As a
server, there are certain issues that will come up from time to time that are
completely out of our control. Kitchen
failures are a probably the most frequent offender. I can order the food on time, input exact specifications
into the system I need and fire the courses when it’s needed with perfection. But if the kitchen fails to produce what I’ve
requested (wrong meat temperature, sauce is incorrect, entrée is cold, or the
one of the most frustrating fiascos – slow ticket times), it’s simply out of my control. The only thing I can do is correct the situation after the bomb has
already gone off. Correcting a meat
temperature or a sauce issue is usually fairly simple. But dealing with a long ticket time can be
one of the most frustrating issues we are faced with as servers. Because usually it’s not an easy fix; there’s
usually a legitimate reason it’s
taking a long time.
On top of that, the customer usually gets the most impatient
when having to wait a long time, and understandably so. It’s annoys us too. Believe
me.
“Did they send someone out on a boat to catch that fish?”
“Is that tuna being flown in from Japan right now?”
“I’ve got a plane to catch.”
“I would have ordered right when I sat down if I knew it was
going to take this long.”
“I’m late for a meeting.”
What’s going on back there?
Got some amateur cooks back there today?”
“I’ve been timing you.
It’s been 23 minutes.”
“Do I need to go back there and cook it myself?”
UGH. Lord help me not slap someone.
It’s beyond annoying when people think they’re being funny or
original with their snarky comments.
Because they’re not. We’ve heard
it all. And from our point of view, it borders
disrespectful and rude to talk to us like that.
We know it’s taking a while.
We’re working on it.
Last week, the kitchen had a meltdown of epic
proportions. I don’t want to throw our
kitchen under the bus because I know there were other outside factors involved
as to why the kitchen failed so miserably.
But on this particular day, most of the food was taking 30 minutes to an
hour to get to the table.
We were expecting a ridiculously busy day. My GM had staffed the servers
generously. We had seven of us on the
floor. Even on a normal busy day we only
have five servers on. There were extra
managers on hand, extra greeters and I am assuming, extra kitchen staff this
day as well. We had about 120
reservations on the books from noon to 12:30pm.
We sat about 130 people in a half an hour. This group was at a convention and had their
break from noon to 2:00pm. So yes, they
all had to be back at their meetings at the same time. As far as a restaurant is concerned, this is
the worst possible scenario.
Within about 20 minutes, all seven servers had a full
section. Most tables were four to six
people or more. There were plenty of
joiners as well - people who show up late to the table and order their food and beverage
after everyone else has ordered both, which always screws up the flow of the
server as well as the kitchen.
Beverages were served, food orders were taken and entered
into the system and at that point it was a waiting game. All we could do was cross our fingers, hope
and pray for a miracle the food would come out in a timely manner.
Not a single
entrée was coming out on time. All of the guests were beginning to helplessly
stare at us. As much as we would have
liked to ignore everyone and hide in the prep kitchen, we had to face the hostile,
ravenous crowd head on.
Table 22 had been staring me down for a while. It took over 25 minutes for their appetizers to come out. I had to bug the kitchen several times to
even make that happen. I fired their
main entrée before they even received their apps and when I went back to the
kitchen to tell them to rush it, their ticket was at least 20 tickets behind
others. With the kitchen staff running
around and cussing and screaming, two managers on the line and two food runners
stressed out like I’d never seen before, I felt awful asking about table 22,
but I had no choice. It’s my job. I touched base with the table, letting them
know I asked the kitchen about their food and told the manager you were in a
hurry, they just looked up at me with sheer disappointment. I told them,
“I’m doing everything I can.”
Shortly thereafter, two of the four men walked out and said, “We have to
go. We can’t wait any longer.” My face went red with frustration and
helplessness. Of course, within two
minutes after they left, their entrees were delivered to their table. The two grumpy men still sitting asked for
their friend’s burgers to be boxed up to go.
I sent my manager over to their table to apologize. He bought their entire meal, over $110. As I apologized profusely one last time, the
last guy was kind enough to leave me a $20 on the table.
Meanwhile, other guests were dropping like flies. All of us were boxing up food to go. People were just straight walking out – not
paying, just leaving. Guests were livid;
asking for managers, telling us this was their worst dining experience they’d
ever had. Management was discounting
and/or giving away meal after meal.
In the midst of this epic meltdown, after 50 minutes had
passed with no food at table four, one of the servers asked them if a quick tap
dance would make them feel better (she’s a bit quirky). Apparently they said yes she did a quick ten-second
number. Her table and a couple next to
theirs clapped and chuckled. At least
she was able to turn that situation around.
Lucky for her, these people were not in a hurry. That definitely helped. Their food finally arrived 56 minutes after
it was ordered. Their entire meal was
taken care of - of course.
I remember thinking, “Just get through the day without a
complete mental breakdown. There’s no
way tomorrow can possibly be any worse than today.”
Get through it and simply survive. That’s what we did; the servers, the bussers,
the runners, the greeters, the kitchen staff, the management, the entire
team. We survived.
And on a day like that, that’s all you can hope for.
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