Celebrity Vs. Special Treatment

If you happen to work at a restaurant which has any degree of notoriety, you may at some point have an encounter with a celebrity. In the last year, I've had the chance to meet a few famous people. On a personal level, I'm not too fazed by celebrity. If you're famous and used to special treatment, I'll give you the same kind of service I give to everyone; the best I can.

Provided you don't suck as a waiter, any famous person would be happy with your service. Everything should go smoothly, and usually it does. The only issue is that people tend to get nerved up.



When I took care of a foreign prince and his throng of secret service agents, I didn't mess anything up. I was a great server and brought them everything they asked for. The man was not only nicer than 75% of the people I take care of on a daily basis, but he tipped an extra ten percent on top of the 18% party-assigned gratuity.

I always thought that if you ruled your own country, you'd be stressed out beyond belief dealing with political turmoil, attempts at your life, and getting reelected. Yet this guy was nicer to me than the old crabby-faced bag lady at the other table who has a sour attitude because she keeps leaving some magazine at work.

It truly is quite baffling.

Usually, everyone else around you is nervous FOR you. You don't have to actually mess up in order to make things awkward.



Usually someone else can do it for you.



Maybe someone else notices.



Oddly enough, someone in the kitchen might have screwed up, resulting in the need for managerial attention. One of my fellow waiters took care of a well-known movie star last week, and he was unintentionally served cold soup. The problem with that isn't that he was necessarily a special person who deserves extra care, but should actually be getting hot soup like everyone else. Unless it's gazpacho. Which it wasn't.

Which reminds me--who the hell eats gazpacho?! That shit is horrendous! Cold soup is gross, and it doesn't have to prove that it's the bastard child of minestrone and cocktail sauce. Pass on that garbage.

Anyway, some celebrities tend to get pissed off if they don't get treated somewhat normally. Which might cause your situation to capitulate in complete suckdom.



Or it might be delightfully serendipitous.



You just never know.

Restaurant joke of the week;

Water: The Kiss of Death

When you're serving someone dinner and beverages, there are certain things that you tend to look for. You ask questions that probe deeply into the patron's psyche (Where are you from? What do you do that brings you here? Are you celebrating something? What do you tend to drink with dinner?).

These questions are perfect for figuring out how to help a restaurant guest have a fantastic experience. However, there are some things that are subtly reaffirmed to you that the people you are taking care of are not only determined to NOT have a good time, but also are not intending to leave you a tip.

Clue #1-






When everyone at the table wants water, it's a sure bet that they're cheap. If they won't spend two bucks on an iced tea, they probably won't feel the need to tip you an extra couple bucks for amazing service.

Clue #2 -



In general, race and ethnicity factor heavily in the restaurant environment. The sad rule of thumb is that if any guest you're serving has an identifiable ethnicity (or one you aren't sure of), it's a good bet you're not going to get a significant tip.

Knowing this, it's easy to say "If I ever go to another country, I will find out beforehand how I am supposed to tip at restaurants! Toodley Moodley!"

In China, there is no industry standard for tipping; all waiters and waitresses are paid a flat rate. In the United Kingdom, ten percent is expected, and a twelve percent service charge is used for large parties. In France, fifteen percent is factored in no matter how many people or what you order. At one point in Japan, accepting tips was considered dishonorable and tipping disrespectful.

It was always curious to me why often times French visitors would not leave extra money for the server. If the person's English wasn't good enough, I'd use what French I speak to explain the difference. I found it helped in most cases, got me yelled at in broken English in others.

Barring that, why can't foreigners do the same research when they come to visit?

Clue #3 -







If you get a person that can't be happy, give up. I have taken care of people with utter perfection in my execution and then found out that the person had approached a manager without my knowledge to complain about the entire meal. I've had a person tell me once that the lobster they ordered smelled "too much like the ocean."

It's best to not let it get to you.

There are other smaller hints and clues that you're dead on arrival (groups of high school students, people asking for rolls instead of ordering something, etc.), but these are the surest I've found. Post your own in the comments!

Like a Good Neighbor? Like Hell.

In the hospitality business you expect that when you go out, you will be taken care of. If where you are going happens to be affiliated somehow with someone you know, you should expect that you will be taken care of very well.

This is one of the basic fundamentals of any business.



Sometimes, you do a favor for a friend, and that friend instantly forgets who is doing the favor.

Take last week, for example.

A group from a neighboring business needed a reservation on a moment's notice for about fifteen people on a busy evening. Not only were the managers of the shift excruciatingly accommodating, but several bottles of wine and free appetizers were arranged for them before their arrival.



When they were seated and stuffed full of appetizers, they placed their dinner orders with the very author of this blog. He went around, making sure that of the three things they could each possibly order, each of them would get what they asked for.



But they weren't happy. The protagonist's order-taking computer broke down for a second, temporarily losing one order of the fifteen that was taken. The server noticed quickly, but not quick enough. The unspeakable inevitably happened. Because of the digital screw-up;

The one woman customer ultimately had to...



Under any other circumstances, this would not have been a problem. Yet the next-door Hitler-boss decided to get her mile out of the meal;



"Because I waited 5-7 extra minutes for my meal, EVERYONE AT THIS TABLE is getting a FREE DESSERT!! Do you understand?!?"

Oh, I do. Because we tried to do everything we could (bringing you an alternate meal while your friends were dining/delivering your side dishes beforehand/giving you your dinner for free/bringing extra wine at no cost/suspending your incumbent waiter(s)/ sent your post-packaged dinner back to the chef), you suddenly think it's ALRIGHT to come back to the host stand and tell the innocent-looking hostess that his/her restaurant "REALLY dropped the ball this time?!"

NOTHING ON THIS EARTH is worth the price of your reputation. From now on, everyone in the restaurant will see this;



And will get this--



"Choke on it and die!! RAAARGH!!"



The twat waffle actually left her seat, demanded dessert for everyone, and stormed up to complain to the host stand to alleviate a problem that wasn't actually real. The woman wanted all fifteen of her cunt slaves to have free desserts, free entrees, and free humility. That last thing wasn't quite free, but seemed like it was because of the impending sense of dignity rape she let down on her neighbors. So she will be getting a free additional course a week after her meal, whether she knows it or not. Read on;

I feel that in this instance, my anonymity rule might be acceptably broken. Everyone who reads this--please send a warm letter of recognizance to the Le Pli Spa in Cambridge. Thanks!

Bread and Butter is the Demise of a Dinner

I hate bringing people rolls. Most restaurants have a free appetizer that they bring out automatically, and rolls happen to be the one I retrieve/hate the most. You might go to a restaurant and get a hunk of bread and a bowl of olive oil, or you might get some other kind of bread with some other kind of oily whatsit. But I hate them all.

The reasons for this are as follows;

-Rolls are free
You can immediately tell when someone is freeloading by uniquely identifying if they are the evil purveyors of 'rolldom.' When an old woman says;



You are immediately sure of one of two things;

Option A: She's a freeloading crone who doesn't want to eat the cheapest thing on the menu without feeling like she got the best value for her meal. How does she do this? By calling out repeatedly for the one thing she doesn't have to pay for.

Option B: She enjoys the added security of having a hot breaded centerpiece on her table that she's not going to end up actually eating.

Another reason I hate when people ask for more rolls is because about 60% of the time, nobody actually ends up eating them. By the time the second plate of rolls comes around, dinner has actually arrived, and suddenly rolls are no longer at the center of their universe. Just their table.

On top of that, I'm usually doing things that actually matter when five of my idiot tables bother me for more rolls. I'll be bringing someone a glass of wine or carrying someone's dinner out, and five people are getting angry at me along my way because I forgot to bring them something they aren't there to eat.



News flash; I didn't forget to bring you more rolls. There are a bunch of new tables that just sat down who are waiting for their own first plate of rolls. Inevitably they are also going to probably want more, but for right now, their need is greater than yours. I usually have a moment of intense calm when someone gets all indignant about me 'forgetting' to bring them more free bread. It is usually me convincing myself NOT to stroll right over and break my foot off in their left nostril.





People's insatiable need to stock up on free shit truly bothers me in the context of dining out. When I go out to eat, I'm there for the cuisine, the atmosphere, the service, the libations, and the company of friends. I'm not there to bitch someone out about bringing me free snacks. One helping of rolls or bread is perfectly fine, but when you're hollering for three plates of them in lieu of an actual appetizer, that's when you become a total cock-breathed dingleberry.

Tounge slips vs realizing when restaurant life is taking over your life

In every restaurant, there's an individual routine that everyone falls completely into. After a while, cooks will make the same plate the exact same way each time. Hosts will develop a pattern for seating guests. Managers will address problems with similar quotes and mannerisms. In most cases, waiters will use the same expressions, because speaking (and doing it convincingly well) is such an important necessity.

This however, can not only make a waiter look like a total idiot, but can become his undoing.

It starts simply enough.







The idea that you've said something incorrect seemingly out of autonomy has the power to immediately undermine your credibility. It can also happen in more dire circumstances;





Other similar situations may occur, such as your server asking you on Valentine's Day what brings you and your date out to a restaurant for dinner, or saying 'thank you' when nobody actually offered a compliment.

It's all part of the daily fray when you're seeing ten to twenty parties a shift. Sometimes the wrong line slips out and you instantly look like a dumbass. Be kind to your servers!

The High-Horse Regular

In any restaurant, there are "Regulars." These are the people who come in semi-frequently, order the same thing, tip the same way, and who are either easy to take care of, or utterly impossible to deal with.

In the latter category, you have the basic type of person who wants to sit in the exact same seat every time, order the same thing with over six thousand guidelines for how to prepare it, and often won't tip generously, but assume that he or she is doing everyone a huge favor by coming back over and over again.

When something doesn't go right, they tend to become irate;



One of the bartenders I know had a great story for me about one of these crotchety old attention magnets. He sat down at his usual seat at the bar, and instantly began making demands;



Instead of conceding to the regular's demands, the bartender responded with care and concern for all of the bar's patrons. It went well.



As expected, the old fart didn't pay any mind to the offer the bartender made for another spot at the bar that had a television for his own personal viewing. He expected that he didn't have to move from his seat, and wanted the other people at the bar who were watching world cup soccer to lay down dead for him and his baseball game.

Now I agree that soccer is gratuitously boring. But I disagree wholeheartedly with anyone who comes into an establishment and demands that he get his way (no matter how unpopular) just because he's been there a few more times than the others. I will say one thing for soccer, though; it has the rowdiest fans in the world. I would have loved to have seen what would have happened if the bartender had changed the TV to the baseball game this guy demanded. The soccer guys probably would have kicked that prick's wrinkly old ass inside out.

Seemingly in an effort to convince the bartender that an extra ten minutes of equivocally boring baseball was worth an eternity of shouldering the identity of "complete fucking douche-bag," the regular demanded a pen and paper to begin mathematical calculations of his tips for the past year.



If he were trying to assert that he comes in enough to place a monetary value on his time there, it would mean that if the two soccer fans had tipped $201 dollars on their meal (not so unreasonable--people have left tips of this magnitude before), it would mean that they should now have a say over what everyone else at the bar watches.

If those two soccer fans were regulars themselves, the regular probably would not have had his way either because it would have devolved into a pissing battle between the opposing customers. There would be no civil way to determine who was more 'regular' than the other.

The only fair and sane way to determine who gets the TV is to simply allow those who arrived first to control what goes on. When they leave, someone else can request something to watch. Speaking of what to watch, the regular changed the channel after the soccer-viewers left just in time to find that there WAS NO BASEBALL GAME. It wasn't even on that evening.

Just goes to show you that just because you're a regular doesn't mean people there are forced to respect you, and it CERTAINLY doesn't mean that the people there LIKE you. Bear that in mind if you frequent a place you really enjoy going to.

A Higher-Than-Thou Health Inspection

The pervasive cliche of the "Health Inspector" is a notion that scares restaurant managers into operating their kitchens as strictly as possible. It makes waiters, chefs, and other assorted employees do things like wear gloves when they touch silverware, not eat twizzlers while operating the deep fryer, and not serve chicken cutlets to guests that have since been accidentally dropped on the floor in excess of four times.

Some restaurants take this notion to the next level on their own volition, seemingly to make it seem like Jesus Christ sits down to dinner there every Sunday afternoon. These restaurants bring their own health inspectors, paid for by the company, just to come in and "make necessary health changes to the restaurant's operating procedure." Oops, that was a typo. What I meant to say was "fuck with everyone for absolutely no reason."

A health-inspector came in recently to one of the restaurants I work at. She wouldn't be worth her six-figure salary if she didn't come in and fuck with everyone and the fruits of their labors at completely fucking random.



They do this to reassure their mass market that they are completely perfect and would never put food in front of you that would put your health or well being at any risk.

Talking points;

-If you throw out hundreds of dollars worth of food that is one or two degrees warmer than specified temperature, the company is losing money. And wasting food. In a time when being green and non-wasteful is a selling point, potential customers will look down on you for committing such heinous acts of waste.

-By tearing apart a restaurant that you spend less than 1% of your time at, you are effectively tearing down and destroying the hard work that people who make 1/50th of your salary are spending their mornings and evenings doing. This creates unnecessary resentment, and could possibly endanger your life.

-Many of the issues that you are "circumventing" are trivial and uncontrollable, and should not be blamed on employees. They deal mostly with the poor functionality of equipment and appliances. Explained; if you fail restaurants and suspend employees for things like refrigerators not being cold enough, you are misdirecting blame and targeting the wrong issues to "resolve" the problems.
Try fixing the refrigerators and replacing the air conditioning in the sweltering kitchens instead of firing the line cooks.

-Instead of tying the management of the restaurant up in meetings to address problems during business hours, try remembering that there are people trying to have lunch who aren't getting their concerns addressed by the people who are paid to reassure them.

-Because the health inspector was yelling at various members of the kitchen staff, a 5-minute dish which was supposed to get to a table that was in a half-hour hurry took more than 40 minutes to arrive. Instead of having a quick lunch, they spent the better part of their lunch break thinking their waiter was an idiot and couldn't handle a simple task. And they left hungry.

If you don't work on the restaurant level, it isn't that hard to pay simple attention to the basic things that pay your salary every week. While breathing down the necks of people who are trying to provide a good evening to the everyman, you are ruining the experience(s) of the people who pay your overblown salary.