was a child if I had acted in any kind of disrespectful way in a restaurant my mother would drag me to the bathroom, put me against a wall, point her finger in my face and say something along the lines of “if you do not sit still and quiet for the rest of this meal, you will get a spanking when you get home.” Parents these days are so afraid to punish their children that they would rather let them run amok in a well-established restaurant than have their kids upset.

Now not all parents are like this. I have many times seen some very well-behaved children, and by no means will I go off on a tangent about how terrible it is to wait on children. However, if you as parents do not possess the ability to control your children at a restaurant then at least you must realize that you should compensate your waiter. We are not your maids. Do your children make this much mess at home? If they did, you must be miserable having to clean that up and I feel sorry for you.

So, here’s what you should do: keep your children in line or don’t bring them out to eat. If you should go out to eat with your children and they leave a disgusting mess, apologize to your waiter for their having to clean up after you and leave a bigger tip than you normally would have.

It can sometimes be difficult to find time for you and your spouse to go out to eat for a nice lunch or dinner somewhere while leaving your child at home with a sitter, but if the neighborhood tween is unavailable because she has dance practice and you have to bring the brats along, do be sure to keep your child occupied doing something that doesn’t make you and your family look like they’re disgusting pigs.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Dining Out.

I am going to list some of the do’s and don’ts of dining out. Now, this is not just a list of proper restaurant etiquette, it’s also a list of things that we as servers like and don’t like customers to do. Keep these things in mind, because if you do some of the don’ts, you might end up getting ignored or worse.

1. Do always be polite. Restaurant personnel are people too. Just because they are trying to make you happy, and serve you for a brief period of time, you wouldn’t disrespect them if you saw them out on the street. Yelling at your waiter because your steak is under cooked is not proper etiquette. Politely get your waiter’s attention, and notify him or her of the situation and ask them to correct it. That is all.

2. Don’t draw attention to yourself in a wild manner. Waving your hand at your waiter from across the room makes you look like you have Downe Syndrome. If you have Downe Syndrome, then I suppose it’s okay. If you want your waiter’s attention, be patient and watch your water. Try to make eye contact and make a silent gesture for them to come to you. An upward nod, or a lift of a finger is enough to get their attention.

3. Do remember your waiter’s name. Although your waiter is probably required to being with something like, “Good evening, my name is Tim and I’ll be taking care of you tonight”, that doesn’t mean you should completely ignore him. I say this for two reasons: one, if you need something specific and your waiter isn’t around, ask another waiter for Tim. Telling another server that your waiter was a 6 foot fat guy with glasses isn’t exactly nice; second, if you enjoy your dining experience with Tim ask for him again the next time you go to that restaurant. It will get to him immediately from the hostess that someone asked for Tim and he will probably treat you better than any other of his customers.

4. Don’t pester your waiter. If your server is standing next to another table, addressing them about the menu or drinks, don’t attempt to get their attention. Tugging on their shirt or saying “excuse me” over and over isn’t going to get you anything and it’s only going to infuriate the other customers. That is their time with the server. You have to share. You learned this in kindergarten, didn’t you? Going back to #1, be polite and wait until your waiter is done talking to them and say their name, “Tim”. This will automatically draw attention to you while still being polite.

5. Do halt all conversations when your waiter approaches the table. Whether you’re discussing an election with your companions or talking on the cell phone, your waiter is there to get you happily fed and out the door. We don’t want to hear about a mole you had removed and it’s awkward for us to stand there and wait for a break in the conversation to interject about a possible appetizer order. We don’t want to be rude by interrupting you, so make the time to let us do our job. Just stop mid-sentence, address your waiter, and return to your conversation when he walks away.

6. Don’t complain about how long your food is taking. We know your food is taking a long time and we understand that if you become unhappy, the tip you’ll leave us is going to be lower. From the moment that we take your order and put it into the POS (Point of Sale machine), your food is completely out of our hands. There is nothing that we can do to speed up your meals. Us annoying the expo about how long table 202 is taking is fruitless. The only thing we can do is ask our manager if we can give you something cheap and quick to tide you over; a bowl of chips, or a cup of soup. But again, revert to #1 about this. Don’t demand it, politely ask your waiter if it’s possible.

7. Do compensate your waiter if you linger. Your waiter probably has three or four tables in his or her section to make their money for the night. If your dinner was $30 and you left a $6 tip, but decided to chat and drink coffee for the rest of the night, that means that the server made only $6 that entire night on one table. They probably could have turned that table over three or four more times in the time that you decided to sit there. That’s a loss of an average of $20-$30. If you realize that you have taken an absurd amount of time (anything longer than 1 hour for lunch, 1 1/2 hours for dinner), leave an extra tip for your waiter to make up for it. It’s rude because you are basically telling us that you don’t care about our livelihood. Your coffee conversation is more important than me being able to feed myself or pay my bills.

8. Do leave a tip based on service. 15% tip is average in our country. 20% is a tip given for exceptional service. If your food was cold or took forever to get to you, but your waiter was extremely helpful and did everything in their power to make you happy, you should tip them according to the excellent service they gave you. Now, if your waiter ignored your drinking glasses, took forever to talk to you, and your food was cold, then you should probably talk to the manager about it. The manager will probably comp you for the poor time you had and this will be one of those times to leave a shitty tip. Remember, tip based on your server’s performance, not the restaurant.

9. Don’t walk out with the wrong copy of the ticket. I can’t tell you how many times that it’s happened that a customer wasn’t thinking and walked out with the Restaurant Copy of the bill. You know, the important one with the tip and total on it. Although you may have left us an amazing tip, we don’t get it because you took the wrong copy. Pay attention, and take the Customer Copy.

10. Do have fun. Dining out is an enjoyable experience and it should be fun. Order drinks, get appetizers, or splurge on your meals. You can even make jokes with your waiter. I’m sure they have some really humorous anecdotes they can tell you to keep you entertained. The happier you seem to your waiter, the easier it is for us to gauge how to handle you. Most of us will handle an unhappy customer very delicately, whereas a happy customer we want to take real good care of and keep you happy. Your bartender might slip you a drink, or add a little extra bourbon in that Old Fashioned of yours.

I hope this list of Do’s and Don’ts help you have a good time, because all we want is that: for you to have a good time. Eat up!

I’m not an a**hole. No, really, I’m not.

We as waiters are often cynical people. I can’t speak for everyone, but I am cynical by nature. I don’t really have high expectations of customers who walk through the door. I think if I went day-to-day expecting every table to tip me 20% or offer me a job because they see how awesome I am at waiting tables, then I’d probably end up being depressed, sobbing into my tear-stained pillows each night, listening to My Chemical Romance.

My cynical, negative remarks made about customers and previous experiences are only expressed either in the back of the kitchen or outside of work. Never will you see me be sarcastic, confrontational, or negative anywhere near the customers. It is my job to make the customer happy and I do that very well. Even when I am not having a good day or I am tired you won’t see that on my face or in my demeanor. I’ve done it in the past, but over the years I’ve learned what to do and what not to do to make your dining experience the best it can be. So, to make you happy, I might forget to charge you for a drink you ordered, or if your food is taking too long I might bring you a complimentary appetizer to hold you over. Also, I’m always going to be 100% completely honest with you. I can’t say that about all your waiters but this is a defensive post, remember?

The restaurant industry is considered under the “hospitality” umbrella. It is our job as the liaison between the restaurant and the customer to make sure that things are as hospitable as possible, and I do my very best to make that happen. Whether my customers are white, black, foreign, old, young, rich, poor, it doesn’t matter. I treat everyone equally: with a helpful, pleasant demeanor and a smile on my face. Why? Because it’s my job. Oh, and it’s sometimes fun, too.

If I were constantly negative or emotionless to my customers, my manager would find out about it and probably fire me. I don’t want that. I have bills to pay and kids to feed. Okay no kids, but I might as well with the amount of money I have to live on. So, I am happy when I walk out those kitchen doors or greet my table for the first time. Anything you want I’ll get you…within reason (Yankees tickets I cant help you with). I want you to have the best dining experience of your life, why? Because we as waiters live and die by the customer. If you’re not happy we don’t get paid. We make $2.13 an hour, which is enough to cover taxes. So, our paycheck at the end of the week comes from the tips you leave us. Happy people leave better tips. It’s all about the tips, you should know that by now.

I have my regular customers who I always wait on because they enjoy the experience that I give them and that’s always a great thing to do. When you go out, remember your waiter’s name and use it, because if you do have a truly enjoyable experience, request that person the next time you go there. They’d love to see you and they’d probably give you extra special treatment, giving you freebies or letting you know pertinent information about special things going on. Order the same thing every time you come in? Sometimes we won’t even have to greet you to know what you want because we remember you and like the way you treat us.

So, maybe I’m not an a**hole, but I certainly have my opinion. And as the old saying goes, “an opinion is like an a**hole. Everyone’s got one.” This is my opinion. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

The restaurant is a finely-tuned machine. Well, sort of.

Imagine this: you walk into your favorite eatery. It’s 7:00 on a Friday night. From the difficulty you had finding a parking space in the parking lot – eventually cozying up in-between a white Nissan and a Chevy truck – you realize that this joint is jam-packed. There’s people sitting outside idly chatting as they wait for their table as you enter the building. Automatically you hear the rumblings of voices, all trying to talk over the table next to them. Because of your keen insight, you already placed your reservation during this always busy time. Your hostess sits you at a rather crowded table, but because it’s only two of you, you are given a smaller table. Your waiter greets you graciously and runs off to get your drinks that you placed. An iced tea for you and a Cosmopolitan for your female friend. It takes a little while for your waiter to return -perhaps two minutes – with your drinks.

“May I start you off with an appetizer?” she asks. “No, thanks. We’re going to go ahead and order our meals”, you reply. “Okay, what can I get for you?” she responds. “She’ll have the Sicilian Ribeye, and I’ll take the Grilled Shrimp Linguine”, you say. “Excellent. How would you like that cooked, ma’am?” She asks, to which your companion responds, “Medium Well”.

So, off your waitress goes. Perhaps she comes back quickly with some bread sticks and butter for you to snack on. Which, curmudgeonly, makes you remember the last time you were at that seafood place down the street and they didn’t bring you any bread sticks. You had to sit there for at least 30 minutes without anything to eat. Occasionally, she’ll return to fill your drinks, perhaps bringing your companion a glass of water to accompany that Cosmo she had.

You start checking your watch. It’s 7:25. That means it’s been 25 minutes already, since you remember making your reservation for 7:00. What’s taking so long? It takes what? 10 minutes to cook a steak? Not as long to toss together a sauce, some pasta, and shrimp? You see your waiter talking to another table next to you, “Miss” you say to her. “Miss, excuse me?” -she’s not responding. Finally, after she’s done talking with them she comes to you, “How long is it going to be? It’s been almost 30 minutes.” She tells you that she’ll go check on it for you and comes back to tell you it shouldn’t be too much longer. But, you’re starving! It shouldn’t take that long and the table across the room who sat down after you is already eating their meal!

Finally, she brings your food. Oh, joy! It looks great. Uh-oh… her steak is under-cooked. A minute or two later, you catch your waitress and tell her the situation. She apologizes and brings it back to the kitchen. 5-6 minutes goes by and she then brings it back, cooked to perfection. Unfortunately, you’re already half-way through your meal because she didn’t want you to have to wait. Now she’s upset that you’re going to finish before her and she’s complaining to you. Your perfect night is in a downward spiral! When the meal is over, you don’t want dessert nor do you don’t want coffee. You just want to get out of there so you can grumble in the car about how terrible the experience was. Especially when the bill comes and it’s $57.41. You can’t imagine paying that much for such a terrible experience, although your waitress was as kind as she could have been. So, you leave three $20 bills on the table and walk out. Your waiter or busser comes behind you and cleans up the table and resets it for the next group of people.

This is a generic experience that you thought was going to be good, but turned out to be a pretty poor one.

Let me explain to you how the restaurant works: The hostess keeps track of all the tables in the restaurant and knows which ones are available and which aren’t. Because you placed a reservation, she chose a table that was convenient for both you and her. She’s not going to give you a 4-person table because she can seat either a 3-person group, or 4-person group there instead. Your waiter is probably already dealing with her 3 or 4 other tables in the area, so when you sit down it’s more than likely in the middle of her taking an order or delivering drinks/food to another table. Not to mention the other two or three requests she’ll get before she can even say “hello” to you. After taking your drink order, she goes to the POS (Point of Sale Machine) and puts them in. Now she has to wait for the bartender to make that cosmo you ordered. While she does that, she’ll go check on another table or two, taking a totally different table’s food out from the kitchen to be delivered. Bringing your drinks and taking your order, she’s back at the POS to put in your order. Again, she’s running out food and dealing with her other tables. She might be spending more time at other tables, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t caring about your food. Because you’re sipping your drinks and you didn’t order appetizers, she has no reason to come back to your table until your drink is gone or your food is ready. The kitchen is backed up with the business of the night and ticket times are running longer than the 15-minute target time. The grill man has 8 different steaks going at 5 different temperatures, along with 3 orders of grilled shrimp (including yours). Sautee has 6 dishes of his own, is waiting for your shrimp from Grill, and screaming to the dishwasher that he needs oval-plates who then stops cleaning the plates he’s working on to bring those ovals to him. The expediter, or “expo”, who is the middle-man between the kitchen and the FOH (Front of house), is scrambling to put together tables’ food as he has all the tickets timed off on his “line”. After 20 minutes, your waiter bursts through the kitchen door asking him where your food is and the expediter responds “it’s coming! shit!”. There is nothing your waiter can do at this point to make your food come out, not to mention the table who sat down at the other side of the room that made you jealous; they started eating before you because they ordered a dinner salad and a bowl of soup, which neither takes more than two minutes to throw together. Your waiter brings your food to you as soon as the kitchen makes it, but unfortunately it’s under-cooked remember? So she’s got to bring it back to the “expo”, who then hands it to the grill man who’s still got 7 steaks working to deal with. After it’s done, it comes back to you and you’re still upset after you eat and leave, so you end up leaving your poor waitress a $2.59 tip.

Your waitress is on the front-lines. She is the soldier of the restaurant that takes all the flak from the customers. It’s her job to keep you happy. If the kitchen is taking too long to make the food, she has nothing to do with it. But, because the length of time the food is taking is making you unhappy, you take it out on her by leaving her a shitty tip.

When you go to a restaurant, you need to understand how things work and why things happen the way they do. Now, it could have been your waitresses fault, but she’d probably tell you and apologize; perhaps give you a free dessert. The kitchen doesn’t really care how long food is taking. It’ll be done when it’s done. They don’t get paid based on the happiness of the customers, they get their $7-9 hourly regardless. It’s the wait-staff that lives and dies by the customer. So, the next time your food is taking longer than it should, ask why, and don’t get upset at your waiter. Because it probably isn’t her fault.