Oh Hippies…

I walked into work at 4:00pm the other day.  Coming into work in the middle of the day sometimes requires a table transfer.  This means I have to (or get to) take over a table that doesn’t plan on paying/leaving anytime soon so the lunch server can cash out and clock out. 

On this particular day, the transfer table was a hippie couple; buzzed up and giggling like teenagers.  It was her birthday and apparently they’d been sipping on Grey Goose martinis for a couple of hours. 

They didn’t order anything else from me, but about 45 minutes later after the transfer, they asked for the bill.  The server who transferred the table to me was long gone.  I dropped the check, which consisted of 5 Grey Goose martinis, one margarita and a couple of appetizers.   A few minutes later the man waved me down. 

“Ummm, I think you have the number of martinis wrong.”  The couple looked at each other and began discussing their drinks.  The man started off,  “I had a margarita and you had the martini.  Then we both had one more martini each…I think.  Right?”  She chimed in, “Yeah, you had the margarita first.  Then I had the martini.  Then, hmm… one more each.  Yeah that’s right.”   After a few more seconds of debate, the woman responded, “Yes, we definitely only had one margarita and three martinis total.”  Because this was a transfer table, I didn’t know whether they were telling the truth or flat out lying.

At this point, I suspected they were trying to pull a fast one and get two free martinis out of this transfer situation.  What else could I do but appease the guest?  I wasn’t about to call the server who transferred the table to me and ask her if they had five martinis or three.  If I talked to a manager they’d probably tell me to take the last two off anyway; and apparently it was her birthday.  So that’s what I did. 

I went back to the table to give them their revised check with one margarita and three martinis.  They said, “Oh, thank you so much, that’s very sweet of you.”  I told her, “No problem.  Happy Birthday.”  I smiled and walked away. 

When I returned to their table a few minutes later, they started giggling.   The lady became loud all of a sudden and shouted, “I’m sorry dear.  We’re f***in’ old and confused.”  They both began laughing hysterically.   The guy then said, “I think we DID have five martinis.  Can you put the other two back on?  Hahahaha!  I’m sorry.  We’re more buzzed that we thought, “ and continued on and on about how “old” they were.  And honestly, they weren’t old; probably only in their early 50’s.  Perhaps she just turned 50 and was having an “Oh my god I just turned 50 moment.”

Talk about a shock.  I went from thinking this couple was trying to scam me for a couple of drinks to simply laughing my ass off.  Freaking hilarious!  They were actually two very honest people.  They could have easily gotten away with not paying for those two drinks.  But they decided to take the higher path, even though it included a risk of embarrassment, to resurrect the situation and do what was right. 

As I finally swiped the man’s credit card and returned to their table for the last time, the lady yelled out again with her distinct laugh, “I’m so f***ing old now!  I get confused easily.  I’m so sorry…”  Still sitting next to them was a table of three conservative, true “older” people.  They had become extremely annoyed with the loaded hippies, especially for throwing out the f-bomb so loud for the second time.

Right about then, the lone gentlemen at that table looked up and me and said, “Check please.”

It’s so funny to me how the public can get so caught up in the moment that they forget they are interconnecting that moment with a complete stranger (the server).   In spite of what embarrassing or awkward moment might have developed, we (the guest and the server) will always share that common bond, that moment, forever.

Or perhaps not forever - if that someone involved was too drunk to remember.  

Until then, I'll keep serving humanity, sober as hell watching people people get buzzed and confused.  And enjoying every second of it.  ~ HK ~

PITA Peeps

"I don’t mean to be a pain in the ass, but…"

I love/hate when people immediately tell me that right when I greet their table because it could really go either way.   They either won’t be a pain in the ass at all (and are therefore simply exaggerating… which happens a lot) or they most certainly will be a huge pain in the ass to which at this point I need to mentally prepare for what’s to come.   Either way, I am truly intrigued as to what they’re going to say next.

There was a mortgage broker conference in town.  And aside from mister self-proclaimed “pain in the ass,” it was by far one of the best groups to have at the hotel.  They ordered straight off the menu (very few substitutions), drank a bit, were low maintenance, literally zero separate checks and tipped a solid 20% or more.   We love these kinds of groups.

But this guy stood out.  While everyone else was ordering directly off the menu (mind you this was a very busy business luncheon, where people don’t want to look high maintenance in general), this gem demanded attention.   “Uhhh… I don’t mean to be a pain in the ass but, is it possible to get this sandwich, but on top of a salad?  Like with no bread, on top of romaine lettuce with Caesar dressing."  I reply, “I can put the sandwich ingredients on top of our Cesar salad, which comes with grilled romaine, bacon and croutons.  How does that sound?”  Of course he didn’t like that option either.   “I definitely don’t want it grilled… and I definitely don’t want bacon.  And I want the dressing on the side.”  Ok.  Not soooo bad. 

He ordered first.  Of course.  All of the other guests at his table ordered straight off the menu with no changes.  “Fish and Chips… Cobb Salad… Chicken Salad… Fish and Chips. “  And they were all extremely polite about it, as if they were talking to me in an underlining code as if to say, "We’re going to make this as easy as possible because that guy is making your life way too difficult.”  As I walked away, PITA (pain in the ass) man shouts, “Oh, excuse me, Miss?  I also need something else.”  He pulls out his wallet and unfolds a piece of paper.  “I want a Bloody Mary.   But with these ingredients only.”  He hands me a piece of paper that read as follows:

Vodka

Tomato Juice

Lea & Perrins

A1 Steak Sauce

Tabasco

Salt

Pepper

3 blue cheese stuffed olives

Seriously?  Is this guy for real?  I’ve had guests look up ingredients on their phones for a drink I’ve never heard of.  That’s acceptable.  But this?  A simple Bloody Mary with these specifics?  And actually handing me a folded piece of paper out of his wallet?  And at a business meeting nonetheless.  Absurd.  What was this guy thinking?  I have to think everyone’s opinion of him at this table went skyrocketing down - even more - after this moment.  Like ordering his complicated entree wasn’t bad enough, but then to order a cocktail in a similar demanding way as well?   I told him matter-of-fact, “Our Bloody Mary’s are spicy. We use all of these ingredients, except for the Worcestershire and A1.  I will bring you those on the side.”   I didn’t give him another option and that seemed to be good enough.  

Although I was irritated with PITA man, I left the table with a grin.  This is why I love/hate this type of person.  And this is why I love serving humanity.    They usually are very demanding but provide great stories for me to tell, and this guy didn’t let me down. 

I have to believe … if you tell a random stranger (your server) you’re a “pain in the ass,” I bet you’re a real walk in the park in the rest of your life.   

If you’re on a first date at a restaurant and you’re date orders in this fashion… run. 

Run far, far away.  ~ HK ~

Canary Yellow Sweat Suit Lady

I waited on this lady the other day who apparently doesn’t live in the same normal world the rest of us live in. 

She came in with her husband (who must be as loony as she is).  They both had matching sweat suits; his was pale blue and hers was bright canary yellow, complete with perfectly matched canary yellow socks under her sandals.  No I'm not joking.  

As my manager was opening several doors around them to let a disruptive pigeon out of the restaurant, the lady told her, “Thank you for opening the doors.  This place needs to air out.  It felt like grease in here ever since we walked in.  It’s practically suffocating me.”  On top of that, the canary yellow suit lady was the lone guest who actually seemed to be enjoying the pigeon’s presence in the restaurant.  She was actually feeding it bread.  No wonder why the pigeon stayed around.  Gross.

When it came time to order, the canary yellow suit lady asked me if she could get our crab cake appetizer on top of a house salad.  “Of course,” I told her (I simply ordered our crab cake appetizer, ordered a house salad and asked the chef to put the two together on one plate).  She then demanded Thousand Island dressing for her salad.  I told her we don’t have Thousand Island, but then proceeded to give gave her several other options.  She snobbishly replied, “I know you have mayonnaise, ketchup, relish and lemon juice back there.  I know your chef can make it. It’s easy.”   To which I replied, “I’ll see what I can do.” 

On a busy day, I most likely would have just said, “I’m sorry we can’t.”  But because it was a rather slow day, I decided to go ask my chef what we could do.  Although she was - in many ways – way off her rocker, she did have a point. 

I asked one of the line cooks what we could do.  He told me he could probably mix our tartar sauce with ketchup and that would be about the closest recipe to Thousand Island he could make on the fly.  “Tartar sauce and ketchup. Genius.  Love it.  Do it, ” I said with a slightly mischievous grin. 

A few minutes after her special made-to-order salad was served, I went to go check on her.  I took a deep breath.  Lord, help me. What is she going to say.   Ironically enough, she asked, “What kind of dressing did you say this salad normally comes with?”  I giggled inside.  Apparently she didn’t like the on-the-fly Thousand dressing.  Well, duh.  I brought her the lemon herb dressing it’s usually served with and she ended up using almost all of it (she did consume about half of the tartar/ketchup combo, but it was obvious she enjoyed the lemon herb much better). 

{This kind of behavior drives servers crazy.  When we tell you we don’t have a dressing, it’s best to just take what options the restaurant has available.  If they don’t have you’re “go to” dressing, branch out a bit.  It won’t kill ya.  There’s a reason restaurants have the dressings they serve.}

Here’s the kicker.  When I dropped the check off, canary yellow suit lady was flabbergasted at how much I charged her for her specialty salad - that she created.   I charged for one order of crab cakes ($16), and one house salad ($8).  Because that’s what she had.  There was no smaller portion of anything.  She bolted at me, “A $24 salad!  The greens were practically just out of a bag!”  So rude.  As politely as I could I reminded her that if she ordered each item on it’s own, as a first and second course, that’s how much it would be.  She immediately demanded to see a manager.  I told my manager the situation and she decided to give her the side salad price of $5 instead of $8.  Apparently that was good enough; all of that rudeness for a mere $3 bucks savings.  Some people just want to feel like they’re getting a deal (and/or love bossing servers around and/or are just crazy weirdos). 

Let me review the oddities of this lady’s visit in one (albeit very long) sentence: 

Upon her entry she tells the manager the place feels like grease, then I notice her feeding bread to a pigeon inside the restaurant, she demands to create her own menu item, then demands us to make her a dressing we don’t’ serve, ends up eating a dressing we do serve and enjoys it better (although she never admitted it), then complained about the price of a salad she created.

This lady really got me thinking.  She probably left the restaurant actually annoyed with the price of her salad and was upset that her Thousand Island didn’t taste like it usually does. 

She was so far out there she couldn’t even comprehend the concept of normalcy.  To her, that was just another lunch out on the town.  To the staff, she was Tweety bird who had flown over the coo-coo’s nest a long time ago.   Some people have no clue of how demanding, odd and crazy they truly are.

And that’s why some days I love my job.  I love knowing crazy people like her actually exist in this world.  They definitely aren’t the easiest type of person to wait on, but they sure give us normal people something to talk about.  

And that's a great reason to keep serving the crazies of humanity.  ~ HK ~