a la carte

So, the past few weeks @ the store have been largely unremarkable.  Random funny things have been happening, though; and while they’ve been funny enough for those of us on the floor to laugh heartily @ the customers expense back in the kitchen, none were long enough to warrant an entire post.  I’ll consolidate here:

* A colleague of mine (let’s call him John), handsome and italian, had been shacking up for some time w/ a girl he used to work with.  Problem is, this girl has a boyfriend.  Their time together was while said paramour was out of town, and John actually didn’t have any place to stay (yeah he’s a really smart guy).  So he’s got a bunch of his things @ this girl’s boyfriend’s apartment.  Sure enough, the boyfriend comes back into town, having been apprised of the dynamically dumb duo’s actions in his absence.  As he walks into the bar (he is, by the way, considerably larger than John, and a regular @ our store) we actually hear John gasp.  John @ this point is half wasted on jack & cokes, and spends a good hour or so hiding in the kitchen while the cooks, the mgr, and me give him shit unmercifully.  I left before the outcome, but both of John’s legs are still working.

* Dumb shit we’ve heard from customers:

– A customer w/ a plate so clean they may have licked it: “oh this was terrible” (People, PLEASE stop this. It’s not funny. It will never be funny.)

– Asshole @ the bar flirting w/ a girl: he pulls out his credit card, shows it to her and proceeds: “This is a world card, so if I keep getting points, eventually I’ll own the world”
(I hope that guy kills himself, his father’s father would be disappointed w/ that performance)

– tbl 73, this was great: a deuce that may or may not be a couple. contemplating whether or not to order another pitcher of beer: after I ask if they’d like another, the guy says yes, the girl says no; this went on for almost a minute before the girl told him flat-out “I’m not fucking you no matter how drunk I am.” Then it got awkward, and I slid out to tell everyone else about it.

– tbl 11: the girl asks me where our ribeye comes from.  I tell her the name of the ranch, and all the business about horomone-free raising blah blah blah.  She then says: “Well I just want to make sure that the cows are raised humanely.” WHAT THE FUCK?!  I’m sure that cow was glad he/she got a chance to live a “comfortable” life before A MACHINE CUT IT DOWN INTO LITTLE BITTY PIECES OF ITSELF. Jesus people are stupid.

tbl 22

An older, heavily-drawling couple sit down in the pretty empty dining room – only slightly worrisome (w/r/t/ the drawling) as i’ve had the countriest-of-country behave excellently @ other restos where I’ve worked; I’ve also had bammas run me ragged for, literally, a 1% tip.  Anyway,  I’m there well-inside of 45s, hoping against hope that they’ll order full service – wine, apps, salads, entrees, desserts – ’cause I want that check total topospheric.

The gentleman orders a draught Miller Lite, and the lady a glass of pinot noir.

I send the orders, grab them from the service bar, and bring them to the table.

As I begin my whole speech about menu additions, soups & bruschettas, the guy interrupts:

“Hey sonny, it looks to me that you’ve brought my wife a half glass of wine”

0_o?!  (This is after i watched him shake salt into his beer. Salt.)

“I’m sorry sir, but the industry standard for wine pours is 4 ounces. Glasses for red wine, by design, expand the surface area of the wine for purposes of breathing and aroma…”

Here he cuts me off again:

“Well, I appreciate you pissin’ down my leg and telling me it’s raining, but…”

(at this point, I’m a college student from NY, I don’t even know what the fuck that metaphor MEANS!)

He goes on and on about how it’s a half glass of wine, how us “city folk” are “bullshit artists” so by this time, in my frustration, I offer to bring a full glass of pinot for his wife.

Luckily, the store’s beverage mgr happened to be in, so I tell him the deal and ask him to deliver it to the table.

He does so, confused (but at this point we all are, me, the bartender, the mgr, everyone), and informs the guy that while we’re happy to serve his wife the glass of wine HE thinks she should have, the house would have to charge him for two.

Of course, he refuses, and we have to re-pour a regular glass of wine for his wife before I can get back to service.

So I’m back, jumping through the regular hoops.  That evening we were featuring a beef tenderloin special (personally, I find filet mignon to be one of the most boring cuts of meat around, but customers love to stunt and order that shit) and I tell them both about the sauces and sides available, when this asshole stops me again:

“I won’t get an end cut, will I?”

No, I didn’t explain to him what a beef tenderloin looks like, where it’s located on the cow, how it’s packaged for foodservice; I just assured him that he wouldn’t.

He orders the feature well done.

You know what?, I’m gonna end this post now – I’m sure you can all tell where that table ended

…that’s right, in the dark world of 10% tips.

tbl 13

A couple sit down for an early dinner (it was like 5.30p). I greet them and inquire about drinks. The matron is holding the wine list so I prepare myself to go through the routine about which reds are spicy, which whites are floral, etc., etc., ad nauseum.

The first words out of her mouth: “what’s your sweetest wine?”

Ugh, a connoisseur I can tell.

I neglect, as a matter of principle, to let her know that we have bottles of white zin in the walk-in, and tell her that our riesling would likely be the sweetest, though it’s from France instead of Germany and is drier in comparison. I also offer to bring a taste if she’d like.

She asks if I would, and I return shortly w/ the 1oz pour of riesling.

She finds the wine good for service and orders a bottle. I bring it and begin to pour when she stops me dead in my wine service and says:

“Please don’t pour my glass yet, I’d like a glass of sprite. I kind of like to make mine a spritzer.”

A white wine spritzer w/ sprite?!

Jesus.

tbl 23

Friday night dinner service. Rock and fucking roll. I’m breezing through the dining room, doting on my full section. All food has gone out, so I’m just refilling drinks and working on one table that needed to be coursed. Section 1 gets cut, so I pick up two more tables. I walk back to the kitchen to bullshit with our exec chef who’s on expo when our hostess comes back and lets me know i just got a 6-top. Nice.

Actually, not.

I get over to the table and am greeted with a set of people who are some of the most socially awkward I’ve ever served in my life – I’ll describe them as the type who are probably upper-level Dungeons and Dragons players, and that they got so good at it on their time off from home school. I figure I can work through it though, and I was almost right.

Service is a bit halting, only because each time I got to the table the kids acted as if I was speaking Japanese. Once I had drinks and apps in, and entree’s on hold I felt relieved as from there on out I would get to interact with them largely without speaking.

Oh, I should mention, this particular Friday was during Atlanta Pride Festival. I’ve worked through a few Prides in my time, and trust me, it’s great money. My strategy is always to come across as ambiguous as possible so the guys might think they have a chance – they then tip extra and leave a phone number, I keep the cash and ditch the number. Also, incidentally, if you, dear reader, didn’t know – gays are awesome tippers.

Which brings us to the moment that table 23 went all wrong.

On my fifth table visit, most are done eating and one girl asks me to bring the check. I say of course, and ask whether anyone would like the remains of their meal boxed. Now this fat slob of a queen was at seat 6, and he had been checking me out all night. He responds to my query with this particular gem:

“Only if you come in a box.”

Now, in accordance with my Pride strategy I laugh and say something about not getting out of the resto for a few more hours. I print out their tab and place the check presenter in front of the girl that requested it.

Minutes later and they still haven’t sorted out the check, so I return and offer to split it if they’d like. Nope, “we’ll figure it out” is what I get.

A few more minutes later and a coworker lets me know that they asked to see the manager. Which is puzzling because, like I said, the only hiccups in dinner service were related to their extreme social ineptitude.

He comes back to me and tells me that 1) they were dissatisfied with my service – bullshit, but whatever, and 2) that they had mistaken the state sales tax for a gratuity, and found me presumptuous for adding it. Now even if I HAD added the grat, it would’ve been me exercising a recognized industry practice for parties of 5 or more, a fact that happens to be printed on our menu. Whatever, so at this point I know I’m gonna get a shitty tip and am content to lose what should’ve been $25 just so I don’t have to deal with them anymore. I tell my manager the whole thing about fat-shit hitting on me and he, the cook and I all agree his ego’s probably just a bit bruised, and now they wanna get buck about my service.

He kisses their ass, splits and pays their checks and we all laugh hysterically at them while within their earshot.

Do I come in a box? What kinda line is that anyway.

Fuck them, hope they caught something viral and hard-to-treat in Piedmont Park that weekend.

tbl 15

So I’m working at a restaurant in the Virginia-Highlands section of midtown Atlanta. Generally a decent set of customers, most are very friendly and I even get a lot of industry types, so dinner service is usually a breeze. But hey, you’ll get weirdos anywhere, and it’s to be expected. Which brings us to the woman who inspired the title of this blog – the crazy lady who sat @ table 15.

At first I thought she was simply an eccentric novelist, as she kept scribbling lines of some shit into a legal pad over the course of her meal. And she ordered five glasses of wine instead of simply ordering a bottle. I figure, though, I’ve seen worse and she can’t be all that bad.

I do table visit after table visit, and she confirms that everything is OK. Which is fine, except the night had been dreadfully slow and she seemed determined to camp out. After awhile, I get cut and wander around the resto, my sidework done and my tummy yearning to do a mind eraser and un-tuck my shirt.

The clock strikes 11 and I say ‘fuck it, I’m gonna drop the check @ her table and she’s gonna pay and I’m gonna pay someone to bus that table and go home.’ I stroll to the POS, print the ticket, put it inside a check presenter and walk to her table.

She’s gone.

Now, restaurant walkouts are more the exception than the rule, but they happen. How they get sorted out varies by store. Some gracious managers will void the whole check for you, the less-so will only give you your employee discount (50%) and the serious dicks will make you pay the whole check. Generally, though, a server can count on coming out-of-pocket on most of their walkouts.

So this bitch just cost me $60 on a $40 night. Great.

Fast-forward to last week when I come in for dinner service. I walk through the dining room to see if my colleague needs any help setting up. I get to the front of the resto and sure enough, who’s at table 15? Yup, she is. So I ask the girl who’s still on from day shift to pull up her check and sure enough, 5 glasses of white wine and an order of mussels. I tell her the deal and she takes up a watch on the woman from the host stand. Luckily, the MOD (manager on duty) was the same mgr who was working with me when she first walked out.

After a while, my friend who was on watch decides to strategically walk away, to see how the woman reacts. Her and the hostess both go to do something else, and sure enough crazy lady tries to walk out, except this time she’s cornered by my mgr. She gives some story about how her friend was supposed to meet her and it was going to be a celebration…whatever; who the fuck has a ‘celebration’ with a ‘friend’ but orders 5 glasses of wine waiting for her?

So, I personally call the cops.

She remains seated for a bit, as we all are on a rotating watch at this point. But don’t you know, she gets the itch after awhile and just walks out of the dining room, against the protests of our hostess. Just so happens, though, that the minute she walks out the cops are walking in. She gets about a half block up the street and the cops take up a light jog to catch up. Half the bar empties onto the street to watch (in-the-know regulars) along with the entire floor staff. They catch her, we all laugh and upon returning to the store, we all do a shot.

Fuck her. I only wish it could’ve been a Friday and that Atlanta didn’t have night court.

tbl 11

So I’m working through college at this downtown Atlanta diner. Night shifts so, without sleep, I can keep the internships and classes going. I’m seated with two chicks fresh from the club, which is fine, I mean, that’s my bread and butter. They’re at once ignorant and disrespectful, but whatever, I’ve seen it before. Service goes okay, despite their constant requests for shit that’s either a) not on the menu or b) above and beyond (aka the bread service I gave them, despite my place of work being, ya know, a fucking diner.) The girls leave a $1 tip on a $25 tab.

So, unbeknownst to me, one of the girls had been wearing a grill. And she apparently left it at the table. So 20 minutes later, she storms back in with her friend, demanding that we find her grill. The table, as a matter of course, had been bussed. Personally, I could give a good God damn about an undertipper’s anything, but I was slightly drunk and had the feeling that this might result in hilarity.

I was right.

After she ropes a manager into the search, he gives her permission to go into the back and dig through the trash.

Now, i don’t expect many to be familiar w/ what a restaurant trash can looks like, but try and imagine the fat and entrails from poultry, beef, seafood and veggie prep. And of course, the bussed plates from dinner service.

So, yeah, the two chicks spent a good 30 mins literally digging through trash trying to find the one girl’s grill.

They found it.

And the wearer asked me to rinse it off, to which request i happily obliged.

Hosed it off real fast at the dish station and don’t you know –

she put it right back in her mouth.

The fuck is wrong w/ position 3 @ 15?

It doesn’t take long for someone working in the restaurant industry to begin to hate their customers. Servers, if they’ve truly cut their teeth in this world, have had some of the most outrageous requests coolly leveled at them by the fat, the beautiful, the intelligent, the loud, the young and the old. The time i used my wine key to remove a clubugoer’s vip bracelet because ‘it was making [her] wrist sweat’ or the bachelorette party hostess who required her ribeye to be cut in half and cooked ‘very well done’ never indicating how she might like it cut – width-wise? lengthwise? butterflied?

These stories add up over time, and here you will find the best of the worst. My industry friends and I will post here as much as possible, with the stories and people who make waiting tables the lucrative hell that it is.