The bane of my existence: bread.

I hate bread.

It’s delicious and I love to eat it, but I hate it. When I go to a restaurant, I love it when there’s bread for me to eat, but I also feel sympathy for the waiter who has to bring the bread.

I dont know what it is about bread; people love it’s doughy goodness and they can’t get enough of it. No, really. They can’t get enough to the point that they forgo eating their meal because they had too much of the bread that was brought to them for free.

Let me reiterate: I hate bread. For four years I worked at a restaurant that brought bread to the table right when the customer sits down. Now, I am a very strong advocate for the business of not bringing bread (or crackers) and water to a table. When a customer sits down and automatically sees that bread is brought to them, they look at that and think “appetizer”. The same goes for water that’s brought to the table without asking: people look at it and think “drink”. So, without even asking for an order, the waiter has brought the customer food to eat and liquids to quench their thirst. This means that subconsciously – or consciously – the customer feels no need to order an appetizer or a fountain drink that would ordinarily raise the PPA (Per Person Average) of the ticket. This means a lower PPA, and less money made by the restaurant. In relation to the waiter who brings the bread, a lower PPA means less tip for the waiter, even if that waiter ended up bringing 6 loaves of bread to the table.

I am reminded of a story that actually happened quite often when I was working at the restaurant that brought the bread out the tables. Occasionally, I’d have customers who would come in with their small children and order an entree and instead of ordering a meal for their child off of the kid’s menu, they would just have their child eat the bread all night. This and the times where customers would finish a whole loaf of bread (we’re talking at least 800 calories here) before their meal even arrived to them. Then they’d have to get a box to bring their food home because “they ate too much bread”. Well, no shit, really? Now mind you, the bread at that restaurant was really good. People would laughingly say “Oh we love the bread here! We come just for the bread!” and I’d toss them a forced smile and say “Oh, I know, it’s great”. Sometimes I just wanted to slap these people as they stuff their face with crusted fluffy goodness.

To my utter delight, my current restaurant does not serve any kind of bread without charging someone for it. So believe me, I have a smug little grin hiding in me every time I get to tell a customer “I’m sorry, we don’t have any bread to bring to the table, but I can order you some of our sandwich bread (which is a dollar charge)”. The thing that irritates me the most is that some people just can’t fathom the idea of a restaurant not serving bread. One guy was so astounded that we didn’t bring bread to the table that he actually spoke of the origins of breaking bread and quoted a passage from the bible about it. My manager was fed up with the guy so much that she just said “Fuck it. Bring him some toast with butter.”

Here’s what I’m getting at: I didn’t want this post to be a rant about my annoyance with bread, I wanted it to be more of a statement that bread is not the most important thing on the table you’re eating. You shouldn’t need to request extra loaves of bread over the course of the meal. Eat a loaf of bread before the meal if you really don’t want to pay for an appetizer, but keep your leavened yeast consumption to just one more loaf when your meal comes. Constantly stopping you waiter for loaf after loaf after loaf of bread is just irritating, and you’re more than likely going to not receive the service you’d normally enjoy because your waiter has to make extra trips to bring you bread.

Imagine if you were sitting in a busy restaurant, wanting to enjoy your meal, but your drinks aren’t getting refilled and your waiter isn’t paying much attention to you. The problem is the table next to you who’s constantly sending your shared waiter off to the other side of the restaurant to get them more bread. This happens OFTEN. On many occasions, we have to travel long distances to get bread for tables and if multiple tables ask for things such as bread at different times, it becomes seriously difficult to manage your time properly.

You don’t need extra bread. Believe me, unless you’re a Somalian six-year old, you don’t need extra bread. Enjoy the one we give you and make it last, because the fewer requests you make the better service you’re actually going to get.